David Oistrakh – Plays Mendelssohn & Glazunov Violin Concertos (1961)

David Fyodorovich Oistrakh(né Eustrach; 30 September [O.S. 17 September] 1908 – 24 October 1974), was a Soviet classical violinist, violist and conductor.

Oistrakh collaborated with major orchestras and musicians from many parts of the world and was the dedicatee of numerous violin works, including both of Dmitri Shostakovich’s violin concerti and the violin concerto by Aram Khachaturian. He is considered one of the preeminent violinists of the 20th century. (wikipedia)

David Oistrakh is considered the premiere violinist of the mid-twentieth century Soviet Union. His recorded legacy includes nearly the entire standard violin repertory up to and including Prokofiev and Bartok. In year 2008 it is going to be 100 years sinse he was born. Exept for beeing a fantastic violinist he was a gifted teacher, great conductor and a wonderful viola-player.

Oistrakh – born musician with exceptional natural talent. Can a normal kid to stop their antics from the fact that he threatened not to go with my mother in the theater and did not hear the orchestra, the sound is literally fascinated?
“I was three and a half years old when my father brought home a toy fiddle,” playing “with which I am very happy fancies himself a street musician… I thought not and could not be happier than go from house to house with a violin “.

Dream come true pretty soon. Touring journey Oistrakh – concerts soloist, began when he was barely 16 years old. His first and only music teacher called David F. eminent violin teacher – Peter Stolyarsky, creator of the famous schools – this factory talents. The teacher, in turn, recalled that his best pupil “with childhood showed exceptionally brilliant and almost breakneck speed along the road of mastering a difficult violin playing”.
“When I think of myself in those years, it seems to me that I was playing quite freely and fluently, tonally pure. But there is still have many years of hard work over the sound, rhythm and dynamics. of course, most importantly, a deep comprehension of the inner content “.

Then there was a landmark meeting with Alexander Konstantinovich Glazunov, and the invitation to speak in Leningrad. And finally – moving to Moscow, where he was to gain prestige, the name. The great creative will, desire and ability to work, a thirst for self-improvement led him to a brilliant victory in the competition named Eugene Ysaye in Brussels. Hence, in 1937, the international fame Oistrakh. Then the news spread around the world about the “appearance of violinist worldwide”.

Oistrakh in Moscow he was in classes most prominent professors of the Moscow Conservatory Violin – Lev Zeitlin, Abram Yampolsky and Constantine Mostras, listening to a set of Soviet and foreign artists, but to learn from everyone, he wrote in his motion to the heights of artistic maturity was obliged to myself itself.

Technical difficulties for Oistrakh did not exist, while no one remembers that he was rehearsing for 25 hours a day. His violin repertoire was enormous, but he gave preference to large canvases – a concert of Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Brahms, Sibelius, Glazunov and Shostakovich. This was a choice rather than a virtuoso, as artist-philosopher. His creative thought gave birth to all new and new interpretations of works, play with it countless times. Not by accident, as recognized by the Oistrakh, he did not like to listen to their records, so that they allowed him to move forward. With particular force and a powerful intellect temper included when Oistrakh had to play the premiere of a new, modern works. For it was written, you can say “library” of works, crowned with such masterpieces as the sonata by Prokofiev, concerts of Shostakovich and Aram Khachaturian.

Never – even in childhood – Oistrakh no one to emulate. And this despite the fact that at that time with him on the international musical Olympus was Fritz Kreisler, Jascha Heifitz, Yehudi Menuhin, Joseph Szigeti, George Enescu, Isaac Stern, Myron Polyakin and many others.

60 years, he never let go of the hands of the violin, has traveled throughout Europe and North America, Japan, Australia and New Zealand, has performed with leading orchestras in the world, and most eminent of his colleagues gave him the palm. “On stage, Oistrakh impression of the Colossus – wrote an outstanding American violinist Isaac Stern. – He stands firm on the ground, he proudly holds a fiddle, he creates music, pouring in an endless stream of beauty and elegance”. (oistrakh.ru)

And here are two great concerts from Felix Mendelssohn and Alexander Glazunov  with an even greater David Oistrakh … listen to his playing on the violin … and you could believe he is playing himself into another universe. His violin is virtuosic and breathtaking.

Personnel:
David Oistrakh (violin)
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National Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Kiril Kondrashin

Tracklist:

Felix Mendelssohn: Concerto In E Minor For Violin & Orchestra Op.64:
01. Allegro Molto Appassionato 8.00
02. Andante 13.38
03. Allegro Molto Vivace 5.19

Alexander Glazunov:
04. Violin Concerto In A Minor Op.82 (20.29)
04.1. Moderato
04.2. Andante
04.3. Allegro

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More from David Oistrakh:

Nathan Milstein & The Philharmonia Orchestra – Concerto In E Minor + Concerto No.1 In G Minor (1961)

Nathan Mironovich Milstein (January 13, 1904 [O.S. December 31, 1903] – December 21, 1992) was a Russian Empire-born American virtuoso violinist.

Widely considered one of the finest violinists of the 20th century, Milstein was known for his interpretations of Bach’s solo violin works and for works from the Romantic period. He was also known for his long career: he performed at a high level into his mid 80s, retiring only after suffering a broken hand.

