Schubert, Franck, Foss, Kreisler: Itzhak Perlman, violin, in recital with Rohan De Silva, piano, Zellerbach Hall, Berkeley, Calif.  30.01.2007 (HS)

 

 

 

 

At 61, Itzhak Perlman may not be oldest practicing violin soloist on the world stage. But with so many younger stars out there, and with his gray hair, he's definitely an elder statesman, perhaps even a legend.

The golden tone is still there. He still shapes a phrase so that it has its own little story to tell. Whatever he plays, he has a clear idea of where it's going. Unlike some of his younger colleagues, he doesn't try to push and pull at the music to make it be something it isn't. He carefully tends the music like a flower and lets its bloom before our ears.

So why did his recital Tuesday, under the auspices of Cal Performances at the University of California's Zellerbach Hall, leave me less than satisfied?

Partly, it was De Silva, who took his assignment as accompanist to mean he should recede into the background, play all the notes, and leave the heavy interpretive lifting to Perlman.

Perhaps it was the program itself. The only piece on it that could be deemed remotely meaty was the Franck Sonata in A major. The lightweight opener, Schubert's Rondeau Brilliant in B minor, and the Coplandesque Three American Pieces, by Lukas Foss, neither show these composers at their best nor do they give the violinist anything nearly as rewarding as similar work by composers better suited to it.

The Schubert had its moments, but it got to be repetitious. It's in the mode of showpieces that Paganini or Wienawski tossed off with abandon. The Foss piece, an early work, dates from 1944, before Foss explored the edgier material that made his name. It's in the open-harmony, highly diatonic mode that Aaron Copland invented and perfected. And he did it so much better, as did Roy Harris and Walter Piston and Virgil Thomson and even Leonard Bernstein.

Best was the Franck, one of the minor gems of the violin literature. Perlman caught the magic in the wispy opening phrases and the more delicate moments in the third movement Recitative—Fantasia. The grandeur of the big tune in the finale had real nobility.

After the lightweight Foss, there should have been a big finale, perhaps something like the Copland Duo or the lushly Romantic Samuel Barber Violin Sonata. But no. "Other works to be announced from the stage," said the printed booklet, and we got a grab-bag of seven bonbons, mostly by and for Fritz Kreisler.

Perlman made a show of selecting the pieces on the fly, drawing a laugh as he first studied a computer printout of works he had played in Berkeley for the past 20 years. "If you had been here 20 years ago, I wouldn't want you to get a repeat," he announced. The jokes kept coming. Introducing Tchaikovsky's Chanson sans parole, he said the composer wrote it for a friend who had been sent to prison for a long, long time.

It was like having Itzhak in your living room, riffling through a stack of music to find something to play for fun, bantering as he fiddled. And some were little gems, including Kreisler transcriptions of a Gluck aria (which he did not identify) and the famous Spanish Dance by Manuel de Falla.

But in the end, it was like having a nice appetizer, a hearty soup and then a bunch of snacks. Much of the audience lapped it up. From a violinist of Perlman's stature, I would have preferred a real meal.

 

 

Harvey Steiman