David Oistrakh, violin (1972, 1967)
Program: DEBUSSY: Violin Sonata in G Minor; La Fille aux cheveux de lin; DVORAK: Mazurek, Op. 49; SCHUBERT: Valse-Caprice No 6; SIBELIUS: Nocturne, Op. 51, No. 3; SHOSTAKOVICH: Violin Concerto No 2 in C-sharp Minor, Op. 129
Performers: David Oistrakh, violin/Frieda Bauer, piano/Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra/Kirill Kondrashin
Studio: VAI DVD 4473
Video: 4:3 Black & White
Audio: PCM Mono
Length: 60 minutes
Rating: ****
The art of Russian violin virtuoso David Oistrakh (1908-1974) impresses us in two distinct appearances at the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, from 1972 (recital) and 1967 (Shostakovich Concerto). Oistrakh plays the polychromatic Debussy Sonata as study in fluid intimate watercolors. Given Oistrakh’s stocky wrestler’s physical demeanor, the exquisitely graceful and nuanced sounds that emanate from his violin seem a disarming anomaly especially in the strumming magic he elicits during the Intermede movement, marked: "Fantasque et leger.” A fast vibrato and eminently sweet tone define his musings, set stolidly behind pianist Frieda Bauer. Only between the second and third movements does the camera give a long shot of Oistrakh in perspective against the full house in Moscow. Else, like the intense realization, there is something claustrophobic in the camera-work, which frames Oistrakh against the microphones to his right. A shimmered ease defines the last pages of the Debussy, driven, feverish, but so facilely rendered as to seem the soul of impressionistic reason.
The Dvorak Op. 49 burns with Slavic fire, a real tour de force for both players. Oistrakh’s bow arm moves at lightning speed, throwing off pungent songs infiltrated by lyric tenderness, often hinting at figures in the A Minor Concerto, Op. 53. Often, the lyric phraseology in Oistrakh’s conception reveals the influence of Fritz Kreisler. The Sibelius Romance from his Belshazzar Suite offers an eerie and inflamed delicacy, while the Schubert arrangement of Viennese waltzes and laendler strikes us as singularly, briskly aggressive, a moment of variegated lyricism that becomes emotionally insistent. The diaphanous Debussy prelude, The Girl with the Flaxen Hair, proceeds as a polished unmannered gem, a moment of plainsong nostalgia, Joseph Cotten and Jennifer Jones in Portrait of Jennie.
The Shostakovich Concerto No. 2 catches our eye as well as our ear with the opening shot upon the first page of the score, the gloomy harmonies echoes of dark Tchaikovsky or gloomy hymns in Shostakovich’s Fourth Symphony. Agitation and martial riffs urge the music of the Moderato forward, but a deliberate shadow has fallen upon the emotional landscape, and rasping solo violin and curt snare drum compete for hegemony. The cadenza mixes fever and brittle hope, only to be interrupted by the somber woodwinds and low horns, a plaint from a torn Mother Russia. The opening motif appears in a melancholy cast, a grim smile through tentative tears. The Adagio extends the requiem, a pitiful song in the midst of bleakness. We feel the grim influence of the Berg Concerto. Five cruel chords introduce an unforgiving cadenza, brief, but rife with haunted visions. The camera moves to the French horn, a rare departure from the obsessive fascination with Oistrakh’s chants, the opening of the last movement, Adagio—Allegro. The spirited bustle of the last movement conveys raid movement, ironic but lacking in anything like mirth. A kind of manic wail finds validation in the angry battery, the violin flitting around like a bird with a broken wing. Kondrashin himself exudes a frenetic resolution, equally intense as is Oistrakh in the furious cadenza. The abrupt ending, coming hard upon the obsessive ostinati, leaves us spent but grateful to the dedicated artists and their peerless collaboration.
–Gary Lemco
