Loving Kreisler

LIBRARY NOTES On the 150th birthday of the legendary violinist Fritz Kreisler, I delve into the archives for some first-person memories of my very favourite favourite

Fritz Kreisler was born 150 years ago today. Now, I know I’m probably not supposed to have favourites, but if you demanded I pick one violinist to whom to listen for all eternity, it would be Fritz. I would be quite happy to bathe in his sound forever – the warmth, humanity and charm of it resonating so strongly for me, especially in this age of objective and over-thought violin playing.

But it would also be for his personal characteristics, which seem entirely consistent with his playing: noble, imaginative, funny, generous, thoughtful and gracious, capable of great joy and friendship. I could go on, and indeed I do in an article for the February issue of The Strad, citing him as my ideal choice for a dinner date (violin geek, me?).

Fritz and spats, c.1915. Photo: Library of Congress

My research entailed spending many hours in my happy place – the Barbican Music Library instrumentalist biography section, copying any quotes and stories I could find from any of the wonderful musicians he met throughout his life. Invariably, they only had good things to say about him (his aversion to practice and rehearsal and a penchant for drinking too much beer before going on stage notwithstanding) and as I didn’t have enough space for them there, I print them here.

I include references to the books from which they came – several are from the excellent and thorough Love’s Sorrow, Love’s Joy by Amy Biancolli, which is a very good place to find out more about Kreisler. You can also read his own Four Weeks in the Trenches, his remarkable and beautifully written account of being an officer in the Austrian Army in the First World War, over at my website. The Library of Congress holds his collection, including a treasure trove of photographs (many of them taken on ships).

I highly recommend listening to this playlist while you read, for the full Kreisler experience.

---

Kreisler on practice

‘I do not feel the need of excessive practice. I am never troubled with stiff fingers, either. I can get off a train after an all-day ride, and go to the concert hall and play as well as ever. My greatest anxiety is to preserve my enthusiasm, and to be able to make my playing fresh and buoyant. When I play for myself, I always do so to distract my mind. I never practise compositions which I am to play in the near future. I must have them fresh. I must not allow myself to become tired of them. I have to play many things I do not like, and it is difficult for me to play them con amore. That is my only trouble.’
Etude, August 1910, quoted in Amy Biancolli: Love’s Sorrow, Love’s Joy

Nathan Milstein on Kreisler’s approach to practice

‘Thibaud and I would spend a lot of time playing bridge together. Once we were sitting in his Paris apartment when a telegram came from Kreisler in Corsica: he asked Thibaud to check on his Stradivarius, which he had left with a violin dealer three months earlier. You had to conclude that Kreisler hadn’t held a violin in his hands in three months.

‘Thibaud didn’t have time to see the dealer, and he asked me to do it. I was flattered to be asked to do a favour for Kreisler. When I went to the dealer, I discovered that Kreisler’s Strad had only two strings; the others had broken. I asked the man to restring the violin and I played on it for a while, to keep the strings in tune. Kreisler was grateful for my help and asked for another favour: he would still not be back for a while, so could I rehearse Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata with his pianist in his place? “I’d like the pianist to have a better understanding of the sonata.”‘
Nathan Milstein: From Russia to the West

Magic hands. Photo: Library of Congress

Kreisler on individuality

‘Everyone thinks, when you read a score, you have a canonical way of playing it. It is not so. Crescendo, accelerando, diminuendo, allegretto, presto, these are merely suggestions, and indicate different things to different composers. It is left to you to play it according to your own subjective character. Each great violinist – if he is really great – must put his personality into the interpretation of a work. Thus, if I hear a record, I know immediately who played it, by his special way of doing it. If a group of violinists stood behind a screen, each playing the same work one after another, I could tell you immediately which one was doing it.’
Quoted in Amy Biancolli: Love’s Sorrow, Love’s Joy

Kreisler on technique

‘I would rather not talk technically; There is so much that I feel, so much I should like to say, that I welcome this opportunity to express it. There are so many wonderful violinists who will discuss the art from a scientific standpoint, that I should like to talk about violin playing from the human standpoint.’
Samuel and Sada Applebaum: The Way They Play

Kreisler on individuality

[On seeing Heifetz in concert] ‘Behind us sat a woman with a boy and from their excited bits of conversation I could see the boy was a violinist. When the performance was over, the woman exclaimed, “Wasn’t that wonderful!” But the boy replied, “Oh, I can play it faster!” From this episode what can we learn? We learn that there certainly is something drastically wrong with the attitude of the aspiring artist. That boy’s senseless attitude makes maturity almost impossible. This experience made much of an impression on me, and I kept thinking about it for days – does technical speed mean so much?’
Samuel and Sada Applebaum: The Way They Play

Kreisler on Schoenberg

‘I refuse to follow dual-tonal noises. I once told a composer, “Goodness, violinists will play out of tune anyway, without having the score made out of tune for them!” Then, do you know, you can’t read the scores of atonalists up and down-just horizontally or, rather, slantingly, as one instrument takes over from another. It’s my opinion that science is having an evil influence on art.’
Quoted in Amy Biancolli: Love’s Sorrow, Love’s Joy

