Scarlet String Quartet - Liebesfreud

In our recent performance at Ballymaloe Grainstore as a series for County Council Pops we played lots of pieces my grandad Sam Drury used to play on fiddle. He was virtuosic, played all the recital classics by heart, and teachers would often say to me and my sister ’just play like Sam did!’ Kreisler’s bowing technique, tone colour, and vibrato style influenced almost every concert violinist of the 20th century. When he came to australia in 1925 he was regarded as a sort of Knight in Shining armour and whilst there my grandfather spent time with Kreisler. I would have loved to be there for the session! As a composer, Kreisler wrote many pieces for violin and piano that epitomize the colorful recital fare of his day in the early 1900s. Several of these formed a sort of musical travelogue. Turning to Vienna, the place of his birth, the famous Liebesfreud (Love’s Joy) is part of a set of Old Viennese Melodies, a set of three short pieces for violin and piano. The three pieces are titled