REVIEW POTPOURRI: Samuel de Champlain

by Peter Cates

Samuel de Champlain

Samuel de Champlain

In his fascinatingly detailed Voyages, Samuel de Champlain (1567-1635) wrote of traveling up the Penobscot River in the following entry for September 5th, 1604:

“The same day we passed also near to an island about four or five leagues long. From this island to the main land on the north, the distance is less than a hundred paces. It is very high, and notched in places, so that there is the appearance to one at sea, as of seven or eight mountains extending along near each other. The summit of most of them is destitute of trees, as there are only rocks on them. The woods consists of pines, firs, and birches only. I named it Isle des Monts Deserts.”

As a younger man growing up in France, Champlain was an accomplished military officer for five years during the various bestial religious wars that King Henry IV was constantly waging. In return for his faithful service, the King supported Champlain’s interest in traveling to North America to explore and report on the region; he journeyed upwards of 30 times across the Atlantic.

David Oistrakh

David Oistrakh Plays the World’s Greatest Violin Concertos – Beethoven, Brahms, Mendelssohn, Tchaikovsky; Murray Hill S27606, three LPs.

David Oistrakh

David Oistrakh (1908-1974) was the most frequently recorded violinist to emerge from the former Soviet Union. Before his first trip to the United States in 1955, he was lionized by record collectors via the many Melodiya tapes released on dime store LPs from such labels as Vox, Period, Hall of Fame, Colosseum etcs. The fidelity and record surfaces were often grainy but the wondrously heartfelt playing and stunning virtuosity stood him in the same class as Jascha Heifetz, Isaac Stern, Nathan Milstein and Zino Francescatti.

The Beethoven, Brahms, Mendelssohn and Tchaikovsky Concertos were each recorded several times by Oistrakh. The above recordings were derived from Melodiya with Alexander Gauk conducting the Moscow State Symphony in the Beethoven; Kiril Kondrashin and the Symphony Orchestra of Radio Moscow in Brahms; Kondrashin again and the National Philharmonic in Mendelssohn; and Samuel Samosud leading the Bolshoi Theater Orchestra in Tchaikovsky. All four performances have been previously released several times on other labels.

Murray Hill Records was a boon for budget-minded record collectors including myself. While attending the University of Southern Maine at Gorham over 50 years ago, a friend who was manager of the campus bookstore drew my attention to several of the label’s multi-disc albums and those of others including Vox, Everest, Concert-Disc, and Westminster Gold.

She graciously allowed me to store a large number of those records on layaway; by purchasing one or two weekly, I was finally able to acquire all of them within six months.

David Oistrakh was also a gifted violist and collaborated with his violinist son Igor (1931-2021) in the Mozart K. 364 Sinfonia Cocertante for both instruments. Finally, he achieved a very justified reputation as a conductor and his recordings of the Tchaikovsky Pathetique Symphony, Grieg’s Piano Concerto with his good friend Sviatoslav Richter and the Mahler 4th Symphony are superb examples.

During World War II, Oistrakh performed the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto, in Leningrad, while it was bombarded and starved by the Nazi armies during the 900-day siege and did concerts for Soviet troops on the hazardous front lines.

In 1964, Oistrakh suffered a heart attack, was told by the doctors to take it easy but ignored their advice, continuing to perform, conduct and teach non-stop. In October 1974, he was conducting the Brahms Symphonies with the Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam when he died suddenly of a heart attack at the age of 66.

Many Oistrakh performances can be accessed through YouTube.

One of my absolute favorite Oistrakh recordings is the one he did on a Columbia Masterworks LP of the Sibelius Violin Concerto in 1960 with Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra – the note by note teamwork of soloist, conductor and responsive orchestra musicians still leaves me breathless.