Review on Perlman’s Recital (22/8/2002)
I really enjoy his playing.
His
violin really speaks and sings under his hands. The music is so natural,
flowing and continuous. The phrases seem ever-going, with much help from his
wonderful control of bow weight. Though he’s hand is too big for a violin, the
intonation is still nicely controlled. (Obviously in the Beethoven Sonata he’s
using equal temperament with the piano. And in the encore pieces the chromatics
are so difficult for him.) The tone is so sweet and unique.
The
pianist was great too. He’s a very clean player. He’s so sensitive with the
rubatos of the soloist. He’s control upon tone colour is marvelous. (He can
even imitate the different colours of the 4 strings on Perlman’s violin.)
This
time I was sitting in the middle block on balcony. I was lucky because usually
violinists’ F holes face a little bit to the left, but Perlman’s face the
central. (May be it’s because, as with his disability he can’t move too much
away from the pianist for the sake of better eye contact.) I think the unique
sound from Perlman’s playing is much doing with his disability and other things
which he was born with. His weighty arms and his sitting playing position help
him to produce a very relax yet solid bow touch on the strings – on every
different points on the bow, so that up and down bows doesn’t mean as much to
him as to us. (When we playing standing, we have the chance to reduce the body
weight transfer to the violin with our feet and muscles at our backs, but
Perlman can only do this with his back. So, relatively speaking the total weight
he’s putting on the violin is generally more then we do.) His thick fingers
provide him cushions which enable him to produce a very round sound on the
finger board. His thick shoulders and chest can be nice cushion of his violin
for giving a round tone, as well as providing him a good extra resonance
cavity.
But
Perlman’s body shape, on the other hand, creates tremendous problems when
playing. Yet he manages to overcome them with his own tricks. He’s arms are too
thick that he can’t move his left arm as freely as others when changing
strings. So what he does is to turn his violin around his shoulder. (Thanks for
his big round shoulders!) He actually does this also in places when he needs a
brighter colour on G-string. (Normally we try not to alter the violin’s
position on our shoulders too much, as the tone colour will be too difficult to
control. And when we need a brighter, more soloistic sound on G, we might hv to
raise the violin and our right arm hv to ‘play on the C string’s position’, and
Perlman does these too.) His heavy right arm makes it too hard (unnatural) for
him to reduce his bow weight. So in places of staccato and with soft dynamic
markings, he hv to hold the bow with fewer fingers (Result: having much lesser
control on the bow! Dangerous!)/ lift up the arm/ both. (This is the most
dangerous case for, without accurate measurements, the bow will slide away very
easily.) But in places of fast staccato it will be really hard to play with
only 1 or 2 fingers holding the bow, or it’s impossible to reduce too much
weight from the arm, (some weight must be input so that the bow can bounce by
itself) so it may sound to harsh, especially on E string (thinnest).
I
know that there are too many unnecessary mistakes in this concert. But should
we judge? I don’t think because of the money we paid for the concert, we are in
the right position to judge. I won’t feel comfortable to say such things for
I’m not a violinist as good as Perlman, that my mistakes are far more serious
and obvious then his. As long as he, or every other musician, is better then
me, there’s always something to learn. If he really reserved something in his
concert and wasn’t doing the best just because he’s own expectation for the
audience is low, he’ll bear his own consequences. (e.g. in reviews) But on the
other hand, as HK people, our reflection is that we should ‘work more and speak
less’ in order to proof to others that we are worthy – and not just enjoying
soaking/ got used to be soaked in an atmosphere of feeling of superior when
being picky on others. Good music has to be made by being picky on oneself, but
not others.
Anyway,
Perlman is still one of my favorite violinists.