 |
 Itzhak Perlman: Baton and BowPerlman Conducts Mozart: Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Itzhak Perlman, violin and conductor (EMI 57418); Concertos From My Childhood: Itzhak Perlman, violin, The Juilliard Orchestra, Lawrence Foster, conductor (EMI 56750)
ITZHAK PERLMAN will make his New York Philharmonic conducting debut on March 18-20. Last September, Perlman, a member of the Juilliard faculty since 1999, assumed the violin teaching chair formerly held by the late Dorothy DeLay. Perlman was himself a scholarship student of Ivan Galamian and Dorothy DeLay at the School from 1958-68.Perlman, who has increasingly been turning to the baton, was named principal guest conductor of the Detroit Symphony in 2001. His first recording as conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic features exuberant readings of Mozart's Adagio and Fugue, Third Violin Concerto, and the "Jupiter" Symphony, offering incisive articulation and weighty string sonorities that could only be elicited by a master violinist.In his customary role of violin soloist, Perlman has recorded Concertos From My Childhood. Primarily played in the privacy of the practice room, the works by Rieding, Seitz, Accolay, de Bériot, and Viotti on this CD have been seared into the synapses of nearly every young violinist, but have not been previously available on disc. Although the cover shows a prepubescent Perlman, the CD was newly taped in 1998, with the Juilliard Orchestra under Lawrence Foster. It will serve as an exemplar and inspiration to aspiring violin students.In anticipation of the violinist's 60th birthday next year, EMI has issued 15 separate CDs comprising The Perlman Edition, restoring many out-of-print recordings to circulation in remastered and recoupled form. Don't miss the Sinding Suite in A Minor (62590), with its precipitous Presto, as well as Encores (62596) with the late Samuel Sanders of Juilliard as pianist. Highly recommended on EMI's "Great Recordings of the Century" series are Perlman's majestic performances of violin concertos by Brahms (66992) and Beethoven (66962), ardent accounts of the three Brahms Violin Sonatas (66945), and a dazzling Paganini 24 Caprices for solo violin (67257).
Thomas Stacy in RecitalPlaintive Melody: Works by Myers, Borodin, Fiocco, Barlow, Villa-Lobos, Rodrigo, Pasculli, J.S. Bach, Bozza, Ravel, Barber, Granados, and Morricone. Thomas Stacy, English horn; Kenneth Hamrick, harpsichord. (Delos DE 3318)
THOMAS STACY, principal English horn of the New York Philharmonic since 1972, has been a Juilliard faculty member for 30 years. His newest CD, Plaintive Melody, is a significant contribution to the recorded repertoire of his instrument. Unconventional both in its eclectic choice of music and its utilization of harpsichord rather than piano accompaniment, the CD bears a tongue-in-cheek cover photo depicting the distinguished musician wearing sunglasses and a black shirt and bright red tie sporting inordinately large white polka dots!The disc's 14 selections span a wide gamut of original works and transcriptions: German and Belgian Baroque, Spanish, French, Russian, American, and even film music—all played with consummate technique and sensitivity. Particularly notable are Villa-Lobos's soulful Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5, Rodrigo's haunting Adagio from Concierto de Aranjuez, Barber's quirky Canzone, and Pasculli's virtuosic Hommage à Bellini.An earlier CD, New York Legends: Thomas Stacy (Cala 0511), includes Christopher Berg's Why Else Do You Have an English Horn?, set to poems by Frank O'Hara's friend Violet Lang, for which Stacy is joined by actress Elaine Strich. Also on the disc is the intriguing Phantasmagoria by Gardner Read, in which Stacy plays oboe, oboe d'amore (pitched a third lower), and English horn (a fifth lower), accompanied by organ. Lastly, Stacy's authoritative performances of concertos by Ned Rorem (a Juilliard graduate), the late Vincent Persichetti (a past chairman of Juilliard's composition department), and Sydney Hodkinson have been released on CD by New World Records (80489). Michael Sherwin, marketing manager of the Juilliard Bookstore (bookstore.juilliard.edu), has written for High Fidelity and Musical America.
|
