For some time he was a member of the Bilse orchestra, and then went to Koenigsberg as concert-master, after which he held a similar position for three years at Mannheim, and then at Weimar, where he married the well-known singer, Theresa Zerbst.

On his first appearance, at the Bach festival at Eisenath, he played with Joachim the Bach double concerto, and was very successful.  He has made concert tours throughout the greater part of Europe, and while in America he was recognised as a broad artist.  He is no virtuoso in the ordinary sense of the word, but a classical, non-sensational, well-educated musician, whose playing was not dazzling or magnetic, but delighted by its intellectuality.  He has an even and sympathetic tone, and inspires the greatest respect as an artist and as a man, and, while other players may make greater popular successes, Halir stands on a high artistic plane which few can reach.

Franz Ondricek, who visited the United States also in 1896, was born at Prague in 1859, the same year as Halir, but is an artist of an entirely different stamp.  In his early youth he was a member of a dance music band, and his father taught him to play the violin.  It was not until he was fourteen years of age that he was able to enter the conservatory of his native town.  Three years later he was sent, through the generosity of a wealthy merchant, to Paris, where he became a pupil of Massart.  He shared with Achille Rivarde the honour of the first prize at the Conservatoire, since which time he has been a wandering star, and has never sought any permanent engagement.  His playing is marked by individuality and dash, but he does not show to the best advantage in the interpretation of the classics.

Charles Martin Loeffler, who shares the first desk of the first violins in the Boston Symphony Orchestra with Mr. Kneisel, is a musician of the highest ability.

He was born in Muhlhausen, Alsace, in 1861.  He enjoyed the advantages of instruction under Joachim, in Berlin, after which he continued his studies in Paris, with Massart and Leonard, studying composition with Guiraud.  While in Paris he was a member of Pasdeloup’s celebrated orchestra, and was afterward appointed first violin and soloist in the private orchestra of Baron Derwies, at Nice, of which orchestra Cesar Thomson was also a member.

In 1880 Mr. Loeffler crossed the Atlantic, and took up his residence in New York, but the following year he was engaged as second concert-master and soloist in the Boston Symphony Orchestra, a position which he has held ever since, and in which he has had opportunity to display his exceptional talents.

As a violinist he plays with largeness of style, boldness of contrast, and exquisite grace.  He has a technique equalled by few, and his performances have been confined to music of the highest class.  Mr. Loeffler has never made a tour of the country as a virtuoso, but as soloist of the orchestra he has been heard under the best conditions in most of the large cities of the United States, and has shown himself to be a virtuoso in the best sense of the word.