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Although he is almost certainly the most famous violinist of his generation, I have never really lent as critical an ear to Perlman as I should have (much to my embarrassment!). What do you folks think? Is he in the same conversation as Heifetz, Milstein, Szyring, Oistrakh, et. al.?
-Bob
Follow Ups:
I've linked to Perlman's violin rendition of Dvorak's Songs My Mother Taught Me on YouTube, fascinatingly coupled with tenor Richard Crooks' wonderful recording. Both are hard to top.
On the whole, my favorite violinist is Zino Francescatti: Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, and Mendelssohn VCs, and French violin music. I like Heifetz very much on a number of things, too, though not his recording of the Beethoven VC, which is much too fast.
But it varies with the repertoire. Ruggierro Ricci did my favorite recording of the Sibelius VC with Fjelstad and the LSO. I have found Jean-Jacques Kantorow's recordings to be quite nice, too.
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"A fool and his money are soon parted." --- Thomas Tusser
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Absolutely he belongs in the company of the greatest ever violinists, no question about it. And not just the technique, but the musicianship as well. I heard him live in recital in the late 80's, and that is still probably the best recital I have ever heard live on any instrument. I have had the pleasure of accompanying him in more than one orchestra as well, and can attest that he is a wonderful musician. I definitely agree with the folks who love his Brahms and Bartok recordings.
. . . by Lisa Batiashvili and a few of the other babe violinists.
Seriously though, there's nothing wrong with Perlman's playing. I do agree with John below that Perlman is far from the most searching interpreter, for all of his technical brilliance. (And even with regard to technique, there are some surprising lapses in his recordings: check out the very opening of his recording of the Kreutzer Sonata with Ashkenazy - those double stops are pretty cavalierly tuned compared to a lot of other recordings.)
His Bartok concerto was my introduction to the work, and still one of the great recordings of it, I think. It was reissued on CD, but seems to be unobtainable now.
In terms of technical facility, he is near the top ranking of the recorded era, and might in certain aspects even surpass Heifetz (heresy, heresy).
Another facet that is often not appreciated is his remarkable endurance--he can play a difficult encore after playing a massive concerto, and still sound fresh and play as cleanly as though you were listening to a recording.
The caveats involve his approach to music. I am not the only one to come away feeling that the larger and more consequential the piece, the less his interpretations have to offer. I thought that his Elgar Concerto, an early DG CD, was so superficial and actually clueless that it should not have been released. Zukerman's discing of the Elgar with Barenboim towered over Perlman's release.
I recall a review in The Strad many years ago in which Henry Roth faulted Perlman for clowning and mugging to the audience as he made his way through a live Beethoven Sontata that was musically to say the least unrewarding--at least according to Roth. I don't think Perlman's solo Bach is in the top 6.
Perlman was "Sesame Street"'s violinist just like Mr. Ma was its cellist. For years Perlman's PR apparatus labeled him "The Clown Prince of the Violin," and a mixed blessing indeed that has turned out to be.
That said, his Bazzini is scintillating--could be the best ever--and his Wieniawski is all you can ask for.
Perhaps the greatest "violinist" of the modern era--Heifetz included. But not the greatest musician. Or at least, not the greatest all-around musician.
OK, let me turn the question around on you and all others--who is/was the greatest all-around musician who played the violin of the age of recordings, and who is the greatest all-around musician-violinist of today?
My answers:
Oistrakh & Mütter.
JM
"OK, let me turn the question around on you and all others--who is/was the greatest all-around musician who played the violin of the age of recordings, and who is the greatest all-around musician-violinist of today?"I agree with you regarding Perlman vs. Heifetz...... I personally enjoy Perlman more, he had the most seductive "tone" I've ever heard- It can make a grown man cry. Heifetz had a "tighter" sound, maybe more authoritative, and maybe more "pure", but his playing didn't grab me as much.
Or to state this another way, from an analytical standpoint, Jascha Heifetz was tops, but emotionally, it's Itzhak Perlman. Or yet another way, Heifetz is more like Artur Rubinstein, Perlman more like Vladimir Horowitz.
I think the best violinist on the planet today is Joseph Lendvay. He has somewhat of a "gypsy" pedigree, but maybe the sickest raw talent on the instrument I've heard.
(Pardon the bad video.)
Edits: 11/15/11
nt
be the superior talent in baroque, classical, romantic, 20th century, etc. Is the violin so much easier to master?
That said, I prefer Oistrakh's Beethoven and Brahms more than any other performers. For Bach, however, I go with the consensus favorite, Stern.
I've not read or heard such encomiums about the unmatched technical virtuosity of Perlman; however, Heifetz's is legendary and widely lauded.
Perhaps Perlman's wizardry stands out because his interpretations are, in the main, so uninteresting and uneven?
