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There is a peculiar fascination in tracing the musical ancestry of violinists, their ultimate descent from one great teacher or another. Fritz Kreisler...

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There is a peculiar fascination in tracing the musical ancestry of violinists, their ultimate descent from one great teacher or another.

Fritz Kreisler (1875-1962) was born in Vienna, studied first with his father,

and then with the younger Joseph Hellmesberger at the Vienna Conservatory and then in Paris with Massart, the teacher of Wienawski. Massart himself had studied with Rodolphe Kreutzer, dedicatee of Beethoven's Kreutzer Sonata, who had been a pupil of Anton Stamitz, tracing the musical lineage back to the great Mannheim orchestra of Mozart's time. Kreisler completed his technical training at the age of twelve and had a certain success as a performer in America, before returning to Vienna to follow his father's example, as a medical student. In the mid-1890s he returned to the violin and embarked on a career as a virtuoso, appearing as a soloist with the Vienna Philharmonic in 1898 and the following year with the Berlin Philharmonic, with concerts following in America and in London. He spent the war years from 1914 in America and from 1924 to 1934 based his activities on Berlin. In 1939 he returned to the United States, taking American citizenship in 1943. There was always considerable charm in his playing, particularly in his application of vibrato, an extension of a technique employed by Wienawski. As a composer he is known for his transcriptions for the violin and the pieces he wrote and ascribed to older composers, whose style they then seemed to reflect. These often appeared to be designed for recording, fitting, as they did, onto one side of the discs then in use. He recorded Bruch's Violin Concerto No.1, a work of remarkable continuing popularity, in 1924/25 under Eugene Goossens.

An excerpt from the Kreutzer Sonata introduces Adolf Busch (1891-1952), one of the great Beethoven players of the first half of the twentieth century, particularly in his partnership with the pianist Rudolf Serkin. Busch was taught first by his father, an instrument repairer and builder. He studied in Cologne with Willy Hess, who had been taught by his own father, a pupil of the great violinist-composer Spohr, and by Joseph Joachim. In 1912 he became leader of the Vienna Konzertverein Orchestra and formed the Konzertverein Quartet, with Fritz Rothschild, Paul Doktor and P.Gr�mmer. His association with the younger Serkin, who later became his son-in-law, led to the foundation in 1926 of the Busch-Serkin Trio, with his brother Hermann as cellist. From 1933 until 1949 Busch refused to play in Germany, and in 1935 founded his chamber orchestra in England, settled for a time in Switzerland and then moved to the United States. As a duo Busch and Serkin played from memory, avoiding the distraction of page-turners. They recorded the Kreutzer Sonata in New York in 1941.

Born in Vilna, Jascha Heifetz (1901-1988) was taught the violin by his father

and finally by Leopold Auer in St Petersburg, where he made his debut in 1911, following this with a successful appearance in Berlin. In 1917 he left Russia,

to settle in the United States, where in 1925 he took American citizenship, embarking on an international career. For many years he taught at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. As a player he was known

not only for technical perfection but also for his liking for faster speeds. He commissioned a number of new concertos, including that by William Walton. Here he is represented first by his 1937 recording of the gypsy Zigeunerweisen by the great Spanish violinist Pablo Sarasate.

Yehudi Menuhin (1916-1999) won himself a reputation first as a precociously gifted infant prodigy and in later life as a man of wide interests and sympathies, a musician with a profounder understanding of music and of the world. Born

in New York, he studied with Louis Persinger, then in Paris with George Enesco and, during two summers, with Adolf Busch in Basel. As an eleven-year-old he had played Bach's Chaconne, which he later described as the greatest musical structure for solo violin that exists, to his teacher Enesco. As a teacher his later explanations of the work provided a deep understanding of the work as a whole and how it might be played. The present recording was made in 1934.

Born in Odessa, Nathan Milstein (1904-1992) studied and made his debut there in 1920, having briefly been a pupil of Leopold Auer, who left Russia in 1917. He enjoyed great success in the Soviet Union in joint recitals with the pianist Vladimir Horowitz. Milstein and Horowitz were given leave to travel abroad in 1925, as cultural ambassadors for the Soviet Union, but decided not to return to Russia. He made his American debut in 1929, eventually, in 1942, taking out American citizenship, although much of his later activity, after the war, was based in Europe. He had a long career as a player, continuing when many of his contemporaries had already withdrawn from the concert platform. His recording of Dvorˇak's Violin Concerto was made in 1956.

