July 27, 2000

Oscar Shumsky, Violinist in the Grand Romantic Tradition, Dies at 83
By ALLAN KOZINN

Oscar Shumsky, a violinist and conductor who was renowned for the beauty
of his sound and the luminous musicality of his performances of Bach,
Mozart and Brahms, died on Monday at his home in Rye, N.Y.  He was 83.

Mr. Shumsky was one of the last students of Leopold Auer, the legendary
Russian violinist who also taught Jascha Heifetz, Mischa Elman and Efrem
Zimbalist. When Auer died in 1930, Zimbalist took over Shumsky's training
and reinforced the grandly Romantic, communicative interpretive style that
was the principal hallmark of the early 20th-century Russian violin school.

Although he never became a household name on the order of Heifetz, he
commanded tremendous respect among musicians throughout his career, not
only for his solo performances but also for the passion he brought to
chamber music and orchestral playing.  That quality was something he
passed on to many of his students, who included Eugene Drucker and Philip
Setzer of the Emerson String Quartet; Ida Kavafian; Eliot Chapo, a former
concertmaster with the New York Philharmonic.  and Guillermo Figueroa, the
concertmaster of the New York City Ballet Orchestra.

Mr. Shumsky was born in Philadelphia on March 23, 1917, and began studying
the violin with Albert Meiff when he was 4.  When he was 8, he played a
concerto at a Philadelphia Orchestra youth concert conducted by Leopold
Stokowski, and that same year he began his studies with Auer, at first
privately in New York and later at the Curtis Institute of Music in
Philadelphia.

Mr.  Shumsky studied at Curtis until 1936, and he continued to
work privately with Zimbalist until 1938.  By then, he was a seasoned
professional, having performed the Brahms and Elgar concertos with the
Philadelphia Orchestra on tour in 1932.

In 1939 he joined Toscanini's orchestra, the NBC Symphony, where he met
the violist William Primrose.  Mr.  Shumsky became the first violinist in
the Primrose Quartet, which made several classic recordings (among them the
Brahms Quartets) in the early 1940's.  In the 1950's, he began playing the
viola both in chamber performances and in recitals, and he often included
unaccompanied works for both instruments on his programs.  He also took up
conducting in the 1950's, and made his podium debut in Canada, with the
National Festival Orchestra in 1959.  Other orchestras he conducted over
the years include the Westchester Symphony, the San Francisco Symphony and
the Mostly Mozart Orchestra.

By the 1970's, Mr.  Shumsky's performing schedule had dwindled as a taste
for modern, streamlined interpretations eclipsed the Romantic style in
which he specialized.  Nevertheless, he became a revered teacher on the
faculties of the Juilliard School, the Curtis Institute and Yale
University.

He is survived by two sons, Eric, of Chicago, and Noel, of Connecticut.

Copyright 2000 The New York Times Company