Klarinet Archive - Posting 000569.txt from 2001/04

From: Tony@-----.uk (Tony Pay)
Subj: [kl] Perlman and 'metamusic'
Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2001 17:53:14 -0400

Neil Leupold recently posted a wonderful report of a Perlman concert.
Since the subject of 'meta-music', and what that might include, has also
been under discussion, I'd like to put forward the notion that what the
reviewer in this report was commenting on can be thought of as belonging
to that category. Perlman clearly did here something both courageous
and important, deserving of great respect. Moreover it was something
belonging to the music, yet in a way, belonging to a situation beyond
it.

However, I have my own story to tell about Perlman, who is of course a
superlative violinist. I tell this story here in order to make our
picture of him more complete, rather than to challenge what has already
been said about him. The story also illustrates something about music,
or meta-music, that I think is very important.

A few years ago, Perlman gave a series of concerts with the Philharmonia
Orchestra in London, playing most of the standard repertoire: Beethoven,
Brahms, Mendelssohn, Tchaikowsky and so on. I was delighted to have
been asked to play guest principal in the orchestra, because there are
wonderful opportunities for the clarinet in all these pieces -- in a
way, more opportunities than I'd bargained for, I found, in the last
movement of the Barber:-)

One of the concerts included the Sibelius concerto. This work is very
dear to my heart, perhaps partly because I once fell in love (as it
happened, uselessly) with a beautiful girl, still a friend of mine, who
won an important competition playing it. But quite apart from that, I'd
have to say that it's one of the masterpieces of the violin concerto
repertoire. The slow movement is particularly profound.

There is a masterstroke in that movement towards the end, when both
orchestra and violin begin together in crescendo, the orchestra playing
the main melody; and, as this crescendo develops, the violin is
progressively and inevitably submerged, so that when the full orchestral
climax occurs, there is the sense of a universal statement; a sort of
total outpouring of emotion beyond anything personal.

But then, miraculously, as the orchestra subsides after resolving the
shattering climactic dissonance, the solo violin is revealed again, in a
wonderful little ascending scale with a sigh at the end, as though to
say that the truth of the world is both universal and particular.

Or so I think.

Anyway, when we rehearsed this bit in the Festival Hall on the afternoon
of the concert, Perlman said something to the conductor, whose name I
don't remember -- he was just a competent someone who came with the
deal, I suppose. This conductor then told the orchestra, "Crescendo
only to mezzo-forte at that point, ladies and gentlemen!"

I couldn't believe it. "I beg your pardon?" I found myself saying.

"Take the crescendo only to mezzo-forte," he repeated.

"But, Sibelius writes 'tutta forza' for the orchestra at the top of
that crescendo," I said.

"Yes, but then you can't hear the violin."

"Well, that's Sibelius's idea, isn't it? What else could 'tutta forza'
mean?"

"Just keep it down there for Mr Perlman," I was told.

Mr Perlman himself kept his back firmly to the orchestra throughout this
exchange.

Perlman, you see, has always to be the centre of the audience's
attention. A very eminent conductor friend of mine said that though
he'd worked once with Perlman, he wouldn't again. "No point," he said.

And another friend who has recorded chamber works with Perlman told me
that Perlman has the final decision over the balance in the final edit,
regardless of what his colleagues think, because he's had that written
into his contract. The violin part is therefore usually placed well
forward in Perlman's recordings, and his colleagues aren't always happy
with the musical results. But, so what?

As I said before, Perlman is a wonderful violinist, and even a wonderful
and inspiring musician. His struggle against his disability is likewise
inspiring.

Perhaps he's not always so strong on the 'meta-music', though.

Tony
--
_________ Tony Pay
|ony:-) 79 Southmoor Rd Tony@-----.uk
| |ay Oxford OX2 6RE GMN artist: http://www.gmn.com
tel/fax 01865 553339

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