One of the most remarkable chamber music ensembles of the earlier part of the twentieth century was the trio formed by the pianist Alfred Cortot, the cellist Pablo Casals and the French violinist Jacques Thibaud (1880-1953). The three met to play informally in 1905, but soon extended their activities, giving concerts and making recordings together. The last performances of the ensemble were given at the house of friends in Italy in 1934. Born in Bordeaux, Thibaud was taught by his father, before becoming a pupil of Marsick at the Paris Conservatoire. Before he was twenty he had already established his reputation in Paris as a soloist, extending his activities throughout the world. He was killed in a plane crash in 1953, as he embarked on a further concert tour, taking him to the Far East. The recording of Haydn's Trio in G major, with its final Gypsy Rondo, was made by the Thibaud - Casals - Cortot trio at the Queen's Hall in London in 1927.

Mischa Elman (1891-1967) had his early training in Odessa with Alexander Fidelman, a pupil of Auer and of Brodsky, before himself becoming a pupil of Auer in St Petersburg. He appeared in Berlin in 1904 and in London the following year, giving his first New York concert in 1908, and settling in America in 1911. He had a highly successful career as a soloist, a chamber music player and in the recording studio, and was said to have acquired his characteristically warm tone in part, at least, from the influence, at second hand, of his grandfather, a Jewish folk-musician. He recorded the Violin Concerto by Wienawski, Auer's predecessor in St Petersburg, in Philadelphia in 1950, with an orchestra conducted by another Auer pupil, Alexander Hilsberg.

Yehudi Menuhin recorded Elgar's Violin Concerto in 1932 with an orchestra conducted by the composer, after a cursory meeting at his hotel with Elgar, anxious to leave for the races on such a fine day. The recording is a famous one, not only for Menuhin's own reminiscences of the occasion, but for the apparently shared understanding of the work by a sixteen-year-old prodigy and an old composer, later a grandfather figure to Menuhin and his sisters, nearing the end of his life.

The Hungarian violinist Joseph Szigeti (1892-1973) was a pupil of Jeno Hubay in Budapest, after earlier teaching from his father and his uncle. He began his international career in Berlin in 1905, then establishing himself in London, where he lived from 1907 until 1913. After the war he taught very briefly in Geneva and continued his career as a travelling virtuoso, ready to accept

new compositions, which he effortlessly took into his repertoire. Prokofiev's Violin Concerto No.1 was first heard in Paris in 1923 and the following year Szigeti played it in Prague and introduced it to audiences in Leningrad. He

was associated with Bartok, playing both the latter's second Violin Concerto

and collaborating with the composer and Benny Goodman in a memorable performances of the former's Contrasts. He settled in the United States in

1940 and took out citizenship eleven years later. Szigeti's first recording

of Prokofiev's fine concerto was made in 1935, with Sir Thomas Beecham conducting the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

Jascha Heifetz made several recordings of Brahms's Violin Concerto.

The excerpt included here is taken from his 1939 recording with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Koussevitzky.

Maud Powell (1867-1920) may seem a figure from a distant past, her name

as unfamiliar as that of Beriot, a composer known principally to students rather than to concert audiences. A native of Illinois, she studied in America, before completing her training with Schradieck in Leipzig, Dancla in Paris and Joachim in Berlin. She made her concert debut in New York in 1885 and embarked on an international career that took her throughout Europe, to South Africa and to Hawaii. In a relatively short life she did much to further American appreciation of music in the classical tradition, making her first recordings in 1904. She recorded the Charles de Beriot Violin Concerto No.7 in 1915 and 1916. Four years later she died of a heart attack, during a concert tour.

Kreisler was nearing the end of his career when, in 1946, he recorded his own Viennese Rhapsodic Fantasietta. His health had suffered after a street accident in 1941, but he had returned to the concert platform and recording. He eventually retired from public concert performance in 1950. The Fantasietta is characteristic of those pieces that Kreisler wrote as vehicles for his own performance, designed rather to delight than to stretch an audience.

