A Perlman Event
Itzhak Perlman, violin, and Rohan De Silva, piano
Celebrity Series of Boston
November 23, 2014
A Perlman concert is an event. Everybody knows it, including the esteemed
violinist, who is the current undisputed premier artist of the instrument.
Perlman brings a variety of audiences to hear him play. There are, of course, the representatives of
the Jewish/Israeli community who come to hear one of their own. There are also those for whom Perlman
represents the ultimate (and probably last) great violinist of the old, Eastern
European tradition of playing, the kind where schmaltz is not disdained, where playing
a musical line isn’t enough in itself—you have to make it sing, tell a story,
convey an emotion. Rhythm is biological,
not digital. Playing in the emotion-less
style of the 21st century just doesn’t cut it for this
audience. And if you aren’t dramatic,
you might as well step off the stage, you don’t belong on one.
There are those who come to hear Perlman because he
symbolizes empowerment over disability.
Seeing him walk onstage using his crutches, having his violin handed to
him by a concertmaster takes your breath away even before he checks the
already-perfect tuning. And when he
plays—he dances, he flies, and he swings you, his partner, off your feet.
And of course there are those who come to hear Perlman play
because he is such a great musician, his insights into the music are such that
you can only be inspired to understand the greatness behind Beethoven or
Brahms.
He is also a great showman, enjoying his little jokes and
gestures; he enjoys making his audience laugh.
Yesterday afternoon, Itzhak Perlman played his many audiences
almost as well as he played his violin.
He had something for everyone.
Perlman has a mobile chair to take him to his place to the
side of the piano. Technology makes the
entrance less dramatic, but also less painful to watch. Perlman settled in, and the concert began.
The audience was often restless. Sunday afternoons either bring out the dark,
dusky kind of playing you would expect in a Faulkner den, or else the lighter,
afternoon-tea schmaltz you could expect in the lobby of an Austrian
resort. Perlman gave us both.
The Vivaldi with which he opened, Sonata in A Major for
violin and continuo, Opus 2, no. 2, RV 31, unfortunately showed Perlman not
quite at home with the style. The Adagio
recitative was probably the best, allowing Perlman to be a bit more emotive and
dramatic than in the other movements.
The Schumann Fantasiestucke Op. 73, lacked youthful
sparkle. Possibly the piano sounded a
bit thunky, but the playing could have been more expansive, even darker at
times, while still maintaining the embrace of all life that was so
characteristic of Schumann, even at this point in his life, which saw an
outburst of creativity after a period of illness. Originally written for clarinet, Schumann
indicated that Fantasiestucke could also be played on viola or cello—and maybe
that’s the darker sound that I would have wished for, a sound that also would
have allowed brighter points of light.
The Beethoven Sonata in C-minor, Op. 30, no. 2, was another
story altogether. It was Beethoven as
Beethoven should be played. Voraciously,
beautifully, virtuosity alternating with lyricism. The collaboration between Perlman and Rohan De
Silva was wonderful.
The Ravel Sonata No. 2 in G Major was, for me, the highlight
of the afternoon. Influenced by
orientalism as well as by jazz and blues, the sonata shows a working out of harmonies
and rhythms that Ravel would later use in the D Major Piano Concerto (for the
left hand). The sonata expects peak technical prowess from both
instrumentalists, collaboration in color, texture and rhythms that either works
or doesn’t—and yesterday it did. It was
nothing less than marvelous.
Still, not everyone in the audience is a lover of late
Ravel. You could sense the unease of the
audience with the jarring 20th century harmonies. But when Perlman played a Jascha Heiftetz
transcription of a Chopin Mazurka, you could hear a pin drop. This is what they came for, and the audience
imbibed it.
Fritz Kreisler provided the salon music and schmaltz; it
isn’t my cup of tea, but if you’re going to reach every audience member and you
are Perlman, you are going to play the heck out of these pieces, and so he did.
Then came John Williams’ Theme from Schindler’s List. Not a dry eye in the audience for that
one.
There was more, and there could have been more. Following the Ravel, Perlman chose the music
from what he and De Silva brought out with them from backstage. With his customary good-natured humor,
Perlman gave us the concert we came to hear.
He is one of the world’s greatest musicians, showmen and human beings,
and there was love in the air—the way it should be.
It was an event to attend.
© 2014 by Boaz D. Heilman
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