AVAILABILITY
www.preiserrecords.at
Here’s another Preiser
retrieval of the Oistrakh Trio to join
the ones I’ve already written about.
Again they are undated but they originally
appeared on Melodiya and seem to have
been made c1947-49 and then were licensed
to such as Westminster and Colosseum
where they gained some exposure. But
the trio’s recordings have since fallen
between the cracks and apart from Doremi’s
work in their Oistrakh edition I don’t
believe that any of them have made an
extended CD release before.
Unlike one of the Schubert
trios already released the sound here
is relatively open and one can listen
with pleasure. There may be a slight
treble cut but listening is otherwise
unproblematic. The F minor finds the
stellar trio on excellent form, mining
some very Slavic writing from the opening
paragraph of the first movement; they’re
especially good at sustaining tension
here, Oborin leading with tantalising
drive, and cellist Knushevitzky impressing
with his leanly projected lyric tone,
very even across the scale. The Allegretto
is properly animated, and they note
the Poco Adagio indication, not taking
it too languorously – it’s elastic but
pliant, with Oistrakh’s playing elegant
and intensely beautiful in the higher
positions. They respond wholeheartedly
to the buoyancy and vivacity of the
finale.
The Dumky trio
however had me nonplussed. Right from
the start with intensely inward playing
this is a highly italicised and odd
performance, a touch too sentimental
in the second movement, more Adagio
than Andante in the third where things
become bogged down in a kind of sanctified
stasis (Oborin in the main). There are
plenty of expectedly fine things here
– not least Knushevitzky’s Lento maestoso
"lied" - but I must admit
I wearied of the too-ing and fro-ing
and the lack of direction in this performance
of a work that, popular though it is,
requires a spine running through it
if it’s not to seem diffuse.
Questions of interpretation
apart Preiser’s presentation is attractive,
transfers are good and we edge nearer
a proper realisation of those previously
tough to find Trio recordings.
Jonathan Woolf
David Oistrakh (violin) 