The Polish violinist BronislaW Huberman (1882-1947) made his debut as soloist in a Spohr violin concerto at the age of seven. In Berlin Joachim would

not accept him as a pupil, since he was never willing to teach child prodigies,

but Huberman studied with there with Joachim's assistant and with various teachers, including Marsick in Paris, while consolidating his career as a virtuoso. He aroused great enthusiasm in Vienna, where he appeared in 1895 with Adelina Patti in her farewell concert, and in 1896 played Brahms's Violin Concerto in the approving presence of the composer. After 1933, when he refused to appear any more in Germany, he turned his attention to the establishment of an orchestra in Palestine, which after his death became the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. The present recording of Beethoven's Violin Concerto was made in 1934.

The career of Albert Sammons (1886-1957) centred largely on his native country, a limitation due in good part to his distinct reluctance to travel. Born in London, the son of a shoemaker, he was first taught the violin by his father and elder brother, with later lessons, briefly, from two pupils of Eug�ne Ysa�e. His early career, from the age of fifteen, was spent playing in theatre orchestras, with summer hotel seasons, until discovered by Sir Thomas Beecham, who employed him before long as leader of his new orchestra. In a long career he was closely associated with chamber music and with the performance of English music by his contemporaries, and made a memorable recording of Elgar's Violin Concerto in 1929. Delius dedicated to him his own Violin Concerto, which had its premi�re in 1919, and he led the first performances of Elgar's String Quartet and Piano Quintet. The same composer's Violin Sonata also became a part of his repertoire and he recorded the work with the pianist William Murdoch in 1935. He retired from concert performance in 1948 but continued teaching in London in his later years.

Keith Anderson

Disc 1

Violin Concerto No. 1 in G minor, Op. 26

(more info)

Performed by: Bamberg Symphony Orchestra Montreal Symphony Orchestra Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra London Symphony Orchestra New York Philharmonic Orchestra Royal Albert Hall Orchestra London Philharmonic Orchestra Academy of St. Martin in the Fields Orchestra Boston Symphony Orchestra Russian Philharmonic Orchestra Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra Bochum Symphony Orchestra Rheinische State Philharmonic Orchestra Cologne West German Radio Orchestra
Composed by: Eugene Goossens Neville Marriner Max Bruch Ruggiero Ricci
Conducted by: Charles Munch Charles Dutoit Dmitry Yablonsky John Barbirolli Ferdinand Leitner Keith Clark Stephen Gunzenhauser Neeme Jarvi Carl Schuricht Helmut Froschauer Daniel Raiskin Matthias Kuntzsch
Pamela Frank, violin
Hansheinz Schneeberger, violin
Wolfgang Schneiderhan, violin
Benjamin Schmid, violin
Landon Ronald, piano
Mariko Honda, violin
Nathan Milstein, violin
Lydia Mordkovitch, violin
Maxim Fedotov, violin
Yehudi Menuhin, violin
Takako Nishizaki, violin
James Ehnes, violin
Anguelina Abadjieva, violin
Fritz Kreisler, violin

Violin Concerto No. 1, Op. 26: I. Introduction: Allergo Moderato - 7:27

Violin Sonata No. 9 in A major, Op. 47, "Kreutzer"

(more info)

Composed by: Ludwig van Beethoven Fazil Say
Alfred Cortot, piano
Artur Balsam, piano
Jacques Thibaud, violin
Hephzibah Menuhin, piano
Benno Moiseiwitsch, piano
Joseph Fuchs, violin
Adolf Busch, violin
Rudolf Serkin, piano
Ignaz Friedman, narrator
Jascha Heifetz, violin
Franz Rupp, piano
Bronislaw Huberman, violin
Jeno Jando, piano
Regis Pasquier, violin
Jean-Claude Pennetier,
Yehudi Menuhin, violin
Takako Nishizaki, violin
Patricia Kopatchinskaja, violin
Fritz Kreisler, violin
Recording date: 14-15 May 1951

Violin Sonata No. 9 in A major, Op. 47: II. Andante con variazioni - 11:44

Zigeunerweisen, Op. 20 (version for violin and orchestra)

(more info)

Performed by: Sinfonia of London Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra London Symphony Orchestra Moscow Chamber Orchestra Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra Beijing Central Philharmonic Orchestra Castilla y Leon Symphony Orchestra Navarre Symphony Orchestra
Composed by: Pablo de Sarasate
Conducted by: Hwei-ming Twu John Barbirolli Alejandro Posada Kazuhiro Koizumi Douglas Gamley Johannes Wildner Constantine Orbelian Ernest Martinez-Izquierdo
Si-Qing Lu, violin
Patrice Fontanarosa, violin
Tianwa Yang, violin
Moshe Hammer, violin
Jascha Heifetz, violin
Gil Shaham, violin
Marat Bisengaliev, violin
Ripsime Airapetyants, violin
Recording date: 9th April, 1937

