DAVID OISTRAKH

The violin icon

May 2020

If there is a 20th century violinist who is at the height of Jascha Heifetz and the other great players in the history of the instrument, this was the Russian David Oistrakh. 

Oistrakh was born in 1908 in the city of Odessa, what is currently Ukraine. Being born in a Jewish family, he was one of the few musicians who did not emigrate with the disappearance of the Russian Empire and the later establishment of the Soviet Union in 1917. Therefore he is considered one of the greatest heroes of the former communist country culture. 

His father who was an amateur violinist passed his passion to his son from a very early age. He nurtured his love for the instrument as well as traditional klezmer music, which would influence in his style for the following decades.  

Oistrakh studied with the famous music educator Pyotr Stolyarsky, who also was in charge of the education of other great violinists of his generation, such as Nathan Milstein or Elizaveta Gilels, with whom Oistrakh would create tight friendship bonds. At the same time, Stolyarsky was the one who encouraged him in the practice of his long legato, a technique that Oistrakh came to master like few in history and for which he is still recognized today. 

Aram Khachaturian and Sergei Prokofiev are only two examples of the great conductors and composers of the Soviet period with who he performed during his long career. He traveled extensively throughout the communist bloc and even to many western European countries, including France, Belgium, and the United Kingdom. He received multiple awards, including the possibly highest award from the Soviet Union, the celebrated Lenin Prize. 

For him cancelling a concert had never been an option.  After all, people have bought tickets, came to the meeting and the meeting at any cost is to be held! 

As many of his fellow countrymen, he was a fan of jokes, enthusiastically played chess and tennis and he loved fiction, art and history books. He was a caring man and always had found time to write a letter to his friends. 

David Oistrakh died of cardiac arrest in 1974 in Amsterdam. He today he is considered one of the most important violinists in history.