Gifted with a natural facility for playing the violin, Fritz Kreisler was adored by critics and audiences alike. Among his many gifts was the ability to make delightful arrangements of other composers’ melodies, which have all continued in the standard repertoire. Particular favourites include the Oriental Dance and Arab Song, taken from Rimsky-Korsakov’s symphonic suite Scheherazade, the best known of Dvořák’s Gypsy Melodies, Songs my mother taught me, and the so-called Negro Spiritual Melody, a transcription of the cor anglais theme from the slow movement of Dvořák’s Symphony ‘From the New World’.