Zigeunerweisen, Op. 20 - 8:43

Violin Partita No. 2 in D minor, BWV 1004

(more info)

Composed by: Johann Sebastian Bach
Sergey Khachatryan, violin
Christian Tetzlaff, violin
Ariadne Daskalakis, violin
Jennifer Koh, violin
Benjamin Schmid, violin
Rachel Barton Pine, violin
Lucy van Dael, violin
Christiane Edinger, violin
Ilya Kaler, violin
Yulian Sitkovetsky, violin
Yehudi Menuhin, violin
Julia Fischer, violin
James Ehnes, violin
Jaap Schroder, violin
Ilya Ioff, violin
Zhou Qian, violin
David Grimal, violin
Recording date: 1-4 February 2007

Partita No. 2 in D minor, BWV 1004: Chaconne - 14:40

Violin Concerto in A minor, Op. 53, B. 96

(more info)

Performed by: BBC Philharmonic Orchestra Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra Paris Conservatoire Orchestra Philharmonia Cassovia Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra South West German Radio Symphony Orchestra Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra
Composed by: Antonin Dvorak George Enescu Antal Dorati
Conducted by: Richard Zimmer Hans Muller-Kray Camilla Kolchinsky Gianandrea Noseda Marek Janowski
Arabella Steinbacher, violin
Peter Michalica, violin
Ilya Kaler, violin
Nathan Milstein, violin
Yehudi Menuhin, violin
Ida Haendel, violin
James Ehnes, violin
Recording date: 28-31 March 1994

Violin Concerto in A minor, Op. 53: III. Allegro giocoso - 9:15

Keyboard Trio No. 25 in G major, Hob.XV:25, "Gypsy Rondo"

(more info)

Composed by: Pablo Casals Franz Joseph Haydn
Alfred Cortot, piano
Jacques Thibaud, violin
Wolf Harden, piano
Takako Nishizaki, violin

I. Andante - 3:32
II. Poco adagio cantabile - 6:11
III. Rondo all'Ongarese (Presto) - 3:13

Violin Concerto No. 2 in D minor, Op. 22

(more info)

Performed by: Philadelphia Robin Hood Dell Orchestra Vancouver Symphony Orchestra London Philharmonic Orchestra Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra Wroclaw Philharmonic Orchestra
Composed by: Henryk Wieniawski
Conducted by: Alexander Hilsberg John Barbirolli Antoni Wit Daniel Raiskin Sergiu Comissiona
Juliette Kang, violin
Benjamin Schmid, violin
Mischa Elman, violin
Jascha Heifetz, violin
Corey Cerovsek, violin
Marat Bisengaliev, violin
Katja Cerovsek, piano
Recording date: 23rd June 1950

Violin Concerto No. 2 in D minor, Op. 22: I. Allegro moderato - 11:51

Disc 2

Violin Concerto in B minor, Op. 61

(more info)

Performed by: Chicago Symphony Orchestra New Queen's Hall Orchestra London Symphony Orchestra London Philharmonic Orchestra Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra
Composed by: Eugene Goossens Edward Elgar
Conducted by: Henry Wood Malcolm Sargent Adrian Boult David Zinman Adrian Leaper
Albert Sammons, violin
Landon Ronald, piano
Jascha Heifetz, violin
Dong-Suk Kang, violin
Gil Shaham, violin
Yehudi Menuhin, violin
Alfredo Campoli, violin

Violin Concerto in B minor, Op. 61: I. Allegro - 17:25

Violin Concerto No. 7 in G major, Op. 76 (arr. for violin and piano)

(more info)

Composed by: Charles Auguste de Beriot
Maud Powell, violin
George Falkenstein, piano
Recording date: 18 June 1915 / 5 June 1916

Violin Concerto No. 1 in D major, Op. 19

(more info)

