Mozart and Brahms: Zukerman Chamber Players, Benaroya Hall, Seattle, 09.10.2006 & Mozart: Pinchas Zukerman, cond. and violin, Seattle Symphony, Benaroya Hall, Seattle, 14.10.2006 (BJ)

 

Mozart fared better toward the end of Pinchas Zukerman’s week-long residency in Seattle than he did at the beginning. I missed one of the three programs he offered, so I cannot say how Beethoven came out of the experience. But the performance of Mozart’s 39th Symphony that concluded the last concert was an almost unmitigated pleasure. The Seattle Symphony was playing at close to its best, and the main first movement, the minuet, and the finale–an untidy touch or two aside–were shaped with equal measures of affection, vitality, and grace. Best of all, perhaps, was the third movement’s trio section, in which Laura DeLuca turned her clarinet solo elegantly, and Zukerman shaped the horns’ lead-back to the main melody with perfect judgment, playing it straight the first time around, and then, in the repeat, subtly expanding the pulse just a trifle.

What, then, am I complaining about? Well, before intermission, the E-major Adagio for violin and orchestra and the Serenata notturna were played with more affection than stylistic aptness. Zukerman’s tone, we have known for decades, is gorgeous, and simply in terms of luxury his performances left nothing to be desired. The swells and ebbs of tone in the Adagio, however, seemed to me excessive. The C-Major Rondo, which followed, was  charmingly done. But then, in the Serenata, no attempt was made to space the two string ensembles separately for antiphonal effect, and the finale hurtled past at a pace–pretty well undifferentiated between the Allegretto and Allegro sections–that left no room for wit, nor was there any attempt at embellishment at the cadence points.

In the symphony, moreover, with all the virtues I have enumerated, the first-movement introduction, which Mozart notated in alla breve time (with two broad beats to the bar), was beaten out by Zukerman’s baton in eight unwavering quavers, to funereal effect, and the second-movement 6/8 Andante was similarly robbed of its prescribed “con moto” flow. Do not misunderstand me: it is certainly possible to beat eight or six and still achieve fluency; but you have to work to achieve that, and these passages merely plodded. Then, in the finale, the second repeat was cut, depriving us of the startlingly abrupt leap back to the opening of the development section.

It was indeed Zukerman’s policy with regard to repeats that I found most blameworthy in the performance of the G-minor String Quintet that had begun the week’s activities. As violinist, as conductor, and as educator, Pinchas Zukerman has done much for music that is admirable. Not least admirable was the initiative that led him, four years ago, to team up with four protégés to form the Zukerman Chamber Players. But to program one of Mozart’s greatest, most serious chamber works, and then to ignore his plain instruction to play both halves of the first movement twice, is to stunt the form of the piece unconscionably, and, in my view, to set a pernicious example to one’s young charges.

That aside, Mozart’s wonderful quintet was beautifully played, and so was the G-major Quintet, Brahms’s Opus 111, that made up the other half of the program. Zukerman’s colleagues, violinist Jessica Linnebach, violists Jethro Marks and Ashan Pillai, and cellist Amanda Forsyth, all played worthily of their mentor, Marks in particular fashioning many an eloquent and rich-toned phrase. But there are principles at stake here. For a performer to second-guess Mozart’s–or indeed any composer’s–ideas about form, and to leave out nearly half of a meticulously crafted movement, is to invite charges at once of arrogance and of bad judgment. It would consequently be dereliction of critical responsibility to the composer if I were to end this review on any note other than one of regretful censure.

 

Bernard Jacobson