David Oistrakh - Biography
David Oistrakh famed Russian violinist was born in Odessa on September 30th 1908 and died in Amsterdam October 24TH 1974 in Amsterdam. Oistrakh was born into a family of Jewish merchants in Odessa. His original last name was Kolker after his mother remarried David took his step fathers name. Oistrakh started studying violin at the age of five with a teacher Piotr Stoliarsky who taught a world famous violinist from Odessa Nathan Milstein. Oistrakh entered the Odessa Conservatory at 14 and graduated three years later. He began his professional career in 1926. A performance of the Glazunov Violin Concerto under the composer’s direction led to a Moscow engagement in 1927.Oistrakh moved to Moscow where he was to marry his pianist wife Tamara Rotareva and in 1931 they would have a son Igor who became a famed violinist in his own right (Igor often performed with his father in 2 Violin works and also as soloist with David conducting).Oistrakh was to become a teacher of violin the Moscow Conservatory in 1934. In 1935 he entered the Wieniawski competition in Warsaw where he came in second to the soon to be great sixteen year old French violinist Ginette Nevau (who was to later die in a 1949 airline disaster). The next year he was to win the even more prestigious Ysaye competition in Brussels. During the height of the Stalinist era Soviet musicians didn’t perform in the West so Oistrakh didn’t early on achieve the worldwide fame of someone like his compatriot Milstein who immigrated to America.
Oistrakh premiered the popular Khachaturian Violin Concerto, Prokofiev’s Violin Sonatas and Shostakovich wrote both his Violin Concertos and solo Violin Sonata for him. He also became a regular performing partner with pianist Lev Oborin. Oistrakh tireless work performing for troops at the front won him the Stalin Prize. After the war his first recording of the Khachaturian Concerto was released in the USA on Mercury Records to great critical acclaim. Oistrakh was allowed to travel first to Prague in 1949 and then to Helsinki where he performed the Sibelius Violin Concerto to great acclaim. He was then allowed to travel to Western Europe in the early 1950’s and later to the USA IN 1955. Oistrakh was considered to be politically reliable, he often wore his Soviet medals and with his increasingly hefty appearance and Russian looking face looked to be a stereotypical Soviet apparatchik (after his death and Glasnost we found out he was a skeptic who quietly offered support to dissidents) His first Soviet recordings at least as they were heard on a series of small independent labels in America had substandard sound. When he visited East Germany in 1954 DGG made very good recordings with the distinguished conductor Franz Konwitschny and in England and France he made superb recordings for EMI. In America he performed and made recordings with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Eugene Ormandy the Boston Symphony and Charles Munch and a searing recording of the Shostakovich Violin Concerto with Dimitri Mitropoulos and the New York Philharmonic. He also formed a close friendship with violinist Issac Stern.
Oistrakh with the loosening of travel restrictions during and after the Khrushchev regime became a frequent performer in Western Europe and America. He now recorded for Soviet state run Melodiya label and EMI in Western Europe with occasional CBS Columbia recordings with his favorite American partners Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra. He took up conducting seriously in the 1960’s and made recordings of Berlioz, Mahler, Brahms, Tchaikovsky(he was the conductor for Igor’s recording of the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto) mostly on Melodiya. He formed a trio with pianist Oborin and cellist Koussevitzky and recorded a good deal of the Piano Trio repertoire. Starting in the 1960’s he performed the Violin Sonata repertoire with the great pianist Sviatislav Richter. As a teacher he had besides his son Igor, Oleg Kagan and the celebrated Gideon Kremer to his credit as students.
Oistrakh in 1964 was to experience his first heart attack but continued a frenetic performing schedule. He received criticism for not speaking out against Soviet treatment of Jews and other dissidents that precipitated a nasty incident when his performances were interrupted by protesters during a concert in New York. According to his friend violinist Yehudi Menuhin he was deeply hurt that his fellow Jews didn’t appreciate the precarious position he was in. He devoted more of his time to conducting and during an Amsterdam engagement to conduct Brahms had a fatal heart attack on October 24th 1974.
Oistrakh had a beautiful rich tone allied to splendid musicianship. Unlike his great rival Heifitz who brought astounding virtuosity with dazzling speed Oistrakh tempi were relaxed and his tone was mellower. They were along with Fritz Kreisler and Joseph Szigeti the greatest violinists of the 20th Century. Gratefully we have many recordings documenting Oistrakh’s mastery.