Recordings
Henry, Derrick
Recordings SHUMSKY IN HIS PRIME A NATURALNESS & INNATE RIGHTNESS AMONG the greatest pleasures afforded the inveterate record buyer and concertgoer is the discovery of extraordinary artists...
...Many artists, even superb ones, work out an interpretation so carefully that it becomes virtually chiseled in granite...
...virtually every renowned violinist of the past century has recorded at least excerpts from Bach's masterpiece...
...A fascinating interview with Shumsky, replete with a remarkable series of photographs chronicling his career, may be found in The Way They Play, Book 7, by Samuel Applebaum and Henry Roth (available from the Musical Heritage Society...
...conduct...
...With Shumsky one never gives a second thought to such matters...
...Never does he repeat himself...
...in fact, on the basis of recorded evidence he is now very much in his prime...
...For three years he served as classical editor of Record Review, currently he reviews records for High Fidelity and Keynote magazines...
...it is virtually impossible to listen passively...
...two years later he was hand-picked by Toscanini to play in the fabled NBC Symphony...
...Yet he eschewed the frenetic pace of an international solo career, preferring to teach (which he has done with notable success at Curtis, Peabody, Juilliard, and Yale...
...Why is he not better known...
...Shumsky not only fulfills our vision of a piece, he reveals insights we never even imagined...
...There is an unforced quality, a naturalness to Shumsky's playing, an innate lightness about tempo, accents, articulation, phrasing...
...He began studying the violin when he was three...
...One such artist is the Philadelphia-born violinist Oscar Shumsky...
...At eight he performed with the Philadelphia Orchestra under Leopold Stokowski...
...Place any side of the Shumsky album on your turntable...
...DERRICK HENRY (Derrick Henry is completing a dissertation for Yale University on the music of Heinrich Schutz...
...But Shumsky can hardly be termed an intellectual violinist...
...At nineteen he was appointed solo violinist for NBC Radio...
...Why has he made so few recordings...
...These pieces constitute one of the touchstones of the violinist's repertoire...
...And by so doing he enables his listeners to rediscover the music for themselves...
...and occasionally perform...
...It is partly his choice...
...Yet reveling in gorgeous sound for its own sake plays no part in Shumsky's musical aesthetic...
...While one is always conscious of an overriding conception, Shumsky's sense of structure is so firmly established that details can be left to the dictates of the moment...
...The question to ask now is not/'Why isn't he better-known...
...Then why is Shumsky not even listed in Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians or the International Who's Who...
...Palpable proof of his achievement may be found on his latest recording, the complete Bach Sonatas and Partitas for Unaccompanied Violin (MHS 4032-34, available by mail order only through Musical Heritage Society, 14 Park Road, Tinton Falls, New Jersey 07724...
...study...
...Eloquence, nobility, passion, lyricism: these qualities can be heard on Shumsky's albums and in his concert appearances in sovereign measure...
...Indeed, the most appealing facet of his interpretive personality is its warmth and spontaneity...
...Shumsky was a genuine prodigy...
...together, father and son have recorded the Mozart Duos, a release due out next year on the Spectrum label...
...His tonal suavity is allied with a formidable technique, a pervasive rhythmic animation, and a peerless ability to color sound, to coax a seemingly infinite variety of shadings from his 1715 "Rode" Stradivarius...
...His distinguished teachers were Leopold Auer and Efrem Zimbalist...
...Not Shumsky...
...It brings to mind the legendary Russian violinists of eras past, in particular Mischa Elman and Jascha Heifetz, both of whom—not so incidentally—studied with Leopold Auer, Shumsky's own teacher (then, too, Shumsky is of Russian parentage...
...This is supreme artistry...
...Let us encourage and proselytize now, ratherthan wait, then complain—too late—of what might have been...
...Everything is fresh...
...one's attention is always directed toward the music...
...a discography and complementary interview, by Eric Wen and myself, as well as my review of his aforementioned Mozart Sonata album, is contained in the June 1978 issue of Record Review...
...Bach's sonatas and partitas represent the most intellectually rigorous violin music ever written, and Shumsky is able to clarify, as few of his colleagues ever have, the knotty contrapuntal complexities and imposing architecture of these works (listen especially to his rendering of the monumental Ciaconna of the D minor Partita...
...5 December 1980: 691...
...In all registers and at all dynamic levels it possesses a vibrancy unmatched by any active violinist known to me...
...Shumsky is now sixty-three...
...His first major album in the stereo era was the miraculous 1978 release, also for Musical Heritage Society, of the complete Mozart violin sonatas...
...Certainly by the time he was twentyone Shumsky lacked neither accomplishment nor recognition...
...Suffice it to say that Shumsky's contribution need defer to no one's, that it presents its own unique outlook and perceptions...
...raise a family (Eric, the younger of his two sons, is a violist...
...He can interject a new inflection here, a distinctive color there (hear the delicious hesitation at the beginning of the Siciliana from the G minor Sonata, and the marvelous contrast of registers he achieves throughout this piece...
...but "How can we get him to record and concenize more...
...But unlike his contemporaries Isaac Stern (sixty) and Yehudi Menuhin (sixty-four), Shumsky's playing shows no signs of decline...
...Recordings SHUMSKY IN HIS PRIME A NATURALNESS & INNATE RIGHTNESS AMONG the greatest pleasures afforded the inveterate record buyer and concertgoer is the discovery of extraordinary artists little known to the general public...
...within a few years he had Commonweal: 690 also appeared as soloist with the New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, and Baltimore Symphony...
...Immediately, even with casual attention, one is struck by the violinist's sheer beauty of tone...
...Rather, Shumsky projects a rapturous tielight in continually discovering new beauties in this familiar music (note the different character Shumsky imparts to the repeats of the Allemande opening the B minor Partita...
...To single out one version as "the best" is foolishness verging on insanity...
Vol. 107 • December 1980 • No. 22
