Word: oistrakhs
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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...
...Oistrakh himself is beyond analyzing his own appeal. Unlike many great musicians, he does not give the dramatic impression of being possessed by his art or driven by passion; he has the unostentatious, businesslike dedication of a man who simply was not born to do anything else. Once when asked what he did when he wanted to forget music. David Oistrakh replied, a little shocked: "But I don't want to forget music...
...change to red in coming months, travel to Moscow should gain, travel experts estimate, by several hundred Americans next year. Russia, too, is sending forth travelers, but they are men with a mission, whether political, like Bulganin and Khrushchev in India (see FOREIGN NEWS), or cultural, like Violinist David Oistrakh (see Music). Not for them the satisfaction of idle interests...