Last night at the New York Philharmonic, there were red bowties and pretty dresses. It looked like New Year\u2019s Eve. What was the deal? The Philharmonic was staging a gala, on the second day of December\u2014like an Opening Night gala. Opening Night was back in October. But as two Philharmonic board members explained, speaking to the audience last night, the orchestra wanted to be sure that \u201ceverything was all right\u201d\u2014pandemic-wise, I think\u2014before holding a gala.<\/p>\n
The program consisted of crowd-pleasers, or favorites. On the podium was the Philharmonic\u2019s music director, Jaap van Zweden. The curtain-raiser was a curtain-raiser, i.e., the overture to Mozart\u2019s opera The Marriage of Figaro<\/i>. How do you want this overture to go? You want it to be taut, springy, and delightsome. It was, pretty much.<\/p>\n
Often, you hear this overture coming from a pit, in a big opera house. Last night, we heard it from the stage of Alice Tully Hall, which is a chamber hall, more or less. What an advantage, for the listener.<\/p>\n
The program continued with a Classical symphony, namely Prokofiev\u2019s: his Symphony No. 1 in D<\/small>, nicknamed the \u201cClassical.\u201d Such an ingenious piece. How do you want it to go? Well, like the Figaro<\/i> overture, to be honest. You want the symphony taut, springy, and delightsome. And bracing. Which it was.<\/p>\n
Afterward, as the audience applauded, the woman behind me said to her seatmate, \u201cHe\u2019s leaving.\u201d \u201cWhat?\u201d said the other person. \u201cHe\u2019s leaving,\u201d she repeated. She was referring to Jaap van Zweden, who is leaving the Philharmonic after the 2023\u201324 season. He will have had a very short tenure: six years. A crying shame.<\/p>\n
Itzhak Perlman took the stage, to play a concerto with the orchestra: Bruch\u2019s Violin Concerto No. 1 in G<\/small> minor. When did Perlman first learn this concerto? When he was ten? (He appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show<\/i> when he was thirteen, in 1958.) When did Van Zweden\u2014also a violinist\u2014first learn it? Also ten?<\/p>\n
Perlman is now in his mid-seventies. I once said to a famous violinist in an interview\u2014I think he was about forty at the time\u2014\u201cViolin-playing is a young man\u2019s game, isn\u2019t it?\u201d The violinist denied it and mildly took offense. He might have been doing so because our interview was in front of an audience. I wonder what he would have said in private. I heard Milstein when I was a kid, and he was about the age Perlman is now. I remember him as masterly.<\/p>\n
So is Perlman, needless to say. I will not really review him. He, like Milstein, is one of the greatest violinists who ever lived. He did some Perlmanesque things last night. It is always a pleasure and a privilege to see him. Certainly the audience thought so, rising to its feet the moment he finished.<\/p>\n
Let me give you an aside: For the opening two pieces, no one onstage had a mask on (that I noticed). For the Bruch, everyone did (except for the wind players). That included the soloist and the conductor. It must have been a courtesy\u2014or a requirement, or both\u2014for Perlman.<\/p>\n
Van Zweden concluded the program\u2014the printed program\u2014with Strauss the Younger\u2019s immortal waltz, On the Beautiful Blue Danube<\/i>. He was stylish\u2014Van Zweden, I mean, though Strauss is too, of course. I said \u201cthe printed program\u201d because there was an encore: Brahms\u2019s Hungarian Dance in G<\/small> minor.<\/p>\n
\u201cAh, but there are two\u2014two famous ones\u2014in that key!\u201d you say. You are a sharpie. Yes, this was the Hungarian Dance No. 5.<\/p>\n
I have a memory of Lorin Maazel. He, too, conducted this piece as an encore with the Philharmonic. After he did something delicious with rhythm, a woman in the audience giggled with glee. Still conducting, Maazel turned around toward the audience, with a bemused smile.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A gala concert by the New York Philharmonic.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1258,"featured_media":121269,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_eb_attr":"","advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","wds_primary_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[472],"tags":[760,637,640],"dispatch-city":[],"acf":{"participants":{"simple_value_formatted":"","value_formatted":null,"value":null,"field":{"ID":0,"key":"field_65fb0bff29d65","label":"Participants","name":"participants","aria-label":"","prefix":"acf","type":"user","value":null,"menu_order":0,"instructions":"","required":0,"id":"","class":"","conditional_logic":0,"parent":"group_651c53615a3f7","wrapper":{"width":"","class":"","id":""},"role":"","return_format":"object","multiple":1,"allow_null":0,"bidirectional":0,"bidirectional_target":[],"_name":"participants","_valid":1}},"featured_image_credits":{"simple_value_formatted":"Itzhak Perlman. Photo: \u00a9 New York Phillharmonic.<\/i>","value_formatted":"Itzhak Perlman. Photo: \u00a9 New York Phillharmonic.<\/i>","value":"Itzhak Perlman. Photo: \u00a9 New York Phillharmonic.<\/i>","field":{"ID":0,"key":"field_651c536113a8e","label":"Featured Image Credits","name":"featured_image_credits","aria-label":"","prefix":"acf","type":"wysiwyg","value":null,"menu_order":1,"instructions":"","required":0,"id":"","class":"","conditional_logic":0,"parent":"group_651c53615a3f7","wrapper":{"width":"","class":"","id":""},"default_value":"","tabs":"all","toolbar":"basic","media_upload":0,"delay":0,"_name":"featured_image_credits","_valid":1}},"enable_paywall":{"simple_value_formatted":"No","value_formatted":false,"value":0,"field":{"ID":0,"key":"field_66009169342f2","label":"Enable Paywall","name":"enable_paywall","aria-label":"","prefix":"acf","type":"true_false","value":null,"menu_order":2,"instructions":"","required":0,"id":"","class":"","conditional_logic":0,"parent":"group_651c53615a3f7","wrapper":{"width":"","class":"","id":""},"message":"","default_value":0,"ui":0,"ui_on_text":"","ui_off_text":"","_name":"enable_paywall","_valid":1}}},"author_meta":{"display_name":"Jay Nordlinger","author_link":"https:\/\/newcriterion.com\/author\/jay-nordlinger\/"},"featured_img":"https:\/\/newcriterion.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/PerlmanBanner_EDP_2520x936-300x116.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/newcriterion.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/PerlmanBanner_EDP_2520x936.jpg","coauthors":[],"tax_additional":{"categories":{"linked":["Dispatch<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Dispatch<\/span>"]},"tags":{"linked":["Classical Music<\/a>","Music<\/a>","New York Philharmonic<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Classical Music<\/span>","Music<\/span>","New York Philharmonic<\/span>"]}},"comment_count":0,"relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 2 years ago","modified":"Updated 7 months ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on December 3, 2021","modified":"Updated on October 3, 2023"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on December 3, 2021 11:00 am","modified":"Updated on October 3, 2023 1:56 pm"},"featured_img_caption":"Itzhak Perlman. Photo: \u00c2\u00a9 New York Phillharmonic.<\/i>","series_order":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"mfb_rest_fields":["author_meta","featured_img","jetpack_sharing_enabled","jetpack_featured_media_url","coauthors","tax_additional","comment_count","relative_dates","absolute_dates","absolute_dates_time","featured_img_caption","series_order","jetpack-related-posts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newcriterion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114087"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newcriterion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newcriterion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newcriterion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1258"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newcriterion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=114087"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newcriterion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114087\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":121268,"href":"https:\/\/newcriterion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114087\/revisions\/121268"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newcriterion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/121269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newcriterion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newcriterion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newcriterion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114087"},{"taxonomy":"dispatch-city","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newcriterion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/dispatch-city?post=114087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}