Rostropovich, Oistrakh, Britten en Shostakovitch
The older you get the more you think about the good old days. At least I do. Once I had fled the communist paradise (it is not the right word because I was thrown out) I could not marvel enough at everything the world and life had to offer. Marvel is the right word, because I could only sigh with longing at the overflowing shops: the clothes, the shoes and the music shops with LPs I couldn’t even dream of before.
So my very first scholarship was entirely spent in those shops. On day one, I bought Nocturnes by Chopin with Rubinstein, Christmas Oratorium by Schütz (because I had never heard of it before) and Beethoven’s Violin Concerto with David Oistrach. And a packet of Marlboro which literally put me in other realms that night.
And now for what it’s all about:
There are those compositions that are always mentioned in the same breath with one particular performer: the cello concertos by Elgar and Jacqueline du Pré, for instance. Or the violin concertos by Dmitri Shostakovich and David Oistrach.
Both Shostakovich concertos were dedicated to the violinist (he received the second as a present for his 60th birthday) and it was Oistrach who performed them at their world premiere. The first, already written in 1947, but not premiered until two years after Stalin’s death, is a very personal work and bears the composer’s ‘stamp’. In the first movement, he used his own initials DSCH, something he did more often; for instance in the seventh string quartet and in the tenth symphony.
Both the violinist and the composer, who was close friends with Benjamin Britten, were welcome guests in England, where Shostakovich’s music was also very popular. So it is not surprising that the live recordings of both concerts from 1962 and 1968 respectively and dedicated to Oistrach, appeared on the BBC Legends label.
The audience is clearly present, coughing and sighing, but it is not really disturbing and their enthusiasm is infectious. I do have to warn you about the quality ot the sound though, as it is not very good.
Basia con fuoco 