Performed by: Seattle Symphony Orchestra Kiev Symphony Orchestra Russian National Orchestra Royal Scottish National Orchestra Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony Vancouver Symphony Orchestra Scottish National Orchestra London Philharmonic Orchestra Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra Bulgarian National Radio Symphony Orchestra
Composed by: Sergey Prokofiev
Conducted by: Gunter Wand Chosei Komatsu Yakov Kreizberg Igor Blazhkov Kazuyoshi Akiyama Neeme Jarvi Antoni Wit Thomas Beecham Gerard Schwarz Vassil Stefanov
Joseph Szigeti, violin
Martin Beaver, violin
Lydia Mordkovitch, violin
Julia Fischer, violin
Tedi Papavrami, violin
Angele Dubeau, violin
Edith Peinemann, violin
Steven Staryk, violin
Jennifer Frautschi, violin
Stoika Milanova, violin

Violin Concerto No. 1 in D major, Op. 19: I. Andantino - Andante assai - 9:14

Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 77

(more info)

Performed by: Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra Seattle Symphony Orchestra Chicago Symphony Orchestra Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra London Philharmonic Orchestra Sinfonia Varsovia South West German Radio Symphony Orchestra Lucerne Festival Orchestra Academy of St. Martin in the Fields Orchestra Boston Symphony Orchestra Berlin State Opera Orchestra Dresden Staatskapelle Berlin Deutsche Opera Orchestra Halle Orchestra Bucharest George Enescu Philharmonic Orchestra
Composed by: Eugene Goossens Neville Marriner Johannes Brahms Sergey Koussevitzky
Conducted by: Carlos Kalmar Dmitry Sitkovetsky Franz Konwitschny John Barbirolli Paul van Kempen Yakov Kreizberg Hans Muller-Kray Stephen Gunzenhauser Cristian Mandeal Wilhelm Furtwangler Leo Blech Gerard Schwarz Pietari Inkinen Witold Rowicki
David Oistrakh, violin
Alex Klein, oboe
Benjamin Schmid, violin
Rachel Barton Pine, violin
Joseph Szigeti, violin
Jascha Heifetz, violin
Ilya Kaler, violin
Ian Hobson, piano
Elmar Oliveira, violin
Yehudi Menuhin, violin
Ida Haendel, violin
Julia Fischer, violin
Takako Nishizaki, violin
Gioconda de Vito, violin
Fritz Kreisler, violin
Andres Cardenes, violin
Recording date: 11 April 1939

Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 77: II. Adagio - 9:08

Viennese Rhapsodie Fantasietta

(more info)

Performed by: Victor Symphony Orchestra
Conducted by: Charles O'Connell
Fritz Kreisler, violin
Recording date: 1942-1946

Viennese Rhapsodie Fantasietta - 8:38

Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 61

(more info)

Performed by: Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra Asturias Symphony Orchestra British Symphony Orchestra Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra Hungarian State Orchestra London Philharmonic Orchestra NBC Symphony Orchestra Lucerne Festival Orchestra Royal Philharmonic Orchestra Berlin State Opera Orchestra Orchestre des Champs Elysees
Composed by: Ludwig van Beethoven Arturo Toscanini
Conducted by: Gyorgy Gyorivanyi-Rath Jose Serebrier John Barbirolli Kenneth Jean Bruno Walter Wilhelm Furtwangler Leo Blech Maximiano Valdes Witold Rowicki Philippe Herreweghe
Rachel Barton Pine, violin
Joseph Szigeti, violin
Jascha Heifetz, violin
Bronislaw Huberman, violin
George Szell,
Elmar Oliveira, violin
Yehudi Menuhin, violin
Takako Nishizaki, violin
Isaac Stern, violin
Miklos Szenthelyi, violin
Patricia Kopatchinskaja, violin
Fritz Kreisler, violin
Recording date: 11 March 1940

Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 61: II. Larghetto - 9:17

Violin Sonata in E minor, Op. 82

(more info)

Composed by: Edward Elgar
Simone Lamsma, violin
Robert Koenig, piano
Yurie Miura, piano
Albert Sammons, violin
William Murdoch, piano
Peter Pettinger, piano
Lydia Mordkovitch, violin
Julian Milford, piano
Paul Stewart, piano
Elmar Oliveira, violin
Martin Roscoe, piano
Nigel Kennedy, violin
Jonathan Crow, violin
Matthew Trusler, violin
Recording date: 3 - 4 October

Violin Sonata in E minor, Op. 82: I. Allegro - 7:16

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