Geat Violin CD - David Oistrakh & Michael Rabin & Heifetz

Heifetz, David Oistrakh & Michael Rabin are three of my favourite Violinists. The Oistrackh Cd consists of the 1950s recording, while the Michael Rabin's CD set are one of the few excellent Michael's recording. Heifetz Jascha 海菲兹 - 小提琴, Reiner 莱纳 - 指挥, Chicago Symphony Orchestra 芝加哥交响乐团

David Fyodorovich Oistrakh (Russian: Давид Фёдорович Ойстрах, David Fiodorovič Ojstrah; September 30 [O.S. September 17] 1908 – October 24, 1974) was a Russian violinist who made many recordings and was the dedicatee of numerous violin works.
His recordings and performances of Shostakovich's concerti are particularly well known, but he was also a performer of classical concerti. He worked with orchestras in Russia, and also with musicians in Europe and the United States. Oistrakh's recording of Beethoven's Triple Concerto with Sviatoslav Richter and Mstislav Rostropovich is also well known, and the violin concerto of Aram Khachaturian is dedicated to him, as are the two violin concerti by Dmitri Shostakovich.

Heifetz was born in Vilnius, Lithuania, then part of the Russian Empire. There is controversy over his birth year, which is sometimes placed a year or two earlier to 1899 or 1900. It is sometimes claimed that his mother had made him two years younger, but there is no reason given for this. His father Ruvn Heifetz was a local violin teacher and served as the concertmaster of the Vilna Theatre Orchestra for one season before the theatre closed down. Jascha took up the violin when he was three years old and his father was his first teacher. At five he started lessons with Ilya D. Malkin, a former pupil of Leopold Auer. He was a child prodigy, making his public debut at seven, in Kovno, now Kaunas, Lithuania playing the Violin Concerto in E minor by Felix Mendelssohn. In 1910 he entered the St Petersburg conservatory to study under Leopold Auer.

He played in Germany and Scandinavia, and met Fritz Kreisler for the first time in a Berlin private house together with other noted violinists in attendance. Kreisler, after accompanying the 12-year-old Heifetz at the piano in a performance of the Mendelssohn Concerto, said to all present, "We may as well break our fiddles across our knees." Heifetz visited much of Europe while still in his teens. In April 1911, Heifetz performed in an outdoor concert in St Petersburg before 25,000 spectators; there was such a sensational reaction that police officers needed to protect the young violinist after the concert. In 1914, Heifetz performed with the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Arthur Nikisch. The conductor was very impressed, saying he had never heard such an excellent violinist.

Michael Rabin (May 2, 1936 - January 19, 1972) was an American violinist of Romanian descent.He began to learn the violin when he was seven. His father George, a violinist in the New York Philharmonic, noticed his talent. A lesson with Jascha Heifetz was arranged and the master advised him to study with Ivan Galamian, who said he had: "no weaknesses, never." His mother Jeanne was a Juilliard-trained and successful pianist. He began studies with Galamian in New York and at Meadowmount and The Juilliard School, and went on to appear with a number of American orchestras before his 29 November 1951 Carnegie Hall debut in the Paganini D major Concerto, with Dimitri Mitropoulos conducting the New York Philharmonic. He first appeared in London on 13 December 1954, playing the Tchaikovsky Concerto at the Royal Albert Hall with the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Sir Malcolm Sargent.

Michael Rabin recorded concertos by Mendelssohn, Bruch (Scottish Fantasy), Glazunov, Paganini (no. 1 in D major-2 recordings), Wieniawski (No.1 in f-sharp minor, No. 2 in d-minor), and Tchaikovsky, as well as the Paganini Caprices. He recorded the Bach Sonata in C major for solo violin and the Ysaÿe Third and Fourth Sonatas for solo violin, as well as virtuoso pieces, including an album with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra.

Rabin played in a Bel Canto style. During a recital in Carnegie Hall, he suddenly fell forward and momentarily lost his balance, and this was the beginning of a neurological conditon which was to affect his career adversely. He died prematurely at the age of 35 from a head injury sustained in a fall at his New York apartment.

He performed for many years on the "Kubelik" Guarnerius del Gesu of 1735

(From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)