David Oistrakh (1908 – 1974)

Vitaly Charny

vcharny@aol.com

David Oistrakh was one of the supreme violinists of our era. For me, it’s as simple as this: for originality of sound, mastery of the instrument, force of musical personality, there is the young Yehudi Menuhin and there is David Oistrakh, and after that, all the others, who can be counted on the fingers of two hands. As with the voice, there is in the nature of the violin an element of mythical, if not mystical, resonance, which accounts for the existence of a radical demarcation line between an extraordinarily limited number of ‘great’ violinists, unanimously recognized as such, and a quantity of admirable virtuosi of lesser vintage.

Bruno Monsaingeon

French musician,

 director of many films about famous musicians

including David Oistrakh, Artist of the People?

 

David Oistrakh was born in 1908 in Odessa, Russia (now Ukraine) and studied violin from the age of 5 with legendary Pyotr Solomonovich Stolyarsky; then he entered the Odessa music school. Consider that it was time of WWI, Russian revolution and the Civil War when Odessa several time changed hands and after it there were years of destruction and hunger. 

After graduat­ing from the school in 1926 David Oistrakh appeared as soloist in Glazunov's Violin Concerto under the composer's direction in Kiev in 1927. In 1928 after succesful debut in Leningrad he went to Moscow; where in 1934 was ap­pointed to the faculty of the Moscow Conservatory founded by Nikolai Rubinshtein in 1866. 

His name attracted universal attention in 1937 when he won first prize at the International Ysaye Competition in Brussels, in which 68 violinists from 21 countries took part. Violinists from Odessa swept almost all the awards the organizers could offer. Yelizaveta Gilels, Busya Goldshtein and Mikhail Fikhtengoltz  al of them Stolyarsky’s students – took the rest of the major trophies. 

When in 1937 Queen Elisabeth of Belgium inaugurated the annual Prix International Eugene Ysaÿe in Brussels, Belgium Post Office on this occasion has issued a set of stamps with surcharge that went for organization of the contest. 

During WWII the violinist shift his audience from visitors of concert halls to Russian soldiers at the front lines.  People didn't walk out of his performance of the pieces while a bombing raid was going on. 

David Oistrakh played in Paris and London in 1953 with extraordinary success; made his first Ameri­can appearances in 1955, as soloist with major American orchestras and in recitals, winning enthusias­tic acclaim; his playing was marked, apart from a phenomenal technique, by stylistic fidelity to works by different composers of different historical peri­ods. Soviet composers profited by his advice as to technical problems of violin playing; he collaborat­ed with Prokofiev in making an arrangement for violin and piano of his Flute Sonata. He also played a chess match with Prokofiev. Shostakovich and Khachaturyan dedicated him their violin concertos.

When Russia issued a set of stamp commemorating country’s achievements in the art throughout 20s century one of twelve stamps was dedicated to composer Dmitry Shostakovich and musicians closely associated with his music. The right part of the stamp features David Oistrakh (with violin of course) along with Dmitry Shostakovich and famous pianist Svyatoslav Richter in the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory (from a photo of 1970s). Oistrakh and Richter were the first and the best performers of Shostakovich’s Violin Sonata of 1968.

Referring to the composer Second Violin Concerto, there is the gastronomical theory that the Odessa street song Kupite Bublichki! [Bagels for sale!] theme "probably refers to the Odessa origins of David Oistrakh, [since] the violinist was, as it happens, partial to all types of bagels, pastries, and doughnuts" (Manashir Yakubov).

David Oistrakh lived through the troubled years which preceded and followed the October Revolution; years of starvation, war and terror. As if it provided him with some kind of personal refuge, his art, intense but serene, did not seem to be affected. Ferociously exploited by the regime, this great man remained silent, abandoning his mighty eloquence to the sole voice of his violin…

It was here that the great mystery lay: how was it that this great artist and generous man came to emerge, then managed until the end to maintain his artistry at a level of confounding perfection, while constantly having to put up with terrifying pressures to which his peers in the West would, without doubt, have succumbed? (Bruno Monsaingeon)

I was a schoolboy and not particularly interested in classical music when attend one of his concerts. He was far as it could be from an elegant image of emotional and exulting fiddler. In a contrary Oistrakh reminded me of hard thinking chess player. It was look like he is listening the music and wasn’t the one who is playing. It was not much to see about his performance but it was so much to listen. Indeed the music was such clear and perfect and fill the entire hall. There was nothing else but the sound of his violin. For several years through my high school and collage the LP with David Oistrakh playing Bach violin concertos was the music of choice I would listen before taking any test. It helped (especially first part of the violin concerto in A minor!) 

David Oistrakh died in 1974 from a hard attack in a hotel room in Amsterdam when he stayed there with concerts.

A whole generation of Soviet violinists numbered among his pupils, first and foremost his son Igor Oistrakh, born in Odessa in 1931, who has had a spectacular career in his own right; he won first prize at the International Festival of in Budapest (1949) and the Wieniawski Contest in Poznan (1952) commemorated on the Polish stamps of the same year. Henryk Wieniawski was a great Polish violinist and composer of Jewish descend from Wieniavy of Lodz province.

Some critics regarded Igor Oistrakh, who is still touring the world, as equal to his father in virtuosity. Sometime he performed with his wife – pianist Natalia Zertsalova and their son Valery Oistrakh. I had chance to listen their family concert. Valery as a representative the third generation of the great violinists now is well known as performing violinist and the leader of chamber music orchestras "Oistrakh Kammerorchester" and the "Oistrakh ensemble". Since 1999 he leads also a master class at "Mozarteum "in Salzburg, Austria.