David Oistrakh on Warner: the Second DVD

While I described the first of the three DVDs in the Warner Remastered Edition box set collection of recordings of performances by Russian violinist David Oistrakh as “an engaging profile of the breadth of Oistrakh’s command of repertoire,” I have to confess that the second DVD did not live up to expectations based on the first. This one had a title, Moscow Recitals; and, as might be expected, the filmed accounts of those recitals were selected by Bruno Monsaingeon. Most of the content involved recordings of performances before Moscow audiences, but the last four tracks seems to have been captured in studio settings.

The good news is that there was no shortage of sonata music, including complete sonatas by Franz Schubert, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Claude Debussy, along with two movements from Maurice Ravel’s sonata. These all play a significant role in the violin repertoire, but there were too many occasions in which Oistrakh’s delivery came across as little more than dutiful. There were also “peculiarities” to be found both in the video and on the DVD sleeve.

Fritz Kreisler on the cover of the February 2, 1925 issues of Time magazine (public domain, from Wikimedia Commons)

The most egregious of these was the misprint of Schubert’s death as 1826 (instead of 1828), suggesting that he had died before Beethoven! A bit more confusing, however, was the excerpt from a piece by Fritz Kreisler. The film identified it as “Variations on a theme by Tartini,” while the sleeve named it “Variations on a theme by Corelli.” According to the Wikipedia list of Kreisler’s compositions, the correct title is “Variations on a theme by Corelli;” but there is a “postfix” to the title identifying the music as “in the style of Tartini,” to which this music had previously been attributed. More critical is that the sleeve failed to identify that, when Oistrakh played Pablo de Sarasate’s “Navarra” with his son Igor, they were both accompanied by pianist Vladimir Yampolsky.

If Monsaingeon did not take the trouble to proofread all of the content associated with all of the albums in this collection, he should have given the task to a reliable substitute. Serious listeners tend to be picky about the facts during their listening experiences. (At least this one is!)