If post-war Russian music had a Renaissance man, it was surely Rudolf Barshai – virtuoso viola player, member of two outstanding quartets, founder of a famous orchestra and great conductor. Although he did not compose, he was an arranger of extraordinary skill.

Britain did not wake up to Barshai until he started coming here in the early 1960s with his hand-picked Moscow Chamber Orchestra. The little band was of such quality that on its very first visit, recordings were made by both EMI and Decca. By then, Barshai was already well into the second phase of his career.

Born a century ago, he started out on the violin. ‘My first teacher Alexei Ivanovich Loiko took the violin and started to play,’ he told the editor of his memoirs, Bernd Feuchtner. ‘I was enchanted by this sound. I understood everything immediately. I wanted to learn to play music. I had to become a musician. This was my goal. Thus my childhood came to an end.’

He practised morning and night, completing a seven-year course in two years. At the Moscow Conservatory, the Auer pupil Lev Zeitlin offered to teach him, saying: ‘You must play Bach all the time, throughout your life. If you can play everything but cannot play Bach’s sonatas, then you are good for nothing.’ Zeitlin became a father figure, caring for him when the conservatory was evacuated in the war.

‘I also studied with the legendary Abram Ilich Yampolsky – not for long enough, but he gave me absolutely unforgettable advice.’ Violinists Rostislav Dubinsky and Leonid Kogan introduced them, and when ‘Lenya’ Kogan needed to play in a quartet for his graduation, Yampolsky asked Barshai to organise it. Barshai took the viola part and Rostropovich was cellist.

Later, Barshai started a regular quartet led by Dubinsky. Rostropovich and the second violin did not last long, and by 1947 Barshai’s first wife, Nina, was playing second, while Valentin Berlinsky had begun a 60-year career as the cellist. They became the Moscow Philharmonic Quartet.

When they had learnt Shostakovich’s First Quartet, Barshai phoned the composer and asked if they could play it to him. It was the start of a close friendship with his musical hero. While rehearsing the Piano Quintet with the composer at the piano, Barshai made a wrong entry in the finale which so delighted Shostakovich that he wrote it into the score.

The Moscow Philharmonic Quartet made two beautiful Mozart records and played at the 1953 funerals of Prokofiev and Stalin, but the Barshais were on their way out. (As the Borodin Quartet from 1955, the group found fame but imported mannerisms into Shostakovich’s music which Barshai would not have countenanced.)

Meanwhile, Barshai was becoming known as a viola soloist, worthy to play string trios with Kogan and Rostropovich. He joined the crack Tchaikovsky Quartet, led by Yulian Sitkovetsky (1925-58), whose fatal cancer diagnosis led to its dissolution in 1956 – but not before superb Beethoven and Shostakovich had been recorded.

Hyperactive Barshai had already founded the ensemble which would ensure his immortality. Chamber orchestras – pioneered after the First World War by Adolf Busch, Anthony Bernard, Hermann Abendroth, Edwin Fischer, Paul Sacher and others – had not yet reached Russia. Fresh impetus had come from London, Stuttgart, New York and Rome. ‘We made a list of musicians and phoned them one by one. I told them that the rehearsal period would be unknown. There would be no money.’ Working at night, 15 recruits gelled into the Moscow Chamber Orchestra (MCO), setting new standards, attracting composers such as Lokshin and Weinberg and soloists such as the Oistrakhs, the Kogans, Gilels and Richter. Tatiana Nikolaeva was its harpsichordist.

Following its British debut concert in London, the MCO’s performances of Britten’s Simple Symphony and Barshai’s ‘virtuoso transcription’ of Prokofiev’s Visions fugitives were singled out by The Times. For the Bath Festival, Menuhin wanted them to join the resident orchestra in a performance of Tippett’s Concerto for Double String Orchestra, but the Russian musicians were unimpressed until Tippett began rehearsing them. Barshai took over as conductor for the EMI recording, which still sounds perfect, as do the Prokofiev pieces on the same disc.

With Menuhin, Barshai played and recorded Mozart’s Sinfonia concertante, K364, which for me began a lifelong love of the viola. For Decca, the MCO set down spiffing Vivaldi, Hindemith and Bartók’s Divertimento.

Later MCO EMI discs include Telemann and Corelli. ‘We started with Italian and German Baroque music and slowly proceeded to Mozart,’ Barshai recalled. ‘At Mozart we stopped for one and a half years to understand his style in its essence.’ A magnificent Russian Mozart symphony cycle, replete with repeats, was crowned with a magnificent Jupiter; but No 40 in G minor, done for EMI with a bracing opening movement, was fatally slowed down when it acquired its repeat on Melodiya, a rare Barshai miscalculation. A splendid Beethoven cycle lacked only the Ninth.

The greatest honour of Barshai’s life was conducting the semi-private premiere of Shostakovich’s 14th Symphony, followed by the official Leningrad and Moscow outings (after 60 rehearsals, according to Galina Vishnevskaya, who sang in two of the performances). I was at the memorable MCO concert at Southwark Cathedral, London, the following year (on July 13, 1970), when the symphony followed Bach’s The Art of Fugue. The world premiere Russian studio recording from 1970 (with the MCO and Barshai, 3/71) is available on YouTube, and several live alternatives exist.

Eventually, in 1977, fed up with being terrorised by Goskoncert jobsworths, Barshai had to quit Russia. He was made an unperson there, with his name removed from his LPs, and did not return until 1993, when he was welcomed as an honoured visitor. He became well known for Mahler, making his own completion of the 10th, and essayed large choral works such as Beethoven’s Missa solemnis and Verdi’s Requiem.

His viola recordings are legendary – I particularly commend Bach’s Chaconne and Hindemith’s Sonata for solo viola, Op 25 No 1. But virtually all his records have something going for them. Exceptions for me are his inflations of Shostakovich’s quartets, even though the composer approved them.

Barshai’s career represented a constant pursuit of perfection, which led one UK orchestra to dub him ‘Doctor No’. Perhaps ‘Doctor Yes’ would be fairer.

Recommended Recording

Shostakovich Complete Symphonies

Soloists; Moscow Choral Academy, WDR Chorus and Symphony Orchestra / Rudolf Barshai (Brilliant Classics)

This set (recorded in Cologne, 1992-2000) is a monument to the most important friendship of Barshai’s life. For the crucial 13th and 14th, splendidly authentic soloists are imported, plus a Russian male choir for the 13th. The WDR SO, clearly searchingly rehearsed, plays up to – and beyond – its reputation. There are good notes by David Doughty. Urgently recommended.