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• Personalities
• Classical
• Instrumentalist
• Modern Era

1875–1962 American violinist Kreisler’s international career began with the Berlin Philharmonic under Nikisch in 1899. His London debut was in 1902. Elgar wrote his Violin Concerto for him, and he gave the first performance in 1910. He was known for the perfection of his playing and the pieces that he composed and passed off as the work of eighteenth-century composers. ...

• Personalities
• Classical
• Composer
• Late Romantic

year. An accomplished violinist himself, Elgar had long contemplated a violin concerto. This was completed in 1910 after consultation about the solo part with W. H. Reed and Fritz Kreisler, and had a triumphant reception from the outset. Hans Richter The ‘Enigma’ Variations arose almost by accident when Elgar was improvising at the piano after a day’s violin teaching ...

• Personalities
• Classical
• Instrumentalist
• Modern Era

the New York Chamber Music Society. He was principal flute of the Philadelphia Orchestra 1921–26 and taught at the Curtis Institute. Introduction | Modern Era | Classical Personalities | Fritz Kreisler | Modern Era | Classical ...

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to serve as Noel Coward’s musical director during the 1940s and was a nationwide sensation in both America and Britain by the 1950s. Heavily influenced by the Austrian violinist Fritz Kreisler, Mantovani reinvented classical music in a studio-produced style whose hallmarks were ‘cathedralized’ strings, close harmonies and echo-laden, overlapping sound. His output was divided between lush waltzes based ...

• Personalities
• Classical
• Composer
• Early Romantic
• Writer

(Arnst Ta’-o-dôr A-ma-da’-oos Hof’-man) 1776–1822 German writer and composer E.T.A. Hoffmann’s wide-ranging talents were the source of great inspiration throughout the nineteenth century, and composers who drew on his stories include Schumann (Kreisleriana) and Offenbach (Les contes d’Hoffmann). He was also an astute and perceptive critic, and his review in 1810 of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony is justly famous. ...

• Personalities
• Classical
• Composer
• Early Romantic

(Ro’-bârt Shoo’-man) 1810–56 German composer Robert Schumann, in his life and music, embodied many of the central themes of the German Romantic movement: steeped in German literary Romanticism, he composed Lieder combining the melodic simplicity of German folk tradition with expressive harmonic setting, wrote poetically titled miniatures, and composed music rich in literary inspiration and allusion. His ...

• Inside the Music
• Classical
• Early Romantic

Unlike the ‘New German School’ of Liszt and Wagner, Schumann did not pursue a path of radical experimentation in form and harmony; his style more aptly encapsulates German literary Romanticism in music, interpreting the rhythms and melodic shapes of German poetry and folk music through his own ardent and whimsical nature, and incorporating themes and ideas from Goethe ...