Heifetz I've always lumped together with Wilhelm Kempff; they provide astonishing performances lacking in warmth. I do find both have provided me a lifetime of pleasure, however, because of the leanness of the relative leanness. Somehow, that allows them to remain fresher than many other more impassioned interpreters.
That's news to me - and Heifetz lumped together with Wilhelm Kempff? I can't imagine two more disparate artists - Heifetz the very definition of brilliance, with Kempff the personification of middle European moderation.
BTW, in the Earl Wild memoirs I've just finished, he devotes a whole chapter (or close to that) to how much he hates Isaac Stern! One of Wild's assertions is that when Stern "saved" Carnegie Hall (Wild is very skeptical about this!), he had a private sound feed built in from the stage to his (Stern's) NYC apartment so that he could "spy" on what people were saying during rehearsals!
I hear great technique and power, but not the emotive power. Same with Kempff. The emotion is there, but it appears to be subsumed. I may not be explaining this very well...
Gee, I find Kempff so, so, .... deep that I feel it in my gut. Certainly not "emotion" in the overt way, but deeply expressive.
Or maybe I've just been married to a Lutheran for too long and this is all the emotion I can tap into ;-)
Oistrakh [either] and Elman.
But still, Heifetz and Kempff do not seem like the same types of musician to me - at least overall, despite that one aspect.
Funny how many musicians did not like Isaac Stern. He was said to defend his position as the dean of American violinists very aggressively, to the detriment of younger American violinists trying to make a career. He was an aggressive, talkative wheeler-dealer who worked hard but also liked to party hard.
As for Earl Wild, it's hard to imagine a more different personality. A soft-spoken, courteous, consummate gentleman, but also someone who did not appreciate being mistreated or disrespected. When he had a bad experience with his Steinway piano and Steinway did not respond to his complaints as he would have liked, he switched to Baldwin and never played a Steinway again. It's easy to see how Wild wouldn't get along with Stern.
Fun challenge:
Overall musician playing violin: can't disagree on Oistrakh, but would nominate Szigeti
Don't think I agree on Mutter. I have been impressed lately with Julia Fischer, but don't know if she has peaked yet. I also think Hilary Hahn will pass them both.
OK, here's a historical puzzler: Szigeti recorded the complete Bach Solo Sonatas and Partitas twice, and in addition recorded quite a few bits and pieces in the 78-rpm age.
Oistrakh: no complete sets and no bits and pieces I can recall.
Funny, isn't that?
JM
Oistrakh did record the G Minor Sonata, BWV 1001. Enjoy it below. (Isn't youtube great?) Before the baroque revival, which reached full bloom in the 1960s, I don't think it was considered essential for every violinist to record all of them. I have a record of Szigeti doing two of them in the 1940s, but I think that was from a radio recital. You can hear him tuning between movements. Ossy Renardy recorded two of them for Decca in 1950.
I think Szeryng's great 1954 set on Odeon had a major impact, and of course a number of great complete sets soon followed that one.
Yup. The Greatest. Ever. And now my new all-time Favorite. Thanks.
And a YT commenter claims that Bach was disfavored in the Soviet Union as a "religious composer." I had never heard that before, but it could be right.
And, technically, the Solo Sonatas (but not the Partitas) are indeed sonatas "da chiesa." Indeed, the C-major solo sonata does have the overall structure of a Mass--but in the sense of describing the Mass as an event, not in the sense of the "Ordinary" Kyrie, etc. musical Mass-setting structure.
The first movement starts with a bell-like tolling, calling people to worship. The second movement starts with a declamatory statement that can be imagined as a Gospel passage, and the elaboration of the fugue can be seen as the sermon. The slow movement is a meditation after Communion. The last movement is a Benediction and "Ite, Missa Est." This is a notion I came up with myself, and have never seen anywhere else. But I think it makes sense because if the movements of a sonata da chiesa were ever played in church, they were played as voluntaries, and not Ordinary.
FWIW & YMMV.
JM
Of course, Oistrakh recorded a number of other Bach pieces, which are all secular, AFAIK (see below). I've never seen the C Major Sonata described as a religious work, but it's certainly an interesting idea.
I have to agree with you on the whole about Perlman. His control of the violin is so complete and so effortless-seeming, sometimes it's almost hard to believe. But I suppose it can seem too effortless at times.
IMO he can do great work even in "large and consequential" pieces, the Brahms and Prokofiev concertos, and his Beethoven sonatas with Ashkenazy, for example. But for me, what will always stand out the most are his Paganini caprices and similar showpieces. His technical mastery is so complete that the virtuoso aspects fade away and the sunny, gentle lyricism, the powerful heroism, or whatever mood the composer wishes to evoke, emerges unimpeded.
I can't agree re Ms. Mutter, though. Her Beethoven concerto with Masur was a mannered, over-the-top embarrassment. Oistrakh, yes. From the Italian baroque to Shostakovich, across an immense range of style and sensibility, he could do almost nothing wrong. Also almost hard to believe.
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