David Oistrakh plays the Spring Sonata, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms and Prokofiev

Exceptional archives footages of David Oistrakh with Lev Oborin and Frida Bauer.

Born in Odessa in 1908, David Oistrakh was one of the greatest violinist of the 20th century. He started to work on the violin with Piotr Stolyarski, who also taught Nathan Milstein and later Oistrakh's own son Igor. From his first recital, at sixteen in Odessa, a rumor spreads throughout the USSR and beyond, that there is a violinist who plays like no one else, whose name is David Oistrakh… In 1937, he wins the First Prize at the Eugène Ysaÿe competition in Belgium, which opened many doors for him. Then began a splendid career which was largely confined to the USSR for a long time: taken hostage, he was authorized to travel abroad only after the death of Stalin.