Milstein was born in Odessa, then part of the Russian Empire (now in Ukraine), the fourth child of seven, to a middle-class Jewish family with virtually no musical background. It was a concert by the 11-year-old Jascha Heifetz that inspired his parents to make a violinist out of Milstein. As a child of seven, he started violin studies (as suggested by his parents, to keep him out of mischief) with the eminent violin pedagogue Pyotr Stolyarsky, also the teacher of renowned violinist David Oistrakh.

When Milstein was 11, Leopold Auer invited him to become one of his students at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. Milstein reminisced:

Every little boy who had the dream of playing better than the other boy wanted to go to Auer. He was a very gifted man and a good teacher. I used to go to the Conservatory twice a week for classes. I played every lesson with forty or fifty people sitting and listening. Two pianos were in the classroom and a pianist accompanied us. When Auer was sick, he would ask me to come to his home.

Milstein may in fact have been the last of the great Russian violinists to have had personal contact with Auer. Auer did not name Milstein in his memoirs but mentions “two boys from Odessa … both of whom disappeared after I left St. Petersburg in June 1917.”[2] Neither is Milstein’s name in the registry of the St Petersburg Conservatory.

Milstein also studied with Eugène Ysaÿe in Belgium. He told film-maker Christopher Nupen, director of Nathan Milstein – In Portrait, that he learned almost nothing from Ysaÿe but enjoyed his company enormously. In a 1977 interview printed in High Fidelity, he said, “I went to Ysaÿe in 1926 but he never paid any attention to me. I think it might have been better this way. I had to think for myself.”

Milstein met Vladimir Horowitz and his pianist sister Regina in 1921 when he played a recital in Kiev. They invited him for tea at their parents’ home. Milstein later said, “I came for tea and stayed three years.” Milstein and Horowitz performed together, as “children of the revolution”, throughout the Soviet Union and struck up a lifelong friendship. In 1925, they went on a concert tour of Western Europe together.

He made his American debut in 1929 with Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra. He eventually settled in New York and became an American citizen. He toured repeatedly throughout Europe, maintaining residences in London and Paris.

A transcriber and composer, Milstein arranged many works for violin and wrote his own cadenzas for many concertos. He was obsessed with articulating each note perfectly and would often spend long periods of time working out fingerings which would make passages sound more articulated. One of his best-known compositions is Paganiniana, a set of variations on various themes from the works of Niccolò Paganini.

In 1948, his recording of Felix Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E minor, with Bruno Walter conducting the New York Philharmonic, had the distinction of being the first catalogue item in Columbia’s newly introduced long-playing twelve-inch 33 rpm vinyl records, Columbia ML 4001.

He was awarded the Légion d’honneur by France in 1968, and received a Grammy Award for his recording of Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas in 1975. He was also awarded Kennedy Center honors by US President Ronald Reagan.

A recital he gave in Stockholm in July 1986 proved to be his final performance. This recital was recorded in its in entirety and shows the remarkable condition of his technique at age 82. A fall shortly afterwards in which he severely broke his left hand ended his career.

After playing many different violins in his earlier days, Milstein finally acquired the 1716 “Goldman” Stradivarius in 1945 which he used for the rest of his life. He renamed this Stradivarius the “Maria Teresa” in honour of his daughter Maria (presently wife of Marchese GiovanAngelo Theodoli-Braschi, Duke of Nemi and Grandee of Spain, descendant from Pope Pius VI) and his wife Therese. He also performed on the 1710 ex-“Dancla” Stradivarius for a short period.

During the late 1980s, Milstein published his memoirs, From Russia to the West, in which he discussed his life of constant performance and socializing. Milstein discusses the personalities of important composers such as Alexander Glazunov, Sergei Prokofiev, Sergei Rachmaninoff and Igor Stravinsky and conductors such as Arturo Toscanini and Leopold Stokowski, all of whom he knew personally. He also discusses his best friends, pianist Vladimir Horowitz, cellist Gregor Piatigorsky and ballet director George Balanchine, as well as other violinists such as Fritz Kreisler and David Oistrakh.

Milstein was married twice, remaining married to his second wife, Therese, until his death. He died of a heart attack in London on December 21, 1992, 23 days before his 89th birthday. Therese died in 1999 aged 83. (by wikipedia)

And here´s one of his legendar recordings: two brilliant violin concertos by Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy and Max Bruch, both were German composers of classical music.

There are several reasons to listen to this album.  If you are looking for the best recordings of Bruch’s and Mendelssohn and Prokofiev’s 1st concerto, you are on the right track: there are very few versions which can compete with Milstein’s Mendelssohn and Prokofiev, and nobody could match him in Bruch’s G minor concerto. (by Anton Zimmerling)

This is one of my favorite recordings. Any of these classic concertos would make this a treasure, but together they cannot be passed up. Milstein is incomprable; technically perfect. The highlight of the album would definately be the 1st & 2nd movements of the Bruch concerto. Played with such warmth and intensity in the mournful g-minor key. I love it. highly recommended. (by an amazom customer)

Alternate frontcovers

Personnel:
Nathan Milstein (violin)
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Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Leon Barzin

Tracklist:

Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy: Concerto In E Minor, Op. 64:
01. 1st Movement: Allegro Molto Appassionato 11.26
02. 2nd Movement: Andante 7.49
03. 3rd Movement:: Allegretto Non Troppo: Allegro Molto Vivace 6.27

Max Bruch: Concerto No. 1 In G Minor:
04. 1st Movement: Allegro Moderato 7.52
05. 2nd Movement: Adagio 8.09
06. 3rd Movement: Allegro Energico 6.37

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