Nathan Milstein on Kreisler’s generosity

‘Kreisler had no enemies; everyone adored him. He had that Viennese charm. Onstage he stood like a king, nobly facing the audience. You could see that he had a slight facial tic, but even that just added to his appeal. Kreisler was very generous toward his colleagues, very approving and supportive. I never heard a disparaging word about anyone from him. Indeed, I don’t think he ever thought badly of anyone.’
Nathan Milstein: From Russia to the West

Oscar Shumsky on Kreisler

‘No one had a more perfect sense of rhythm. He was just so magnificently attuned to the basic rhythms, to the basic pulse. You just couldn’t lose him… I know that Stokowski for one, found Kreisler very easy to follow. He felt the music in such a way that you knew the music was coming around the corner.’
Quoted in Amy Biancolli: Love’s Sorrow, Love’s Joy

Carl Flesch on Kreisler’s style

‘Thirty years ago the manner of performance, borne on the wings of tempestuous sensuality, supported by an exacerbant, intensive vibrato, and communicating an excitement which whipped up its auditors, was not yet in conformity with the then ruling taste of the time. Gradually the interval between the two was bridged. Kreisler grew more clarified the more turbulently our epoch behaved itself. In his style, in his tone, with its seductive yet ennobled sensuality, in the compelling rhythmic nature of his specific bowing technique, in that impulsive ‘itinerant musician’ quality which, for all its directness, never oversteps the limits of good taste, our time appears mirrored in a transcended, ennobled conception of art.’
Carl Flesch, The Art of Violin Playing

Carl Flesch on Kreisler’s vibrato

‘What has become of the day of Joachim and Sarasate, when one was permitted to vibrate only on those tones whose importance with regard to the melodic line seemed to justify this special expressional garnish? Kreisler defends the principle of lending soulfulness even to the passage-work that seems apparently dryest, by means of a slight vibrato which fuses with the actual tone to make an indivisible unit. On this basis he has formed for himself a style of performance which represents the contemporaneous ideal of beauty in violin playing in its perfection.’
Carl Flesch, The Art of Violin Playing

Siegfried Sassoon describes Kreisler in concert

‘That he was an eminent violinist was obvious, even to me, before he had played a single note of the Handel Sonata with which the concert began. There was something in the quiet and confident little swing of his shoulders as he walked on to the platform; something about the way he bowed with his heels together; something about his erect and dignified attitude while the accompanist flattened the pages of the music on the piano; this ‘something’ impressed me very much. Then with a compact and self-possessed nod he was ready, and his lofty gaze was again on the audience.’
Siegfried Sassoon: Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man

The shocking image of Kreisler at the scene of the collision with an egg truck on Madison Avenue in New York in 1941, which left him with severe head injuries and precipitated a deterioration in his playing. Such was his popularity that the news made the front pages and the hospital was deluged with calls from well-wishers. Photo: Daily News, reprinted in Amy Biancolli: Love’s Sorrow, Love’s Joy

Louis Kaufman on Kreisler’s composition and piano playing – and George Gershwin

‘This evening George stopped, after completely captivating us for about an hour, and asked, “Mr. Kreisler, would you play for us? Something from Apple Blossoms?” This Kreisler operetta, a current Broadway success composed in the Viennese Lehar tradition, had beautiful melodies, colourful orchestrations, and the charm and grace that personified Kreisler. Kreisler sat down at the piano and played with the same tonal beauty and seductive appeal that he brought to the violin. George was as fascinated as the rest of our group.’
Louis Kaufman remembers playing chamber music with Kreisler, Sascha Lasserson, Felix Salmond and Gershwin, A Fiddler’s Tale

Gustav Mahler on Kreisler (and Mrs Kreisler)

‘Kreisler is giving concerts here and has been attending my rehearsals. I’m exceptionally fond of himn, both as a man and artist. I can’t say the same for his wife – but then, I have no need for her.’
Gustav Mahler: Letters to his Wife

Kreisler and his wife Harriet, who seems to have been universally unpopular, but absolutely crucial to his career. Photo: Library of Congress

John Barbirolli on playing with Kreisler

‘Kreisler was as sweet as ever, he seems so happy playing with me. It is rather lovely, because he is so sensitive to any little thing I do, or that we do together, and looks up and smiles always when we bring off a special bit of ‘artistry’. Léon [Goossens] played the solo most beautifully... Also I must tell you we even made a record, the last, without rehearsing. K. said ‘it is not necessary, let us just play’.
Letter from 1936, quoted in Charles Reid’s John Barbirolli: A Biography

Lionel Tertis on falling in love with Kreisler

‘I began to hear glowing accounts of the violinist Fritz Kreisler who was just appearing on the horizon. For me the experience of hearing him was like falling in love. His glowing tone, his vibrato, unique and inexpressively beautiful, his phrasing which in everything he played was so wonderful and so peculiarly his own, his extraordinarily fine bowing and left-hand technique, his attitude at once highly strung and assured, the passionate sincerity of his interpretations – all this made me follow him around like a dog wherever he played in this country.’
Lionel Tertis, My Viola and I