David Oistrakh on Warner: the First DVD

Having now accounted for all of the CDs in the Warner Remastered Edition box set collection of recordings of performances by Russian violinist David Oistrakh, I can now turn to the first of the three DVDs that remain in the box. This is an assembly of filmed accounts of Oistrakh performances curated by Bruno Monsaingeon and compiled on a DVD entitled The Oistrakh Collection. As might be guessed, there is a fair amount of variation in the quality of the video contents, matched by the variation in accuracy of when the content was created.

David Oistrakh as soloist in a performance of Johannes Brahms’ violin concerto on a recording conducted by Otto Klemperer (from a Web page on The Listeners’ Club)

The leading figure on this album is, as might be expected, Ludwig van Beethoven, with accounts of both orchestral and chamber music. The Opus 61 concerto is complemented with concertos by Johannes Brahms, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, and Jean Sibelius, along with an excerpt from Édouard Lalo’s Opus 21, “Symphonie espagnole,” performed with only piano accompaniment by Vladimir Yampolsky. Towards the end of the CD, there is a track of one of Fritz Kreisler’s most familiar compositions, his “Liebesleid;” and the “program” concludes with “Laberinto armonico” (harmonic labyrinth), the capriccio that begins the last of the twelve concertos that Pietro Locatelli collected in L’arte del violino, arranged for solo violin and orchestra by Gennady Rozhdestvensky.

Taken as a whole, the DVD provides an engaging profile of the breadth of Oistrakh’s command of repertoire. Mind you, the Sibelius concerto stands out as the most adventurous selection on the album. However, when we consider how much of Oistrakh’s repertoire is rooted in traditions of earlier centuries, the fact that he took on the Opus 47 at all merits a star in his heavenly crown! For my part, however, the high point of the collection was the opportunity to both view and listen to Sviatoslav Richter accompanying Oistrakh in the last two movements of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Opus 12 (third) sonata in E-flat major.

Mind you, I am not sure that video does very much to enhance the listening experience; but I can still confess to enjoying the interplay between Oistrakh and Richter!