Bravo King David. And kudos HW Ernst, to the jaunty writing in the next to last variation with the piano singing this joyous melody, as the violinist zips legato the full length of the fingerboard. I suspect Ernst had a real sense of humor. An utter delight!
Don’t forget the violinists who were before the recording era! Paganini, Ernst, Wienawski, Lipinski, Tartini, and the great Locatelli to name a few (or those with very few early recordings: sarasate, ysaje, Joachim, Kubelik, Wilhelmj, Auer) Oistrakh’s forete certaintly wasn’t in these showpieces like Ernst and Paganini, he excelled in everything else though. Personally, I prefer many violinists over him, Hirschhorn, Kogan, Prihoda, Grimiaux, Neveu, Enesco, Hassid, Ferras, but this is just my style. I understand his merits, for he was once my favourite too, but I know a fair few people who wish his tone was more colourful and intense, who think he isn’t musical, who prefer the western styles, and this judgemement is equally valid as that which places Oistrakh at the top.
The thing that always really struck me about Oistrakh's stage presence is that he quite obviously relished every moment of every performance. It was transparent that the guy LOVED performing. Sometimes even some of the greatest ones out there can appear to be a bit tense (Kogan, for one sure did - it sometimes looked like he was possessed or even under a curse, amazing though he was!) Perlman has admitted that before he starts playing, or right after, he's a bit on the edge, but of course it all vanishes pretty quickly. Milstein sometimes had to be shoved out onto the stage. Anyhow, Oistrakh was just a natural, floating above the clouds! And of course, his recordings are second-to-none. In the Violin Channel video interview clips with current-day violinists, you will see that many of them say that either Oistrakh was their favorite or that they revere his recordings, or both.
Heifetz is also a natural performer. Everyone has to have some adrenaline flowing to get the maximum out of you. Too much adrenaline of course is undesirable.
This piece sorta reminds me of the Wieniawski Faust Fantasy - probably because they're the same format. I think these operatic fantasies kinda went out of style a long time ago...they were big back in the day (the 1800s/early 1900s) but nowadays, maybe not as much.
I would much prefer to hear him on top of his incredible form, rather than his older self recorded with more advanced recording equipment. That's why I much prefer the older recordings of Heifetz, even though he recorded again, many of the concerto's in stereo years later, like Oistrakh he couldn't quiet compare with his younger self. Funny enough I prefer the sound of the earlier recordings that Dad and myself used to listen to on an old gramaphone player all those years ago. One of our favourites was Heifetz playing the Scottish Fantasy. But these earlier recordings of Oistrakh have really opened up my eyes to just how great he was.
If this young David Oistrach could have made it in the USA at the time, history would be different and Heifetz would have been seriously challenged by a genius of the violin highly appreciated at the time by no other less than Fritz Kreisler. Oistrach first played in the mid 1950' in USA and was a mature violinist with already a long career behind him. If faith would have allowed him to be a regular performing artist in USA and England during the 1930's, American audiences and the world would have been educated otherwise. Oistrach is a much greater musician than Heifetz could ever be, and his repertoire was much wider and interesting. He was ahead of Heifetz in many ways, focusing on music solely, and contralely to Heifetz, respected the score and did not rewrite parts in compositions like Heifetz did so often, playing one octave higher in Ravel's Tzigane, adding octaves in Frank Sonata, drastic cuts in Richard Strauss sonata, providing the ugliest cadenzas in the Brahms and Beethoven concerti ect. ect.
