Alto’s Frustrating David Oistrakh Anthology

courtesy of New Sounds Consulting

A little less than a month ago, Ukrainian violinist Igor Oistrakh died at the age of 90. Sadly, word seems to have reached this side of the Atlantic Ocean only earlier this month, which is yet another sign of the extent to which his talents have been overlooked. This was due to the fact that his father was David Oistrakh, who was such a major presence in the Soviet Union that he enjoyed more opportunities for travel than just about any Soviet citizen that was not in the diplomatic service (either explicitly or “under cover”). There is thus a certain amount of irony in the fact that Alto released a ten-CD collection of David Oistrakh playing 24 different violin concertos on a date that was so close to Igor’s death.

To be fair, I would not want to detract from the older Oistrakh’s reputation for no better reason than “bad timing.” As violinists go he had a repertoire so extensive that, in some respects, his recording legacy was comparable to that of the abundance of sessions that Jascha Heifetz made with RCA. Furthermore, while the Alto recordings capture Oistrakh performing in Vienna, London, Paris, and even Philadelphia; Heifetz never performed as a visiting artist in the Soviet Union.

As a result, the Alto collection provides a rich account of not only the extensive diversity of Oistrakh’s repertoire but also the breadth of the many different ensembles and conductors with whom he worked. Furthermore,  his achievements were as important in his own “immediate present” as they were in his interpretations of music from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Thus, both of the violin concertos that Dmitri Shostakovich composed, as well as Aram Khachaturian’s only violin concerto, were dedicated to him; and, in this collection, the recording of that latter concerto was conducted by the composer.

Given the richness of content in Alto’s anthology, it is more than a pity that the music itself should be so poorly packaged. One can appreciate that, in the interest of economy, Alto should direct listeners to a URL, should they wish to consult the booklet prepared for the release. However, the PDF that I downloaded numbered all of the tracks from 1 to 48 with no indication of which tracks were associated with which CD! Also, because many readers know how historically-minded I am, I find the lack of dates associated with all of the performances to be an unpardonable sin.

My guess, however, is that most readers will not pick as many nits as I do in these matters. Nevertheless, I suspect that readers that take their listening seriously will find Oistrakh’s Wikipedia page to be far more satisfying in content, particularly when it comes to establishing the context for many of the selections included in the Alto anthology. Alternatively, one may wish to ignore everything but the music itself, in which case one is likely to be more than consistently satisfied with the ten CDs in this collection.