David Oistrakh died in 1974, and one of the more frustrating
regrets of my life was not hearing him play live. Frustrating on two counts:
first, I had the chance, and second, he was, on this occasion, playing
in concert with Sviatoslav Richter.
I was at boarding school and a violin playing teacher
had managed to get tickets for a rare recital by the two great Soviet
artists at the Royal Festival Hall. It must have been a Saturday because
I was running in an athletic competition at another School. I'd agreed
to rendezvous back at my school in time for us to catch a train to Waterloo
station for the concert. The team bus didn't arrive. By the time I did
get back, the teacher, my ticket and the opportunity of a lifetime had
gone.
At the time, Oistrakh, who was already over 50, had
only recently been discovered by the West. I knew about him because
the first LP I ever owned (and the only one for a while) was
of him playing the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto. In my youthful
conceit, whenever the subject of violinists or violin music came up
I would take the opportunity of saying, "… but have you heard Oistrakh?".
Later, when I went to College, an era when students
conformed by plastering their walls with posters of Che Guevara and
the Beatles, I had a violin playing friend who only had one thing on
his wall. It was a picture of Oistrakh in full flow at what I assumed
to be a rehearsal. He was in shirtsleeves with braces holding up trousers,
the waist band of which was hoisted above a substantial paunch. The
violin was thrust into a double chin and jowls dangled at either side
of a sweat drenched face. Not a pretty sight you may say. My friend
and I thought it majestic.
This film, made in 1995 by Bruno Monsaingeon, himself
a violinist, is released on DVD/Video for the first time. I had not
seen it before and found it absolutely riveting (but then I do have
a special interest as implied above). The format is the standard one
of distinguished people reminiscing, interspersed with musical and newsreel
clips together with some voice-over quotes from what are presumably
Oistrakh's diaries and letters. Most of the clips come into the category
of what is usually termed " rare footage". Ferreting out material for
the film, Monsaingeon says, took him over 15 years.
All is edited together with great skill, following
Oistrakh’s life chronologically grouped into ten cued chapters from
cradle to grave. The cast list of anecdoters is wisely kept short, chosen
for both their own distinction and articulate skill in reminiscing.
There is Menuhin the friend, Rostropovich and Rozhdestvensky the Soviet
colleagues, Gidon Kremer the pupil and Igor the son. No mean violinist
himself, Igor clearly remain posthumously in awe of his father while
Kremer is the only one who displays a sense of unease in his relationship
with his master. He tactfully gives an impression of feeling stifled
by Oistrakh's teaching methods which were of the "this is how you do
it" school. We can see this from clips in chapters devoted to Oistrakh
"as teacher" and as "conductor". Rehearsing a Mozart violin concerto
as conductor, Oistrakh runs the session as if it were a master class,
showing the strings what to with violin in hand. However, all is done
with a disarming, self-effacing smile. Nevertheless, he was regarded
as a great teacher and was for most of his life on the staff of the
Moscow Conservatory with, in a wonderfully incestuous arrangement from
1958, Igor as his assistant.
All the others, however, depict a much loved man, none
more so than Menuhin who developed a very close relationship with Oistrakh
on the occasions they were able to meet. Menuhin offers as explanation
of their bonding the fact of shared Russian/Jewish roots. Anecdotes
of Soviet repression and bureaucracy abound and Menuhin tends to cast
himself as saintly hero and at one point (in a story about getting an
exit visa for an out of favour, grounded Rostropovich to leave the USSR
for a concert) as a victorious David against the world's totalitarian
Goliath, contacting Brezhnev direct and threatening him. "He got his
visa the next day. There's only one way to treat bullies...", says the
giant slayer. Great anecdotal stuff this. It is Menuhin though who comes
up with some of the most generous remarks about Oistrakh in the whole
film, "I am sure I would have loved at some of stage of my life to have
studied with him", and, "he was a darling".
Of course a running theme throughout the film is that
of the horrors of Soviet repression and how that forced sincere and
upright personalities to compromise their integrity. Oistrakh had witnessed
firsthand, when living with his family in an apartment before the war,
the 4 a.m. knock on the door and the subsequent disappearance of neighbours,
fearing the knock himself. Rostropovich tells a story in the film of
how Oistrakh used this experience as an explanation when he took the
cellist aside one day to admit that he had signed an attack on his friend
that would appear in Pravda the next day. "I can only plead with you
to understand, and have the courage to forgive me". This is where the
anecdotal stuff becomes unbearable. Yet somehow, Rostropovich and Rozhdestvensky,
who both have a superb sense of imagery, manage to try and look on the
bright side. "Music was all we had left ... a kind of opening,
a window to the sun, to fresh air, to life", says Rostropovich.
And Rozhdestvensky: "You can compare us to a vine. If the vine
grows in a thankless, chalky, stony soil, the wine is better. How much
it costs is another question".
Oistrakh was forced to play a game and dance as a puppet
to the tune of the Soviet régime. But as Rozhdestvensky, who
comes over as a world weary philosopher who's been through it all himself,
pragmatically points out, "If he had not kept his mouth shut we would
not have heard his violin", and, "He never really believed in totalitarianism
otherwise he couldn't have played the way he did".
And hear him play we do. Twenty five different pieces
are heard in all-too short extracts. People will have their favourites.
Although transfixed by them all, clips from a 1965 Moscow performance
of the Brahms Double Concerto with Rostropovich particularly
moved me by its unique Russian intensity and the sense of committed
teamwork, Rostropovich's eyes glued on Oistrakh, his forgiven betrayer,
with occasional glances at the conductor. Then there is the hair-raising
performance of the cadenza from Shostakovich's Second Violin Concerto
(a present to Oistrakh from the composer for his 60th birthday)
filmed at its world premiere. We are then treated to a recording
of a phone conversation between the two. Oistrakh apologises for struggling
at one point because the music was so fast. No, no, says Shostakovich,
I only heard a great performance. And then, in a rare manifestation
of Shostakovichian dry wit, "I couldn't have played it better myself
".
Monsaingeon has done a magnificent job in unearthing
and editing the musical extracts and we get a good overview of Oistrakh’s
style – that of combining breathtaking virtuosity with a selfless non-showy
dedication to the music and deep, insightful intensity. However, music
lovers are bound to be frustrated at not being able to hear a whole
movement or even complete work. In this age of DVD one could reasonably
expect some of these to be available as appendices. As compensation
it would have been handy to be able to return to choice extracts, but
although there is a list of these in the booklet, they are not cued.
All we get out of the DVD technology is the chance to choose a subtitle
language. This, in my opinion, is not good enough.
However, this is a moving film about a very great musician
and it also serves as an important document in the context of the history
of 20th century music.
John Leeman
WARNER MUSIC VISION/NVC
ARTS DVD 3984-23030-2 [75mins]