"Fritz Kreisler was the last great romantic violinist / composer. When, as a child, I heard an old 78 record of his music, the first few notes immediately established him at the top of my list of favourite classical violinists. He hasn't been displaced, although a few others like Isaac Stern & Albert Sammons now share top spot!

In the last 30 years there has been an unhealthy homogenization process affecting classical musicians' interpretations caused mainly by the recording industry and a segment of music writers. The combination of a narrow-minded little squirt with a pen and a stop-watch (poised and ready to try and make himself look clever by writing derogatory comments if a performance lasts a minute longer or shorter than one of the same work played by another artist decades earlier) and a music industry which finds it easier to sell an artist who is a clone of a previous artist who had commercial success has eroded many of today's talented interpreters' self-belief and replaced that with, at best, a narrow perspective from which to appreciate the great masterpieces.

Broader world events and opinions have also played their part. Kreisler, on the other hand, wasn't affected by all of this, because some of it hadn't happened! The recording industry was young and less formula-orientated. There wasn't a huge back catalogue from which a critic could discourage an artist with immature comparisons, and - possibly more important than all of that rubbish - the world that Kreisler lived in wasn't the same as the one we live in now. The individual has been subject to an attempted brainwashing for the last decade or so by the self-professed politically correct. Nowadays we're supposed to believe that we are the worst species on the planet, that all of our instincts are incorrect and that we should feel guilty for even existing, let alone harbouring such selfish thoughts as seeing oneself as an individual. Apart from wondering how a race is going to put the world to rights from a premise of lack of self-respect and guilt, the line of thought I have developed here, in my opinion, explains why Kreisler's wonderful talent was able to express itself fully, with such human warmth.

This album tries to communicate the magic of Kreisler's musical world from two vantage points: some of his short form works, for which he is a recognised master, and also through his equally beautiful long form composition - the String Quartet. As in my work on the masterpieces by J.M. Hendrix, I haven't tried to manufacture a pointless re-creation - I've done it my way. I love this music and hope you get a vibe off it."

All the best,