Rudolf Barshai was born in 1924, in Stanitsa Labinskaya, Krasnodar Territory. At the age of fourteen, he entered the music college of the Moscow Conservatory to study violin under Lev Tseitlin, a pupil of Leopold Auer. At the conservatory, Barshai also studied under Abram Yampolsky, then went on to Vadim Borisovsky's viola class and graduated from the conservatory in 1948 with honours. A year later, he was awarded the second prize at the competition of the International Festival of Youth and Students in Budapest.
While a student, Barshai formed a string quartet (the future Borodin Quartet). He performed with the trio of David Oistrakh, Sergei Knushevitsky and Lev Oborin, in ensemble with Heinrich Neuhaus, Leonid Kogan and Mstislav Rostropovich. Nikolai Golovanov invited Barshai to become leader of the viola section of the Bolshoi orchestra, while Evgeny Mravinsky wanted him in the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra. However, the viola repertoire was not enough for the musician, and he decided to found the first ever Soviet chamber orchestra.
The first concert of the Moscow Chamber Orchestra took place on 2 April 1956. Rudolf Barshai managed to collect an orchestra of like-minded and highly talented musicians, many of which subsequently became remarkable solo and ensemble performers and conductors – Lev Markiz, Andrei Abramenkov (violins), Alla Vasilieva, Viktor Simon (cellos), Rustem Gabdullin (double bass), Alexander Korneyev (flute), Andrei Volkonsky (organ, harpsichord), Tatiana Nikolayeva (harpsichord) and others.
“Displaying certain performing will, … he gives the needed creative freedom to the members of the ensemble. When you listen to the Moscow Chamber Orchestra, you perceive creativity of the wonderful musicians united with the same artistic orientation,” wrote conductor and professor Leo Ginsburg about Rudolf Barshai.
Baroque music, compositions by Haydn and Mozart prevailed in the Moscow Chamber Orchestra's repertoire. However, the emergence of the orchestra was a good incentive for Soviet composers. So, Dmitri Shostakovich's Symphony No. 14 and Quartet No. 8 orchestrated by Barshai, chamber works by Georgy Sviridov, Alexander Lokshin, Moisey Weinberg, Boris Tchaikovsky, Kara Karayev and others were composed especially for the new orchestra.
Some of the greatest masters of the Soviet performing art such as Sviatoslav Richter, Marina Yudina, Emil Gilels, Lev Oborin, David and Igor Oistrakh, Leonid Kogan, Oleg Kagan, Vladimir Spivakov, Yuri Bashmet, Mstislav Rostropovich, Timofei Dokshitser, Natalia Rozhdestvenskaya, Irina Arkhipova, Zara Dolukhanova, Galina Vishnevskaya, and even the outstanding foreign musicians such as Yehudi Menuhin, John Lill and Vasso Devetzi took part in the concerts of the Moscow Chamber Orchestra. The orchestra's tours at home and abroad – in Western Europe, the Unites States and Japan – were equally successful.
After a while, Rudolf Barshai felt craving for symphonic conducting. After studying under Ilya Musin at the Leningrad Conservatory, he performed with the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra and the Moscow Radio Symphony Orchestra. However, Barshai's conducting activity finally gained in scope after his emigration from the USSR in 1977. Rudolf Barshai led the Israel Chamber Orchestra (1978–1981), Vancouver Symphony Orchestra (1981–1983), Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra (1982–1988); performed with the London Symphony and Royal Philharmonic orchestras, Vienna Symphony Orchestra, French National Orchestra, orchestras of Bavarian and West German Radio, Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra and many others. He conducted Robert Schumann's Paradise and the Peri, Dmitri Shostakovich's Symphonies Nos 8 and 13, Igor Stravisky's The Rite of Spring, symphonies by Gustav Mahler and Pyotr Tchaikovsky, works by Richard Strauss, Edward Elgar and Gustav Holst.
Rudolf Barshai performed in his home country again since 1993 conducting the leading Russian orchestras.
Once, Peter Andry, an EMI executive, heard recordings of Beethoven's first two symphonies conducted by Rudolf Barshai and suggested recording all the composer's symphonies with the London Symphony Orchestra. The Ministry of Culture supported the initiative but insisted that the recording should be made in the USSR and promised to provide additional orchestra members to expand the line-up as necessary. Thus, eight symphonies were recorded by 1975 with musicians of the leading Moscow orchestras.
As for the Ninth, Barshai insisted on the involvement of a choir and soloists from Germany so that the Germans would be perform the finale in the original language. Eurodisc, a company which had purchased a license for the set, arranged a recording session in Germany with a choir from Stuttgart and German musicians and producers. However, when they went on to discuss the sound recording copyright for the last symphony, Melodiya insisted on its exclusive ownership not even willing to agree to an equal share. The German party could not assent to such terms, so Barshai never recorded Beethoven's Ninth.
This boxed set deserves attention in many ways. First of all, as a bright interpretation of Beethoven's symphonies (“We haven't heard a Beethoven like this since Klemperer,” Shostakovich said after listening to the recording of Eroica presented here). There is no doubt that this one of best recordings realized by Rudolf Barshai as a symphonic conductor – the work on the Beethoven cycle was the most important step on the way of development of his conducting individuality. However, the story of creation of this recording just as the fact that it remained unfinished is evidence of a drama in the great musician's life and career as he was unable to be a master of his own talent (Rudolf Barshai only managed to conduct the Ninth in 1986 in Great Britain).
Those who knew Barshai as a soloist and ensemble player noted that he sought to bring the principle of quartet performance to chamber orchestra. The same could be said about his performances of Beethoven's symphonies. Ultimate precision in terms of the score, with every detail as if scrutinized under a magnifying glass; transparent harmonization of themes allowing to hear the entire “vertical line” of the orchestra at all times; sustained tempos, principal repetition of all the reprises written out by the author (and which are so often neglected by conductors for the sake of “dynamism”); steady possession of architectonics of each of the symphonic cycles allow us to enjoy the genuine perfection of this music which lack any burden imposed from some alien “conductor's concept.” With all that, restraint dos not turn into scholastic academicism.
“What is typical for the artists of the Moscow Chamber Orchestra is the unity of history and modern times. Without distorting the text and spirit of music, the artists make it contemporary and young for our listeners,” Shostakovich wrote.
Barshai attributes an image of living originality to each of the eight symphonies as Beethoven repeated himself in neither of them. The Russian audience never heard his interpretation of the Ninth, but the witnesses of Barshai's last concerts in Moscow remember how greatly they were impressed with Beethoven's Missa solemnis, Mahler's Symphony No. 9 and Lokshin's Requiem.
Barshai worked on Bach's The Art of Fugue and Mahler's Symphony No. 10 until the last months of his life (he passed away in 2010). But this series of recordings of Beethoven's eight symphonies can be considered completed in its own way, as completed are Schubert's Unfinished Symphony, Bruckner's last symphony and Mozart's Requiem.
