LETTERS
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In his Jan. 24 review of the Los Angeles Philharmonic [“Major Soloist, Minor Work”], Chris Pasles compared Gil Shaham’s performance of Aram Khachaturian’s Violin Concerto with that of the piece’s dedicatee and its original champion -- the legendary David Oistrakh -- stating that “Shaham, unlike the stern-faced Oistrakh, displayed exemplary warmth in his playing.”
If warmth of playing is measured by the number of beatific smiles on the soloist’s face, then Shaham, who is without a doubt a very fine violinist, would certainly be in a class all by himself. But in terms of warmth of tone and interpretation, no violinist dead or alive has surpassed the great Oistrakh -- whose exceptional personal warmth, by the way, matched that of his playing.
Full disclosure: I had the pleasure of studying with Oistrakh during the last three years of his life.
Mark Kashper
Los Angeles
The writer is a violinist with the L.A. Philharmonic
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