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This is the second
in Preiser’s new series devoted to David
Oistrakh’s Trio that I’ve reviewed.
Founded in the darkest days of the War,
in 1941, it lasted until cellist Sviatoslav
Knushevitzky’s early death in 1963,
followed soon after by Lev Oborin’s.
All three were born within a year of
each other and Oistrakh, ironically,
given that he died at only sixty-six,
outlasted them all. Their natural successors
were the Kogan-Rostropovich-Gilels trio
whose discs have rather put into the
shade the older trio’s late 1940s series,
disinterred here.
They espoused some
novel things on disc and Rimsky’s incomplete
Trio was certainly a first. It was Maximilian
Steinberg, a pupil of Rimsky-Korsakov,
who completed this problematic piece
begun in 1897 but put aside and left
incomplete on the composer’s death.
Clearly it was the stimulus of Steinberg’s
work, not undertaken until 1939, over
forty years after it was ditched, that
encouraged the studios to get the premier
trio in Russia to record it. It’s certainly
fascinating hearing the Oistrakh Trio
getting to grips with a rather sprawling
superstructure and trying to minimise
deficiencies. They’re quite closely
miked, if a shade dryly – which allows
admirers to listen closely – which was
not always the case in the boxy Moscow
recording studios (they could rival
Parisian ones in the 1920s for lack
of resonance). They bring a sense of
bigness to the playing that manages
to conceal many of the compositional
cracks, even in the repetitive passages,
and Oborin proves masterful in his part,
here and elsewhere. The Scherzo is witty
with a trio of glancing depth (led by
the pianist) and the Adagio features
fine, lean playing from Knushevitzky
and Oistrakh coiling and trilling over
the top of him. The finale is probably
the most diverting movement, opening
with recitativo solos and fierce fugal
passages, before the piano drifts in
with an unexpected moment seemingly
imported from a Beethoven piano sonata
(a reverie, really) then to finish some
fresh aired dancery. An odd, obviously
problematic work but one played with
sympathy and colour by three great musicians.
No
such worries about the Smetana, which
I played again and again. Oistrakh was
a notable exponent of Dvořák and
here he proves just as versatile in
the Czech trio literature (later on
in this Preiser series we find him in
Dvořák trios). The trio brings
great reserves of nobility and depth
to this tragic work, the string players
widening their vibrato further still
in the second movement, bring to bear
real contrasts between the opening of
the maestoso passages and the
dynamically reduced rather feminine
answering phrases. They construct a
real drama of the soul and their finale
is in turn exciting, touching, grand,
affecting and rapt.
Full marks to Preiser
for returning these discs to the catalogue
– I’m not aware that these performances
have been released on CD before though
Preiser doesn’t boast of it. They probably
saw service in the 1950s on such labels
as Monitor and Westminster but they
are doubly welcome on silver disc.
Jonathan Woolf
David Oistrakh (violin) 