Fritz Kreisler Plays Again

My FRIEND Fritz Kreisler has three times recently been in the news from coast to coast. First, he was hit by a truck while crossing Fifth Avenue in New York City. He was unconscious for several weeks, and his family and the world were afraid that he would never play again. ‘That was tragedy to music lovers.

He was in the news again when, after a long convalescence, Mrs. Fritz Kreisler unexpectedly walked into his room and handed him his favorite violin and said, “Now, darling, I want you to play for just me.” Fritz Kreisler took the violin in his hands, put it to his shoulder without fear or anxiety, and began to play. The music drifted through the hospital, and doctors and nurses from all over the floor flocked to his open doorway; for they had all shared the anxiety of Mrs.

Kreisler that he might have lost his master touch. They stood listening to soaring notes which proved that he had not. Sometime afterward the country echoed the good news that Kreisler had at last decided to play over the radio—a thing which he had long refused to do—and that music lovers over the entire land could now hear the magic of his violin. All of this reminded me of a story he told me in his own home, outside of Berlin, in Grunewald, just before the last war.

I had crossed on the “Bremen” with him, and since his stateroom was next to mine we had sat many hours talking. When we got to Berlin he invited me to his home for lunch, and it was there that he told me a story about the very violin that Mrs.

Fritz Kreisler handed him in the hospital after his accident. Years before, he had heard of a famous Heart Guarnerius violin which had been sold to a collector.

It was a priceless treasure, and he wanted it for his own, but the collector refused to part with it for any sum. He was adamant to Kreisler’s pleas. “That that divine voice should be doomed to silence under the glass case of a collector was a tragedy that tore my heart apart,” said Kreisler as he told me the story. “I gave no rest to that col- lector, who was a man of rare culture and wealth.

For weeks and weeks I assailed him with my pleadings. The collector, knowing that he had a rare treasure, delighted in his ownership of the Heart Guarnerius and refused to give it up.. “At last, worn down by my importunings, he finally took the violin from its glass museum case, handed it to me, and said im- periously, ‘Well, if you like it so much, play it!’

“J played as one condemned to death would have played to ob- tain his freedom! The collector listened in rapture. Deeply moved, he said at last: ‘I have no desire to keep it; it belongs to you. Go out into the world and take it with you and make it heard!’ ” Just a simple story from a great master’s lips, but I hand it on because it is timely, heartening, and helpful.

The next time you hear Mr. Kreisler playing over the radio the chances are ten to one that you will be hearing that very violin and, having heard this story, that music will mean all the more to you. rr ee 22