David Oistrakh: Artist of the People? (1994)

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General		Extras
Category	Documentary	Booklet Menu Animation & Audio
Rating
Year Of Production	1994
Running Time	76:05 (Case: 75)
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	Bruno Monsaingeon
Studio Distributor	Warner Vision	Starring	David Oistrakh Igor Oistrakh Yehudi Menuhin Gidon Kremer Gennadi Rozhdestvensky Mstislav Rostropovich
Case	Amaray-Transparent
RPI	$39.95	Music	Various

    What really set Oistrakh apart from other violinists, according to biographer Bruno Monsaingeon, was his ability to 'strike an ideal balance between the utterly predictable and the utterly abandoned, between rigour and freedom..., the epitome of purity and musical integrity'. This DVD: David Oistrakh - Artist of the People? sets out to illustrate this assertion by interviews with musical contemporaries, such as his great friend Yehudi Menuhin, conductor Gennadi Rohdestvensky and his brilliant student Gidon Kremer. There are numerous musical excerpts of Oistrakh playing from no less than 17 different composers although sadly these are all of limited duration and date back to 1936! Particularly impressive was the excerpt of his impassioned performance of Shostakovich's Violin Concerto No 2 (64:42) which was presented to him, by the composer, on his 60th birthday. As well as the musical excerpts there is fascinating footage of Monsaingeon's journey of discovery to find Oistrakh's old house and an amusing interview with an old Ukrainian couple who got quite heated on discussing who donated a fine dacha to Oistrakh !

    Sadly, the stress of relentless touring, the pressure of a political system which was intolerant of second-best and a physique described by an Australian newspaper as 'pudgy' all took its toll and David Oistrakh died of a heart attack whilst on tour in Amsterdam in 1974 aged 66. Much of the documentary concerns the bitterness felt by friends and colleagues of Oistrakh against a system which took, manipulated and gave little back in return and the angst felt by Oistrakh when he was obliged to openly criticise friends and contemporaries of a different political alliance. Conspicuously lacking in the documentary was mention of his fabled two Stradivarius violins Fontana and Marsick (owned by the Soviet system of course) details of which can be found (in French) on an excellent website dedicated to the musician. He is survived by his son Igor (1931-), also a first rate violinist and an extensive repertoire of recordings.

Video

    Not surprisingly, considering the range and age of archival material, the video quality varies enormously and most video artefacts can be found in this wide ranging selection. The contemporary footage is of excellent quality and whilst some of the footage is noisy, it is all quite watchable.

    Made for television, this presentation was filmed and is presented at 1.33:1 and is not 16x9 enhanced.

    The present day footage has exemplary sharpness and shadow detail. Older film stock footage has the characteristic limited contrast range but on the whole is sharply focussed. There was no low level noise of note.

    Most of the archival footage is in black and white, but the few colour inserts have good quality, albeit with a slightly aged and washed-out chroma range without noise.

    Mild aliasing is evident throughout but is not objectionable most of the time. There is a severe combing artefact at 5:05 and 33:20. Not surprisingly, film artefacts in the form of white and black flecks, scratches and dirt are in plentiful supply but the film quality is really quite good and the 1936 excerpt of Debussy's La Plus que Lente was particularly impressive.

    Subtitles are available in English, French, German, Spanish and Italian which is just as well unless you are a native Russian and Ukrainian speaker, as the majority of the interviews are conducted in the speaker's native tongue.

    The disc is a single layered DVD-5 and therefore there is no layer change.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    Much of the video quality comments applies equally to the audio, namely that the archival footage falls short of perfection on account of its age and technical limitations of the time, but despite obvious artefacts is quite pleasurable to listen to.

    There is one audio track on this DVD in LPCM 48/16 stereo encoded at 1536 kbps.

    Dialogue is clear and easily decipherable.

    There are no perceptible sync problems.

    The music is generally thin sounding and flat. Flutter is much less noticeable in violin music than say piano due to intended player vibrato effect. There was unpleasant distortion at 4:20 but this was rare throughout the DVD. The background hiss, crackle and occasional pop tended to augment the historic feel of the pieces and I didn't find it intrusive or objectionable.

    Your surrounds and subwoofer can rest undisturbed throughout this recording.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menu

Booklet

    The video quality is limited by archival material, but good considering and up to the job asked of it.

    The audio quality is likewise limited by age but adequate.

    The booklet is excellent as are the subtitles. Some extended playing footage, as an extra, would have been great but probably not feasible in this low budget TV documentary to DVD transfer.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall