Customer Reviews

Eugène Ysaÿe: 6 Sonatas for Solo Violin, Op. 27 - Oscar Shumsky

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Oscar Shumsky was a master violinist whose career as a touring concert artist never really flourished. Some instrumentalists are inconsistent in live performance, and this seems to have been Shumsky's downfall. So much for the history.

Wanna hear superb violin music, played on a great Stradivari violin by a great violinist? You do? BUY THIS. Shumsky sounds terrific, in a flattering acoustic. The Ysaye sonatas are real finger-twisters; Shumsky is completely on top of their technical demands and makes them into an enjoyable listening experience.

This is one of those too-infrequent recordings where the requirements of the music, the skills of the performer and the skills of the engineers come together to make magic.

Oscar Schumsky was a master of this legendary instrument. The musical world was well aware his virtues as interpreter and pedagogue. But for better or worst, just a few soloists have kept into account the transcendental importance of these sonatas into the literature for violin solo. As far I remember, Ruggiero Ricci was captured and seduced by these pages (as matter of fact the CD has not been released yet, uniquely available on LP format on the label Candide).

But when Schumsky decided to be part of this excel minority of notable violinists, probably he was not aware he was writing with golden letters, a glorious incursion to the immortality with these magisterial performances.

Until this date no other soloist has been able to approach respect this sublime performance.

A desert island issue, inch by inch.