David Oistrakh realized his old dream of conducting for the first time in 1962. Oistrakh's in-depth comprehension of the music text and indisputable authority among fellow musicians scored him firm successes in this area of performing activities. He conducted some of the well-known orchestras of Moscow, Leningrad and European cities to enthusiastic reviews of the public and music critics.
"David Oistrakh is a wonderful conductor. Much higher than some of the big names who earn their living with a baton professionally," wrote one of the Viennese newspapers.
David Oistrakh's symphonic repertoire was extensive enough – from the Viennese classical composers to Richard Strauss and Shostakovich. He frequently performed with his son Igor Oistrakh, Rudolf Barshai and other renowned musicians.
This interpretation of Mahler's Symphony No. 4 features Galina Vishnevskaya who was at the peak of her vocal career at the time. The acute, poignant and at the same time childishly naïve music of the final movement find a splendid interpreter in this remarkable singer.
ICMA: Mahler Awards ‘Toblacher Komponierhäuschen 2013’
No award for only weak new productions, honors for David Oistrach in the historical category and a Special Award for the Concertgebouw’s DVD box with the Mahler Symphonies conducted by several conductors. This is the result of the Mahler Awards 2013 in Toblach (Dobbiaco, Italy). The Mahler Award ‘Toblacher Komponierhäuschen’ exists since 1991 in Toblach, where the composer spent his holidays from 1908 to his death. ICMA Jury President Remy Franck took part in the Mahler Jury, together with Lothar Brandt, Zurich, Thomas Schulz, Munich, Götz Thieme, Stuttgart, and Chairman Attila Csampai, Munich.
"The symphonies contain my whole life; I put everything I have experienced and endured into them, they are poetry and truth in sounds," said Gustav Mahler (1860–1911) about his music. He did not conceive an exclusive creative process. His artistic position, that is catering an enormous lot of listeners, determined the figurative and stylistic content, peculiarities of the form and music language of his symphonies.
Seeking to make complicated philosophical concepts more accessible for understanding, Mahler would turn to literary word and programme. "Conceiving a large musical canvas, I always reach the point when I should draw in the Word as a bearer of my musical idea" (Mahler).
Symphony No. 1 was based on the material of Songs of a Wayfarer. In his next symphonies (Nos 2, 3 and 4), he used the songs he created on the basis of poetic texts from a collection of German folk songs and ballads The Youth's Magic Horn. Mahler returned to the poetic word only in his late period, but on a different basis.
"To a greater extent, rather than any other Mahler's composition, one may say about Symphony No. 4 is that it is a symphony born out of a song" (Inna Barsova). The song was a vocal miniature for voice and orchestra "Wir geniessen die himmlischen Freuden" ("We Enjoy Heavenly Pleasures" or "Heavenly Living") narrating about the poor's heavenly joys. It got a peculiar prospective in Symphony No. 4: the story is told by a hungry child who sees the realization of his dream in heaven. He imagines heaven as a place where they eat tasty food, dance and enjoy themselves. Initially, Mahler wanted to make this song a finale of Symphony No. 3. But as the work progressed, the idea changed so Mahler had a plot of a new symphony where "Heavenly Living" should become a basis and an outcome, a conclusion of the symphonic cycle.
The music of Symphony No. 4 was created at Maiernigg and in Vienna during 1899 to 1901. The symphony faced resistance of the musicians of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra when they learnt it, and the public and the press responded to its first performances in Munich, Frankfurt, Berlin and Vienna with hostility. The singularity of the symphony's musical language and its "startling simplicity" (I. B.) were misinterpreted by the contemporaries: many were sure the composer was laughing at them. However, the naïvety and humour in this symphony are of a special sort: "it should be told from witticism and a funny joke," the composer wrote.
The song determined the graphic content, themes, musical language (transparent lines, fine polyphony) and form of Symphony No. 4. "In fact, I only wanted to compose a symphonic humoresque, but I came up with a symphony of normal sizes," wrote Mahler about the symphony. The chamber nature of Symphony No. 4 also comes from the song: in this symphony, he used a smaller orchestra lineup for the first time without trombones, and it can be often treated as a piece for an ensemble of soloists.
Mahler said about the mood of the first three movements: "Here we have serenity of a different, more sublime and alien world; it has something that may seem scary and frightful to us." The first movement is a sonata-form Allegro which only appears to be a classical form. The symphony opens with cold clanking of little bells (Mahler used that very instrument schelle). This theme periodically intervenes in the common motion on the edges of action in both the first movement and the finale. It is followed by a main theme, "childishly simple, as if unaware of itself." A warm and lyrical side theme is a real Leid. "A naïve and openhearted clarity of the first movement seems strange and a bit mysterious, and the anxious flashes emerging in the development are so unlike to everyday display of human feelings!" (I. B.).
The second movement is a kind of an odd and fanciful Scherzo. The solo violin tuned up one tone higher sounds deliberately off key. The merriment and light-heartedness of the music seem untrue. An intimate statement of the middle section presents a contrast.
The third movement is a world of fragile beauty and contemplation. Mahler begins to set forth the theme with a reduced lineup of the strings, gradually adding the other instruments and groups. It creates an image of a slowly growing feeling. It reaches its completeness, and the theme "leaves" in a sublime and heartfelt fashion. At this very moment, when the theme presumably must be over like a joyful shock and a vision of heaven, an E minor tutti chord cuts through the silence of paradise. A few times later, the beginning of the heavenly joys theme is proclaimed followed by several last times of Adagio like an endless breath.
"In the last movement («We Enjoy Heavenly Pleasures»), the child who belongs to this supreme world in his childish innocence explains how it was conceived." A soprano sings but we think of a child's voice. An orchestral intermezzo built on the material of the initial timers of the symphony, in a more active tempo and thicker orchestral sound, takes off the touch of tranquility of the subsequent stanzas of the song. Anxious echoes of the orchestral episode stay in the accompanying instrumental lines and come out to the surface before the last stanza. The conclusion of the finale is sad and pacified.
One of the greatest musicians of the 20th century, violinist David Oistrakh (1908–1974) debuted as a conductor as late as in 1962. He had dreamt of conducting for many years: "It is no coincidence that I have come to conducting. It is my early childhood dream. I have always taken a conductor for a magician, a wizard who calls unearthly sounds into being. Overriding the element of orchestral sound has seemed a great happiness. Despite all my love for the violin and it is once and for all, I wanted to rule over the colours which only the orchestra can give." Oistrakh the conductor performed his rich symphonic repertoire – Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Wagner, Berlioz, Schumann, Mahler, Prokofiev and Shostakovich – with such famous orchestras as Vienna Philharmonic, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Berlin Philharmonic, London Symphony, Cleveland, Dresden Staatskapelle, Leningrad Philharmonic Society and other leading orchestras of Europe and America.
The star of the world opera stage Galina Vishnevskaya (born 1926), an outstanding Russian singer and owner of a legendary soprano, has performed with some of the greatest masters of music and theatre culture. In 1944, she became a soloist of the Leningrad Theatre of Operetta, in 1952 – a soloist of the Bolshoi Theatre where she sang about thirty parts. In the 1970s-80s, Vishnevskaya performed on all most famous stages of the world (Covent Garden, Metropolitan Opera, Grand Opera, La Scala, Munich Opera, etc.). After opening her Opera Center in 2002 in Moscow, Galina Vishnevskaya has been sharing her invaluable experience and knowledge with the young colleagues, and involved in charitable, cultural and educational work.
Cover photo: A. Golikova
