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Dinner with Kreisler: the Kreisler 150th anniversary

31 January 2025

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To mark the 150th anniversary of the Austrian virtuoso violinist’s birth on 2 February 1875, long-time fan Ariane Todes imagines a dinner-party conversation with her hero, based on documentary evidence and accounts by his contemporaries

Which great string player would you choose to have dinner with, given the invention of time travel? Without a blink of hesitation, I would choose Fritz Kreisler, whose playing is a lodestar for me: the warmth, sincerity, humanity, spontaneity and sheer charm (I could go on). Extrapolating these qualities to his personality, I believe he would make a wonderful dinner companion…

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