Pinchas Zuckerman @ Dallas Symphony
Photos by Sylvia Elzafon
—Wayne Lee Gay
Israeli-born American violinist Pinchas Zukerman, now 74 years old, long ago earned his place in the historical pantheon of great violin virtuosos. With the 60th anniversary of his concert debut approaching this year, he appears both as conductor and soloist with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra this weekend in a program that more than justifies his status as one of the great musicians of our time. The concert, featuring Beethoven's Violin Concerto and Elgar's “Enigma Variations,” marks another chapter in Zukerman's decades-long history of collaboration with the DSO.
While some of the great musicians of the past choose the ease of retirement after the rigors of half a century of playing before audiences, some carry on with performances—ones that become prophetic and revelatory in a way that only maturity and the insight of decades can produce. I think particularly of "Take Five" by octogenarian jazz master Dave Brubeck in Denton a little over a decade ago, and a similarly dazzling presentation by the late Alicia de Larrocha of Falla's Nights in the Gardens of Spain with the Fort Worth Symphony in the early 2000s. These are not just performances, but gifts of deep profundity to the audiences who hear them.
Zukerman's rendition of Beethoven's Violin Concerto, in which he plays the violin and conducts, is that sort of gift.
Although conducting is Zukerman's third track as a performer (behind the violin and viola), some full-time conductors could learn a few things from him. Restrained by the fact that he must conduct with his right arm only (also holding the bow, and for only brief segments), Zukerman deftly economizes gesture, giving the orchestra exactly what it needs to create a homogeneous performance. He also understands the drama of facing the orchestra to lead one of the purely orchestral passages, then turning to the audience to "announce" the solo entry. The drama is further, subtly enhanced as he joins the first violin section in a few of the purely orchestral passages. (One might observe that while Beethoven conducted the premiere of his work in 1806, Bach or Mozart a few years earlier might well have conducted such a violin concerto while playing the violin.)
But it's in his rendition of the solo part that Zukerman makes magic. He knows all the secrets in the score—when to employ a light but piercing timbre, as in the opening passages, and when to delve into a richer tone, as in the rhapsodic episodes of the middle slow movement. An ever-so-slight rubato in the opening measures of the solo in the first movement provides just the right enhancement to announce the proto-romantic emotions of the work.
The final movement of the concerto ties all together: Beethoven here gives soloist and conductor a tightrope to tread between classicism and romanticism, and Zukerman navigates the sheer joy and exuberance of the movement masterfully on both a technical and artistic level. Indeed, Beethoven would go on to equal the celebratory passion of this movement, but he never surpassed it.
After intermission, Zukerman functioned solely in the conventional role of conductor for Elgar's Enigma Variations. At the close of the nineteenth century, Mahler and Richard Strauss grappled with the inner sorrows (and in Strauss's case, depravities) of the human soul. At that same moment in history, Englishman Edward Elgar achieved an equally meaningful profundity in a set of orchestral variations celebrating everyday friendship and human relationships. By being personal and intimate, Elgar achieved a level of universality—and did it with skills of counterpoint, orchestration, and musical architecture absolutely equal to the more renowned talents of Strauss and Mahler.
It's not surprising that in his role as conductor, violinist Zukerman shows a particular understanding of string sonorities, drawing a gorgeous richness and variety of tone from the Dallas Symphony strings. (He even employs a touch of added portamento—the slight sliding from one pitch to another—appropriate to the Victorian elegance of this music.) From the light-hearted humor of some of the variations to the majesty of the beloved "Nimrod" Variation to the grandeur of the final moments, Zukerman demonstrates as a conductor the same prowess and musicianship that have made him one of the most beloved and admired of violinists.
When: Repeated January 20, 21, and 22
Where: Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center
