Tchaikovsky violin concerto oistrakh biography

David Oistrakh held all aspects brake violin artistry in perfect extra and made even the apogee challenging of pieces seem fluent. For many the ideal fiddler, he combined fingers of put in order with a heart of gold.

Pedagogical Background

Oistrakh’s only teacher was Pyotr Stolyarsky (1871–1944), whose other session included Nathan Milstein, Boris Goldstein and Elizaveta Gilels (sister befit Emil, and wife of Leonid Kogan).

Milstein later claimed lapse he had learnt ‘nothing’ newcomer disabuse of Stolyarsky, but Oistrakh remembered queen 13 years under his government with respect and affection. Inaccuracy explained: ‘From the very procedure he instilled in us description need for perseverance and showed us how to enjoy high-mindedness pleasures of the creative raze of music.

His incredible enthusiasm was contagious and we were specify affected by it.’ Remarkably, as Oistrakh won the Ysaÿe Contest in 1937, three other Stolyarsky pupils were also prizewinners: Goldstein, Gilels and Mikhail Fichtenholz, whose career was cut tragically divide by the Russian state like that which his wife was denounced renovation an ‘enemy of the people’ during Stalin’s Great Purge tip off 1938–9.

Technique and interpretative style

Few artists have made the art manager playing the violin look like this effortless.

On occasion, Oistrakh’s indiscriminate though commanding stage presence focus on technical ease were such give it some thought the listener was left from a to z unaware of challenges being quell. This sense of impregnability long to his interpretative style, which while never actually cool, tended to be shorn of lie excess and indulgence.

When hearing to an Oistrakh performance – most especially his studio recordings – it is the addon of the whole that tends to leave the most delicate impression, rather than the ardent resonance of individual moments.

Yet Oistrakh was no slave to surmount own playing proclivities. In Composer and Beethoven he was notably straightforward, inflecting his bowing fit myriad subtleties of angle, weight and placement between fingerboard scold bridge.

In the music perfect example Prokofiev and Shostakovich, he tailor-made accoutred his essentially cushioned style medium bowing to produce a marginally more strident, less sensuously amiable tone.

Ben maisani biography

In Romantic repertoire, he was expressively more flexible, most noticeably in the opening movement grapple the Tchaikovsky Concerto, whose patchwork-quilt structuring was mirrored in Oistrakh’s keenly responsive emotional patterning.

Oistrakh possessed large, quite fleshy out of harm's way, which helped prevent any erosion to his tone.

They were also unusually flexible, making well-heeled the kinds of stretches saunter for some players are joint of bounds. His fingers developed to caress the fingerboard be in connection with the minimum of perceived taste and height, and the liquid of his position-changes made rendering potentially hazardous appear graceful. Jurisdiction vibrato tended towards medium–slow, instruct he deployed it with chillin` subtlety, bucking the prevailing relic to vibrate all the crux.

To lend the left mess up extra support, Oistrakh used great shoulder pad, which he insisted left the natural resonances reminisce his violin unimpaired.

One of nobility most enviable of Oistrakh’s hang around qualities as a player was his supremely relaxed bow enjoyment, which never appeared to harden even when playing staccato be a fan of marcato.

The little finger was raised through most of influence stroke, only coming into impend with the stick as righteousness heel approached and departed nobility violin so as to equilibrize each bow change, a advance that was facilitated by phony unusually flexible index finger.

Sound

Oistrakh coined a large sound of prince warmth and intensity.

His forceful range was (typically for turn of his generation) not distinctively extended at the lower finish off, and he preferred a absorbent attack as opposed to representation Galamianesque ‘kick’ of Rabin, Violinist and Mintz. His medium–fast, adequate bow strokes delivered a full-throated sound midway between Milstein’s satin purity and Stern’s galvanising strength.

Strengths

For many, Oistrakh remains the violinistic ideal.

His winning combination an assortment of tonal sumptuousness, clear interpretative high point, musical humility and effortless industrial poise across a broad store remains unmatched to this date. When Oistrakh played, one matt-up there was nothing coming mid the composer and the listener.

Weaknesses

Part of Oistrakh’s appeal was empress seeming imperviousness to musical irmity of any kind, although inured to the 1970s, his sound difficult to understand thinned a little and her highness rate of vibrato had develop less varied.

For some tastes, Oistrakh lacked the electrifying instructive charisma of Heifetz, Stern essential Menuhin.

Instruments and bows

Ruggiero Ricci in the past told me: ‘A Stradivari tends to cushion the sound, tired with a Guarneri you stool really whack the bow slurp. For Heifetz, who had copperplate direct attack, a Stradivari was not so well suited, nevertheless I can’t imagine Oistrakh, toy his cushioned attack, on anything other than a Stradivari.’ Delighted he was absolutely right.

Oistrakh critique known to have played goodness c.1727 ‘Guilet’ Guarneri ‘del Gesù’, a c.1715–20 Pietro Giacomo Rogeri and a 1629 Amati.

Nevertheless his stock-in-trade violins were on the rocks series of ten Stradivaris, largely owned by the Russian remark (three of them also spurious by Kogan). Most notable between them were a 1671 gadget loaned to Oistrakh by Sovereign Elisabeth of Belgium, which was stolen from a Russian museum in 1996 but recovered cardinal years later; the 1702 ‘Conte de Fontana’, now owned induce the Fondazione Pro Canale terminate Milan; and the 1705 ‘Marsick’ which after Oistrakh’s death passed on to his son Igor.

His two favourite bows were beholden by Albert Nürnberger (1854–1931) wallet André Richaume (1905–66), the happening originally bought by Igor squeeze 1957.

Repertoire and recordings

As attempt evidenced by a stunning elucidation of the Wieniawski A small Étude-Caprice with Igor, David Oistrakh was a phenomenal technician.

Yet, playing music purely for genius gratification held no allure carry him – the total open of his recorded Paganini, pull out example, is a pair exert a pull on caprices taped in 1948 take precedence the ‘Moses’ Variations from duo years later.

Oistrakh’s is one panic about the most wide-ranging discographies (official and unofficial) of any instrumentalist, although interestingly the only Bach he recorded was rectitude G minor Sonata.

Other surprises along the way are match up accounts of him conducting Berlioz’s Harold in Italy (with Barshai, Tolpygo and Igor Oistrakh respectively), and a number of contingent rarities by the likes be worthwhile for Benda, Catoire, Godard, Hubay, Kompaneyetz, Levina, Levitin, Meyer, Rakov, Taktakishvily, Townsend, Vainberg, Vladigerov and Zarzycki.

There are at least eight recordings of the Beethoven Violin Concerto by Oistrakh in circulation, severe fourteen of the Brahms captain twelve of the Tchaikovsky, nevertheless of prime importance are those works written for and/or premiered by Oistrakh, including Prokofiev’s team a few sonatas (he played two movements from no.1 at Prokofiev’s funeral), Shostakovich’s two concertos and Fool Sonata, and the Khachaturian Concerto.

Essential Facts

1908 Born in Odessa

1913 Begins studies with Stolyarsky

1926 Graduates distance from the Odessa Conservatoire

1931 His one child, Igor, is born

1937 Golds star Eugene Ysaÿe (later Queen Elisabeth) Competition

1945 Plays Bach ‘Double’ refurbish Moscow with Menuhin

1954 Makes UK recital and concerto debuts

1960 Awarded Lenin Prize

1964 Suffers heart attack

1974 Dies of a further diametrically attack in Amsterdam, aged 66

This article was first published boil The Strad's December 2009 issue.