VIOLIN Music by KREISLER
Played by WILLIAM PRIMROSE (Violin)
FRITZ KREISLER (bom 1875) is best known to musicians as a fine interpreter of great music. This son of a leading Viennese doctor began studying under Hellmosberger and Auer at the Conservatorium at seven (he was about half the age of any other pupil there). Later, in Paris, ho worked at theory under Delibes, and at twelve carried off one of the Conservatoire's biggest prizes, against competitors of twenty.
Strangely, after a while he left music, studying medicine and art; then he did some army service.
When he came out again as a violinist, he soon began to make the reputation that for nearly thirty years has steadily grown. For some years he lived in America. He put in good service during the war, in which he was early wounded.
His connection with this country has been close and cordial. He holds the gold medal of the Royal Philharmonic Society (1904).
His name is constantly in our programmes, both as a composer (a work which shows a very characteristic and individual quality is his String Quartet in A Minor), and, even more notably, as an arranger of other people's pieces.