Somehow, as I was in the thrall of the groundhog yesterday, I failed to equate February 2 with the birthday of Fritz Kreisler. And I’d had my eye on it, too, because it happened to be an important one. Kreisler was born on February 2, 1875 – 150 years ago.
In contrast to the cool intensity of his colleague, the great violinist Jascha Heifetz, who subjected himself to a punishing, though strictly secret, regimen of self-discipline in pursuit of superhuman perfection, Kreisler was warm, gregarious, and easygoing. As a sweet-toned confectioner and purveyor of violin bonbons, Kreisler ruffled feathers, not with his playing, but because he casually let slip that many of the 18th century “rediscoveries” he had used to charm audiences, critics, and musicologists were not in fact rediscoveries at all. Nor did they date from the 18th century. Rather they were composed by Kreisler himself. When the professionals complained, Kreisler shrugged.
It would be futile to argue against his serious musical credentials. He gave the world premiere of the Elgar concerto and became a favorite recital partner of Sergei Rachmaninoff. A famous anecdote relates that Kreisler and Rachmaninoff were giving a concert in New York. In the middle of a performance, Kreisler suffered a memory lapse, and as he noodled around on his violin, trying to find his way back, he inched closer to his pianist. “Where are we?” Kreisler whispered. To which Rachmaninoff replied, “Carnegie Hall.”
In 1941, Kreisler was crossing the street, when he was hit by a milk truck. The accident fractured his skull and put him in a coma. Like something out of an early Woody Allen comedy, when he awoke, he could communicate only in Latin and Greek. Thankfully, the effect was only temporary.
Kreisler met Heifetz, with whom he shared a birthday (Heifetz was born in Vilnius on February 2, 1901), for the first time at a private press party in 1912. After listening to the boy play through the Mendelssohn concerto, Heifetz declared, “We can all just break our fiddles over our knees.”
Happy belated birthday, and a joyous sesquicentennial, Fritz Kreisler. And since February 3 happens to be the anniversary of the birth of Felix Mendelssohn, here’s Kreisler performing Mendelssohn’s evergreen concerto.
Kreisler plays the “Meditation” from Massenet’s “Thaïs”
Kreisler, master of the miniature
Kreisler and Rachmaninoff play Schubert
Kreisler plays Rachmaninoff
Rachmaninoff plays Kreisler
Kreisler with John McCormack, in an aria from Benjamin Godard’s “Jocelyn”
Two-part radio interview on the occasion of Kreisler’s 80th birthday, with spoken tributes from Elman, Menuhin, Milstein, Stern, Szigeti and others: