Perlman enthralls Tanglewood audience with Beethoven concerto

August 28, 2004 performance review by Dave Conlin Read

The penultimate concert of the BSO's 2004 Tanglewood season, featuring guest violinist Itzhak Perlman and conductor Charles Dutoit, was a spectacular one and could stand as a model against which to measure such events. The orchestra was superb throughout the long evening and accross the broad musical geography mapped out by, first, Beethoven, then Stravinsky, and finally Ravel, musical explorers who charted courses according to their own celestial reckonings, on a night one could've navigated Stockbridge Bowl under the nigh-full barley moon.

Catching myself humming the Ravel on the way to the parking lot, I thought, this is nuts, we ought to have time to absorb - to just sit with - the exquisite experience of Perlman soloing on Beethoven's Violin Concerto, and the B.S.O.'s masterful playing under the direction of Charles Dutoit.

Watching Perlman make his way to his place near the podium, with leg braces and metal crutches, you can't escape being pre-disposed to love the man and whatever he plays, regardless of what you've seen or heard.

His performance was riveting, with a visual component almost as compelling as the aural. Dressed in a white tunic and black trousers, his Ruthian torso in mid-season form and with a shorter haircut, Perlman's facial expressions are manifestly emotional. During one sublime passage, he looked like he could've been carrying a newborn child. Also striking was that his bowing arm looked boneless, so supple was his technique.

The audience of nearly 10,000 wouldn't stop applauding until Maestro Perlman made three curtain calls.

The stagehands were busy during intermission as significant additions were made, including two harps, and two pianos, a grand and an upright. Under the animated direction of Charles Dutoit, dressed in black slacks and black open-collared shirt, the Boston Symphony were simply brilliant on Stravinsky's "Petrushka" and Ravel's "La Valse."

Save for the next day's finale with Beethoven's Ninth, closing this concert with a choreographic poem and music from a ballet provided an interesting symmetry to the Tanglewood season that began nine weeks earlier with the Mark Morris Dance Group's Tanglewood Music Center residency. Hoorah for Tanglewood, and here's hoping for more from the world of dance!