Word: oistrakhs
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...doubt about it: no violinist anywhere is David Oistrakh's master...
...concert stage Oistrakh appears with the small gold emblem of the Stalin Prize in the lapel of his well-tailored tails, and in 1951 he wrote an anti-American article in the Soviet review New Times about the "climate of bellicose hysteria that the American propaganda seeks to impose." (Today he half apologizes for the article by pointing to all the nasty things the Western press has said about Russia.) Oistrakh seems to enjoy a large degree of independence from the usual restrictions on junketing Russians. Getting interested in a conversation with a Western friend in a cafe...
Imaginary Orchestra. In Moscow the Oistrakhs live in a six-room flat in a large apartment house where his great friend Prokofiev used to live. He has a passion for gadgets ("toys for big children"), owns a collection of recording machines and a phonograph, although he has regretfully given them up as aids to music teaching ("The student plays, then you play back what he played, then he plays again and the hour goes to pot"). Between teaching at the Moscow Conservatory, making records, editing violin music for the government publishing company and brooding about chess games. Oistrakh sometimes finds...
...most of David Oistrakh's time is spent flying from concert to concert, his Stradivarius slung from one shoulder, his movie camera from the other. "Liszt had enough time to be a great composer and a great virtuoso," he complains, "and he got around on horseback." He gives 25 to 30 concerts a year in Russia, and 30 to 40 abroad. For every appearance in Russia he gets the top 5,000 rubles (his tax is never above 13%), and can keep most of whatever fees he charges for concerts abroad (upwards of $1,000 apiece). Recently, when...
Everywhere he goes, Oistrakh is followed by awe-struck reviews, but none of them has been able to isolate the essence of his genius. Accompanist Vladimir Yam-polsky thinks it is "an extra quality that none of the others has," and specifies Oistrakh's uncanny ability to throw himself into the proper mood the instant he begins to play...