The career of violinist Fritz Kreisler (1875-1962), famous for his short, virtuosic salon pieces, coincided with the growth of recording. Daniel Röhn has this music in his blood, through his grandfather Erich Röhn, leader of the Berlin Philharmonic under Furtwängler, who heard Kreisler play. Here, Kreisler’s celebrated Liebesfreud, all the schmaltz and grace of another age in a mere few minutes, sits alongside his arrangements of caprices by Paganini and Wieniawski, Tartini’s The Devil’s Trill and Bach’s Partita No 3 in E: stylistically a bit of a shock but all wonderfully played by Röhn, springy, stylish and incisive. As a bonus, Kreisler’s own 1911 recording of his exuberant La Chasse is included.
