Arts & Events

Over the weekend of May 17-20, veteran violinist Itzhak Perlman returned to Davies Hall to do double-duty as violin soloist and conductor with the San Francisco Symphony. The program featured Perlman with oboist Eugene Izotov in Johann Sebastian Bach’s Concerto in C minor for Oboe and Violin, Piotr Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings, and Edward Elgar’s Enigma Variations. Thus we heard music from the 18^th, 19^th, and 20^th centuries. 

Bach’s Concerto for Oboe and Violin is, in fact, an imagined work, given that no such score remains although a copy exists of this music written in Bach’s hand but scored for two harpsichords. The presumption is, however, that the version for two harpsichords is itself Bach’s transcription of an original for violin and a wind instrument, which latter, was almost certainly an oboe. In any case, as oboist Eugene Izotov points out, “the oboe and violin can sustain notes and use vibrato, which ultimately makes the sound closer to the human voice.” It is this ability to sing that is the distinguishing feature of Bach’s Concerto for Oboe and Violin. Nowhere is this more highlighted than in the lovely second movement, an Adagio, where the oboe and violin trade beautiful vocal melodies. Here Izotov and Perlman were perfectly matched, both technically and expressively, as they exchanged liltingly lyrical melodies. Nor were they lacking in the work’s two outer movements, opening and closing Allegros, which they dispatched with verve and aplomb. 

Following Bach’s Concerto for Oboe and Violin came Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings, Opus 48 (1880). Conducting from the podium, Itzhak Perlman led the orchestra’s string section in a wonderfully expressive account of this work. The Serenade for Strings is in many ways Tchaikovsky’s tribute to Mozart, whose music the Russian composer loved and admired. The opening movement, marked pezzo in forma di Sonatina, emulates Mozart’s classicism. A slow introduction frames the main body of this movement, and the spirit of Mozart is apparent in the second subject with its delightful semiquaver sequences. The second movement offers a gracious waltz, though tinged with melancholy; and the somber third movement, marked Elogie, is richly scored in D Major. The Finale finds Tchaikovsky tossing off his Mozartian cloak of classicism and diving instead into Russian folk melodies. The first subject is derived from a Volga boat-hauling song, and the dance-tune of the Allegro con spirito also derives from Russian folk material. 

After intermission Itzhak Perlman returned to the podium to lead the San Francisco Symphony in Edward Elgar’s Enigma Variations, Opus 36 (1888-9). Elgar intended this work to offer a musical portrait of fourteen close friends, and he appended initials or nicknames to each of the variations. The principal theme is a beautiful and somewhat sad melody played in the strings in the opening measures. The first variation is dedicated to Alice Elgar, the composer’s wife, and the theme is now tender and expressive. Variations II, III, and IV are brief and humorously evocative of the idiosyncrasies of the respective friends. Variation V is, in my opinion, one of the highlights of the Enigma Variations. It offers a tribute to Richard Penrose Arnold, son of Mathew Arnold, who was a great lover of music and a self-taught pianist. Elgar celebrates Arnold’s nobility of mind, hinting at the mixture of introspection and vivacity that characterized his friend. Variations VI, VII, and VIII are in turn formal and discreet, clamorous and maladroit, and gracious and sedate. Variation IX is a tribute to Elgar’s friend August Jaeger, and Elgar wrote that this variation is a record of a long walk during which Jaeger expounded eloquently on the slow movements of Beethoven. Appropriately, Elgar’s music here is slow and soulful yet rising to majestic heights.  

Variation X offers a lovely solo for viola, exquisitely played here by Katie Kadarauch, while the violins simulate the stuttering that marked the speech of this friend of Elgar’s. Variation XI offers what might be called a shaggy dog story about a friend’s bulldog that fell into a river, paddled about frenziedly, and barked upon gaining the shore. Variation XII offers another of this work’s highlights, a slow and majestic portrait of a learned scientist with artistic leanings. There is a lovely passage here for violas and a solo oboe, and another lovely passage for solo cello. Variation XIII evokes a voyage on an ocean liner, and here Elgar uses a drum roll to suggest the humming of the ship’s engine, while a clarinet offers a quote from Mendelssohn’s Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage. The final Variation, number XIV, offers a self-portrait in which Edward Elgar highlights only his confident, ebullient side, glossing over his moodiness and gloomy frustrations. At the close of the Enigma Variations, the audience gave conductor Itzhak Perlman a well-deserved standing ovation.