Word: kreislers
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...world," Violinist Fritz Kreisler once explained, "is a great child and tires easily. You cannot make friends for long with all the world." But Violinist Kreisler must have had second thoughts. No musician of his time carried on a longer musical friendship with the world-and none left behind a less jaded audience when he finally withdrew from the concert stage. Kreisler was not only the greatest violinist of his generation, but also the last of a once common breed: his death last week, of a heart attack, just four days before his 87th birthday, marked...
Melodious Schmalz. Kreisler's technique was sometimes shaky (he had an occasional tendency to slip off key), but the tone was always glowing, the rhythms dynamic, the conceptions full of grandeur. A cultivated man who spoke eight languages and had a scholar's grasp of history, philosophy and mathematics, he brought to every performance a warmth and simplicity that spoke straight through the mind to the heart...
...composer, Kreisler suffered a congenital Viennese weakness-a taste for melodious schmalz. But his most popular works-Liebesleid, Liebesfreud, Caprice Viennois, La Gitana, Schön Rosmarin-have grace as well as sentiment. They are so well tailored to the violin that they are almost certain to survive as favorite encore pieces. "His arrangements brought out things for the violin we never dreamed of," says Violinist Nathan Milstein. "The violin was advanced by three persons-Bach, Paganini and Kreisler...
Mortal Fiddler. The advance began on a violin fashioned out of an old cigar box and played by Kreisler when he was four. Son of a Viennese doctor, young Fritz entered the Vienna Conservatory at seven, the youngest child ever admitted. His career was interrupted by World War I, in which he was badly wounded while serving in the Austrian army, and again by the anti-German sentiment of wartime U.S. audiences. In 1941, he was struck by a truck in Manhattan. He recovered after days in a coma, but for a time forgot all modern languages and could speak...
...romantic of the old school, Oistrakh favors far slower tempos than most modern violinists, often imbues the music of Brahms, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky with the sort of kindling warmth that has reminded many a listener of Oistrakh's early idol, Fritz Kreisler. Whatever he plays-classics or occasional moderns-Oistrakh exudes conviction. "When the difficult parts come," says Violinist Francescatti, "he does not try to go around them. In fact, he shows you how difficult they are. He slows down, and this is the honesty of a great artist...