Better With the Baton Than With the Bow
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
Sooner or later, they all get the bug – or rather, many of them do. Musicians such as pianists and violinists decide they want to conduct, and sometimes they can get their way. In Hollywood, they claim that every actor wants to direct. Well, a good many instrumentalists want to conduct. And not just instrumentalists – Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Placido Domingo are two singers who have taken up the baton. Would they have been allowed to do so if they weren’t famous singers? What an impertinent question.
Itzhak Perlman, the superstar violinist, has conducted for several years, and he has done some of that conducting before the New York Philharmonic. He started another guest stint with them on Wednesday evening. When he conducts, he tends to bring his violin, as one and all seem to expect. “So, you want to conduct, Itzhak? Let’s hear some fiddlin’.” Something similar might be said about Philippe Entremont. On Sunday night, the renowned French pianist led the Munich Symphony Orchestra at the Metropolitan Museum. The audience was happy to hear him conduct an overture and a symphony – but they got a piano concerto (conducted from the keyboard), too.
On Wednesday night with the Philharmonic, Mr. Perlman played two pieces by Mozart (while conducting with his bow and left hand, when they happened to be free). These pieces were the Adagio in E major, K. 261, and the Rondo in C major, K. 373. Mozart wrote the Adagio as a substitute for the slow movement in one of his violin concertos (No. 5); he wrote the Rondo as a stand-alone piece. You might say that Mr. Perlman played two-thirds of a concerto – all he was missing was a first movement.
And how did he play? While fiddling, Mr. Perlman has often seemed a shadow of his former self in recent seasons, but he can still conjure up that self – and he did so in the Adagio. He delivered some beautiful playing, replete with Perlmanesque touches. We heard that fat tone in the lower register – a tone so wide it can seem like an eight-lane highway. Mr. Perlman was a little Romantic for Mozart, and some of his portamento was questionable. But this violinist has always been a legitimate Mozartean. He lent the Adagio a notable plangency. Unfortunately, he made a couple of bad slips in the cadenza, terribly exposed.
More unfortunate was his playing of the Rondo – not nearly as good as his treatment of the Adagio. Mr. Perlman suffered very poor intonation, and conveyed a general impression of weakness. He seemed unready. To say that this performance was not up to his standards, or unworthy of him, is too mild. Mr. Perlman must ask himself some hard questions about whether he’s willing to do what it takes to keep playing the violin, in public.We all accept some slippage in great musicians – particularly from singers (whose instruments are hopelessly physical). But an aging soprano singing an aria roughly but sincerely is different from what Mr. Perlman did with that rondo.
Next, Mr. Perlman turned to Schubert – to a symphony, the composer’s Symphony No. 3. Here, Mr. Perlman acquitted himself decently. The first movement was reasonably clear and reasonably well-defined. The orchestra was not exactly a tight unit, however, and the clarinetist had a few intonation problems himself.
With the second movement – the Allegretto – there was nothing wrong. But there was nothing especially right, either: This playing was bland, indifferent, without spark or spirit.This was odd from a musician – Mr. Perlman – so musical and charismatic. The same was true of the third movement, the Menuetto, which was not wrong, not disgraceful, but undistinguished. At these prices, and with these reputations, Itzhak Perlman and the New York Philharmonic should not be so ho-hum.
The last movement of Schubert’s Symphony No. 3 – marked Presto – is perhaps better known and loved than the symphony as a whole. At this point, conductor and orchestra woke up a bit, which was gratifying.
The second half of the concert was given over to Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4 in F minor. If you were in the audience, and did not have high hopes for this effort, you could not be faulted. What you were faced with was a superstar violinist in an ultrafamiliar symphony – one that great conductors have conducted thousands of times. “Vanity of vanities,” you might have thought. (“And worse – a waste of time.”)
But no: Mr. Perlman gave a fine reading of the Tchaikovsky Fourth. He showed nuances of rhythm and phrasing; his tempos were sensible; he wove the sections of the symphony together, not leaving it an episodic hash (as sometimes happens). Mr. Perlman was able to transmit some of his own musicality to this large group of fellow musicians.
And technically, this account was plenty respectable: The pizzicato third movement – the Scherzo – started together, and more or less stayed together, which was a minor miracle. The Finale raced accurately and pleasingly, and Mr. Perlman did not dawdle in the slower portions of this movement, which was smart. He passed a basic test: Under him, it was possible to listen to the Tchaikovsky Fourth once again – and even to enjoy it.
I wrote in a review published Tuesday that, as Philippe Entremont conducted that Munich orchestra, you lost the sense of listening to a big pianist playing at conductor: You were listening to a real conductor (apart from the question of how good he was). So it was with Mr. Perlman: Here was not just a celebrity getting his way in the music business; here was a conductor, doing his job. If that seems like faint praise, simply know that it could be fainter.
A final, particular note, about a Philharmonic member: The oboe has a lot to do in the Tchaikovsky Fourth – and a fair amount to do in the Schubert Third, as a matter of fact – and Sherry Sylar handled her responsibilities ably. The Philharmonic lost a very fine oboist when Joseph Robinson retired at the end of last season; Ms. Sylar does not leave that absence too glaring.
Mr. Perlman will conduct the Philharmonic on October 28 & 29 at Avery Fisher Hall (Lincoln Center, 212-875-5656).