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The first thing he gave me to study was, not a brilliant virtuoso piece, but the Bach concerto in E major, and then the Viotti concerto. In the beginning, until Kneisel showed me, I did not know what to do with them. This was music whose notes in themselves were easy, and whose difficulties were all of an individual order. But intellectual analysis, interpretation, are Kneisel's great points.
At first I did not realize why he kept at me so insistently about phrasing, interpretation, the exact observance of expression marks; but eventually it dawned on me that he was teaching me to read a soul into each composition I studied. "I practiced hard, from four to five hours a day. Fortunately, as regards technical equipment, I was ready for Kneisel's instruction.
Kneisel's activity as a teacher has added to his reputation. "What is the secret of your method?" I asked him first of all. "Method is hardly the word," he told me. "It sounds too cut-and-dried. I teach according to principles, which must, of course, vary in individual cases; yet whose foundation is fixed. And like Joachim, or Leschetiszky, I have preparatory teachers.
Not the least among Kneisel's achievements is, that while the professional musicians in the cities in which his organization played attended its concerts as a matter of course, the average music lover who played a string instrument came to them as well, and carried away with him a message delivered with all the authority of superb musicianship and sincerity, one which bade him "go and do likewise," in so far as his limitations permitted.
A cheery grate fire burned in the comfortable study in Franz Kneisel's home; the autographed in what affectionate and appreciative terms pictures of great fellow artists looked down above the book-cases which hold the scores of those masters of what has been called "the noblest medium of music in existence," whose beauties the famous quartet has so often disclosed on the concert stage. And Mr.
Is there a lover of chamber music unfamiliar with Franz Kneisel's name? It may be doubted. After earlier European triumphs the gifted Roumanian violinist came to this country , and aside from his activities in other directions as a solo artist he was the first to play the Brahms and Goldmark violin concertos, and the César Franck sonata in this country organized his famous quartet.
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