Born Feb. 2, 1875, in Vienna; died Jan. 29, 1962, in New York City. Austrian violinist and composer.

Kreisler studied violin with J. Hellmesberger and J. L. Massart and composition with L. Delibes. He made his debut in Vienna at the age of seven. In 1888 he toured in the USA and then temporarily abandoned the violin. In 1893, with concerts in Moscow, he renewed his performing career. Kreisler’s concerts in Berlin in 1899 brought him world fame. From 1915 until 1924 he lived primarily in the USA, where he finally settled in 1939. He gave concerts until 1947.

Kreisler’s career was an epoch in musical art. A unique melodiousness, feeling, brilliance, and elegance distinguished his playing. As a composer Kreisler was the unsurpassed master of small genres. He created a repertoire of short solo pieces (Caprice viennois and Pretty Rosemary Plant, for example) and published a series of pieces for violin and piano, Classical Manuscripts (1905), providing his own stylizations as arrangements of works by 17th-and 18th-century composers (F. Couperin, G. Pugnani, and L. Boccherini). Kreisler composed many transcriptions and cadenzas for concertos (including those of Beethoven and Brahms) and created new editions of violin works.