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Fritz Kreisler (born Friedrich Kreisler) was an Austrian violinist and composer. Born in Vienna in early 1875, he expressed an outstanding level of musicianship from a young age. Taught solfège by his father, he then joined the class of violinist and composer Jacques Auber, who later advised the young Kreisler to enrol at the Vienna Conservatory in 1882. There, he studied for two years with Josef Hellmesberger and then subsequently with Joseph Massart at the Paris conservatory. Alongside violin, Kreisler studied composition and received numerous prizes and medals for his works.
Fritz Kreisler was one the youngest students to be admitted into the Vienna Conservatory as his musical comprehension was already of a professional level. He began touring at the age of 14 with the pianist Moriz Rosenthal, first in the United States, then later at the age of 21 in Russia. Between these two tours he was conscripted to the Austrian army for a period of national service, and took advantage of his time in the country to not only develop his art but also to turn to another passion: medicine! While in the army he gave a performance of the Violin Concerto No. 1 by Max Bruch, conducted by none other than Hans Richter. This performance proved to be pivotal in his performing career and propelled him to international acclaim, travelling to the UK, Germany, and returning to the USA where he met his future wife, Harriet Lies.
Once Kreisler gained his reputation as a great virtuosic violinist, Edward Elgar dedicated his Violin Concerto in B Minor Op. 61 to him. The pair premiered the work, which proved to be an immense success, in London in 1910. Kreisler’s works as a composer would begin throughout the 1910’s and often were part of his recital programmes, without necessarily citing his name.
After a short involvement in the First World War, Fritz Kreisler moved to New York, then Berlin, then Paris where he obtained French citizenship, he would live in the capital before finally returning to New York in 1939. Despite the political tensions engulfing the world during the next few years, Kreisler continued to appear across Europe save in Germany where he refused to perform. Although he continued to play his violin in his later years, his performing career came to an abrupt ending following a car accident in 1941. He died in New York in 1963.
Kreisler the performer
Kreisler demonstrated a great musical maturity from an early age, being accomplished in both his instrument and musicality. Making his debut at a young age, the awards and public adoration soon followed due to his artistic and technical proficiency.
Despite being an accomplished composer in his own right, he is very much remembered as a performer. Besides the precision of his playing, Kreisler developed an intense and characteristic vibrato that would give him an easily identifiable sound. He continued studying his bowing, allowing him to play lengthy phrases with an incredible velocity. The premiere of Elgar’s Violin Concerto highlighted perfectly his exquisite balance of musicianship and technique. A workman is only as good as his tools, and Kreisler was fortunate to play on a wide range of six of Stradivari throughout his career.
Kreisler the composer and joker: the pranks!
Working as a composer in parallel to his performing, Fritz Kreisler predominantly wrote short works for violin which require a high virtuosity. Among these are the three Viennese dances Alt-Wiener Tanzweisen for violin and piano that still feature on the programmes of today’s greatest violinists. The first two songs entitled Liebesfeud and Liebesleid were later transcribed for solo piano and were recorded by none other than Sergei Rachmaninov! Liebeslied remains a staple of the violin repertoire, and the violinist David Oistrakh gave a historic version of the work, recorded in 1993. The third piece, Schön Rosmarin was probably the composer’s favorite of the three, performing it frequently as an encore for his concerts.
Kreisler produced almost 30 published works. Due to a mix of modesty and humour (and also the issue of announcing his recital programmes very late), he would attribute many of his compositions as transcriptions of composers such as Couperin, Stamitz and Vivaldi. Above all, however, his great pleasure came in fooling his audiences into thinking they were hearing music by various different composers but in fact, all were written by Kreisler himself.
Even though Kreisler wrote arrangements of pieces by composers such as Mozart and Beethoven (for example his Rondino on a theme by Beethoven), Kreisler composed some of the most beautiful works for violin, calling on the great geniuses of the repertoire. His compositions could be described as pastiches: his Caprice Viennois, Op. 2 requires the virtuosity of Paganini, and the Violin Concert from 1905 was written in the style of Vivaldi.
In 1935, approaching his 60th birthday Fritz Kreisler finally admitted that many of these “arrangements” were in fact original works written by Kreisler himself. Despite not being as well known as many of his Austrian contemporaries, his compositions are still regularly performed to this day. The violinist Janine Jansen helped revive these works by Kreisler by programming them in her recitals alongside more household names such as Rachmaninov and Schumann.