Testament SBT 1442, 69:32 [Distrib. by Harmonia mundi] **** :
Previously unpublished from Bucharest (20 September 1958) by the great Russian violinist David Oistrakh (1908-1974) in honor of Georges Enescu, this concert opens with Fritz Kreisler’s arrangement of Schumann’s late Fantasy, Op. 131, a piece once championed by Adolf Busch and Ruggiero Ricci and new to Oistrakh discography. Typical of Schumann’s late style, the music tends to be through-composed: one or two motifs dominating the entire work, cut out of a single affect, passionate melancholy, much like the Violin Concerto in D Minor. Oistrakh applies his full arsenal upon the work, including double-stops, alternately plucked and arco passages, and a sweeping, long line. The sincere ardor of the piece shines through, the largesse of Schumann’s spirit, which is not lost upon the audience after the three, huge chords that end this blazing rendition.
Franck’s idiosyncratic mysticism, in the form of his A Major Sonata, always appealed to the warm, Apollinian element in Oistrakh’s temperament, more so with pianist Yampolsky than in his whirlwind encounters with the firebrand Sviatoslav Richter. The sensuous flow of the music resonates in every evocative note, a love letter from the Symbolist world of Stephane Mallarme. Yampolsky’s limpid keyboard work glitters in the manner of the Polish artist Horszowski, elegant and nobly arched. The second movement enjoys the fioritura of a vast, impassioned improvisation, the impetus of the music only breathing–albeit heavily–for the languorous melody that sweeps and softly dissipates in its plaintive, chromatic scale. The “fate” motif incrementally builds up once more, Yampolsky’s driving the music hard and Oistrakh in pursuit with trilled figures. Light some incense for the collaboration in the Recitativo–Fantasia movement: the inwardness of the realization is palpable, as though we eavesdropped on a modal or Moorish prayer in serpentine coils, wafting through mists of jasmine. Attacca for the last movement, at first a gentle round that assumes more dynamism as it progresses and recalls motifs from prior movements. Oistrakh urges the music forward, surely, but without seeming to force anything, the plastic imitations and fervent contours materializing from a rarified aether. The coda elicits waves of applause.
While Oistrakh committed the first of the Szymanowski’s Three Myths (1915-1916), “The Fountain of Arethusa” to commercial disc, this performance marks his sole document of all of them, with their exotic, elegantly frenzied effects written to the specifications of the composer’s colleague, Paul Kochanski. The evanescent water figurations of Arethusa move to the bell-tones and echo-effects of “Narcissus”; Debussy, surely, but spiced by modalities of purple decadence. Finally, “Dryads and Pan,” a piece that opens with a series of buzzing effects in the violin that recur even as the violin and piano spin out ripples and swirls meant as a series of seductions to the spirit. Harmonics (panpipes?), slides, double stops, hazy motifs over the E string, all contribute to the languid allure of this mercurial, acrobatic piece of virtuosity on a grand scale.
Oistrakh takes the gloves off for his final showpiece, Ravel’s homage to Yelly d’Aranyi, Tzigane. The opening cadenza rasps and clamors as much as it plaints its gypsy figures that end on a plucked string. Yampolsky’s harp-like entry enters and the gypsy element now dominates in swirling, crackling colors. Guitar and cembalom effects saturate our senses, along with Oistrakh’s high flute tone, muted in a most extraordinary display of colors that suddenly dip and grind in fevered panoply. Music played on asbestos instruments has to account for the last few pages of this vivid performance, which throws caution to the winds and carries us into the abyss, for which we and the audience remain forever grateful.
–Gary Lemco
