Johannes BRAHMS (1833-1897)
Violin Concerto in D, Op 77 (1878) [42:10]
Oscar Shumsky (violin)
Philharmonia Hungarica/Uri Segal
rec. 1984, Kreis Recklinghausen, Marl, Germany
BIDDULPH 85007-2 [42:10]
Oscar Shumsky never quite achieved the celebrity his artistry deserved. This 1984 album—one of his few commercial ventures with a major concerto—reminds us what the international circuit lost when he chose teaching and chamber music over relentless self-promotion.
The Violin Concerto in D Major emerged from Brahms’s contentious collaboration with Joseph Joachim, and the Hungarian gypsy inflections in the finale have always been its most obvious calling card. Uri Segal’s Philharmonia Hungarica brings something authentic to these pages—not just the “gypsy” mannerisms (which can sound embarrassingly ersatz in other hands) but a certain flexibility of phrasing, a way of leaning into the dance rhythms without vulgarizing them. One hears it immediately in the orchestral exposition, where Segal doesn’t iron out every tempo fluctuation in pursuit of some Teutonic ideal. The ensemble was composed of Hungarian expatriates working in what was then West Germany, and they seem to understand instinctively where Brahms absorbed his Hungarian idioms and where he remained stubbornly North German.
Shumsky enters with that gloriously arching first theme—and the sound is remarkable. Warm, centered, never forcing the tone even in the highest positions. His vibrato has genuine variety; he doesn’t apply the same oscillation to every phrase like some violinists apply varnish. The second movement shows him at his finest. Those long-breathed phrases that Brahms spins out with such apparent ease (they’re murder to sustain convincingly) never sag or lose direction. When Shumsky plays the main theme, you hear a singer’s sense of line—he knew where every phrase was going, where it had been.
But the recorded sound presents problems. The violin sits too close, the orchestra recedes into a somewhat congested acoustic space. Marl’s Kreis Recklinghausen wasn’t ideally suited to this repertoire, and the engineers haven’t worked miracles. In the development section of the first movement, where Brahms’s orchestration grows dense with inner voices, you lose detail. The horns—so crucial to Brahms’s sound world—emerge muddily.
Shumsky’s technical command never falters, though his approach to the notorious double-stops in the finale might strike some listeners as… careful. He gets through them with perfect intonation but without the diabolical ease that Heifetz or Milstein could summon. Then again, Brahms didn’t write this passage to showcase circus tricks. Shumsky treats it as music—imagine that—and the octave passages sing rather than screech.
The cadenza (Joachim’s, naturally) receives a thoughtful reading, though I wished for more improvisatory freedom in the approach to certain climaxes. Shumsky plays it beautifully, but you always sense the preparation, the careful planning. Nothing wrong with that, except this music benefits from calculated risk-taking.
Segal deserves credit for sensitive accompaniment throughout—he never covers the soloist, adjusts tempos to accommodate Shumsky’s expansive phrasing, and draws committed playing from his orchestra despite the less-than-ideal circumstances. The slow movement’s oboe solo (whoever played it) deserves mention for its lovely, plangent tone.
This isn’t a first-choice Brahms concerto. The sonic limitations alone disqualify it from that pantheon. But Shumsky’s musicianship commands respect, his refusal to grandstand or sentimentalize speaks to a bygone aesthetic, and the partnership with these particular Hungarians produces moments—especially in the finale—where something authentic breaks through. Worth hearing for anyone who cares about an older school of violin playing, one that prized beauty of tone and musical intelligence over flashy virtuosity.
A noble effort, compromised by circumstance but never by intention.
