Oscar Shumsky was a Russian (most people would say American) violinist, violist,
conductor, and teacher born (in Philadelphia) on March 23, 1917. He had a long and busy career during which he
almost completely stopped concertizing in favor of teaching. It has been said that Otokar Sevcik had over
5,000 students over the span of a greater-than sixty-year teaching career. Shumsky had lots of students but I’m pretty
sure it wasn’t more than five thousand.
It has also been said of Shumsky that he had an un-compromising,
opinionated personality – in the style of Berl Senofsky. Shumsky began to study the violin at age
three - one source says age 4 - with Albert Meiff. He first appeared with orchestra
at age seven with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Leopold Stokowski on the
podium, playing Mozart’s fifth concerto – known as the Turkish concerto. At age 8 he began to study privately with
Leopold Auer in New York. Three years
later (1928) he entered the Curtis Institute where he continued to study with
Auer and later on (beginning in 1930) with Efrem Zimbalist. He made his New York debut in 1934. He was 17 years old. He graduated from Curtis in 1936 but continued to study privately with Zimbalist until 1938. He joined the NBC Symphony under the
ill-tempered conductor Arturo Toscanini in 1939. He was the youngest member of the orchestra
and sat in the second stand of the first violins. That same year, he also joined the Primrose
Quartet as first violinist – William Primrose was also a member of the NBC
Symphony. At the time, many top-flight
New York musicians had become members of either the NBC Symphony or the New
York Philharmonic because solo work was scarce.
From 1941, he served in the Navy, playing as one of the orchestral
soloists and playing in the Navy string quartet with cellist Bernard
Greenhouse, violist Emanuel Vardi, and David Stone (please see comments below). After the war, Shumsky was featured on weekly
radio programs on NBC, as were a few other violinists of the time. However, a very reliable source says that this broadcast activity actually occurred in 1939, before the war. It may have been both, before and after. Whether any of those programs survive in
recordings is anybody’s guess. Shumsky
also worked as a studio musician, leading the RCA and the Columbia Symphonies
as concertmaster on various occasions. Shumsky
taught at the Curtis Institute (1961 to 1965), the Peabody Conservatory (from
1942), Yale University (from 1975), and the Juilliard School (from 1953.) I do not know how long he taught at each particular school. On December 15, 1956, he appeared with the New York Philharmonic playing the Beethoven concerto. Leonard Bernstein was on the podium. Shumsky made his conducting debut in 1959. As far as I know, he never conducted any
major orchestras. His commercial
discography includes Rode’s 24 Caprices, Beethoven’s concerto, Brahms’
concerto, two Mozart concertos (4 and 5), three Bach concertos, the Glazunov
concerto, the complete Mozart Sonatas, the complete Brahms Hungarian Dances, and
the Bach solo Partitas and Sonatas. He
also recorded with the Primrose Quartet and those recordings are still
available. Here is a YouTube video of one
of his recorded performances. It is the
famous Richard Strauss sonata – the one responsible for the attack on Jascha
Heifetz (which resulted in his broken arm.) Glenn Gould is the accompanist. Shumsky’s students include Steven Staryk, Stanley Ritchie, Guillermo Figueroa, and Ida
Kavafian. Among many other violins,
Shumsky played (and owned) the 1715 Stradivarius known as the Pierre Rode
Stradivarius. The violin was inherited
by Shumsky’s two sons who sold it to Tokuji Munetsugu in 2004. According to at least one source, this violin
was subsequently played (at least for a while) by Ryu Goto, brother of the
famous violinist, Midori. Shumsky died
(in New York) on July 24, 2000, at age 83.
