Perahia Makes Both Piano and Orchestra Sing

Murray Perahia is, as everyone who follows classical music knows, an outstanding pianist. He first became widely known as a Mozartean; especially prized were his recordings of Mozart piano concertos made some two decades ago. The recordings were almost too good. So closely attuned to Mozart’s voice was Perahia’s that it took some effort for him to finally convince audiences that he also has affinity for Beethoven, Schubert and Schumann, Chopin and Brahms.

Lately he has turned, with splendid results, to Bach. But he doesn’t live easily in his own time. His role has been to lovingly make old music glow, inviting us to savor its every wonderful nuance, as we might a rare, aged brandy. He is musician-as-connoisseur.

And on the level of exceptional connoisseurship, his appearance as conductor and pianist with the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields at the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts Friday night was a notable, if odd, event. Perahia concentrated on Mozart and Bach--the former’s Piano Concerto No. 17 in G major and the latter’s Keyboard Concerto No. 1 in D minor were led from the piano; Mozart’s Symphony No. 40 in G minor from the podium.

This was Perahia’s local debut as a leader. Conducting had been an early interest that almost eclipsed the piano in his student days; it was his major at school. Still, there hardly seems a musician less well-suited to the podium than the introverted Perahia, and it required both an injury and long-term lobbying by the musicians from St. Martin-in-the-Fields for him to become the London-based chamber orchestra’s principal guest conductor last year.

*

The injury was a thumb infection a decade ago that, when wrongly treated, prevented his playing for several years. But while the invitation to conduct came during his long convalescence, he wanted to concentrate on returning to the piano. The time off was also spent studying, and that has added a new depth to his interpretations. In his latest Bach recordings--the “Goldberg” Variations and the Keyboard Concertos--the notes now sound as if each had been ideally weighed and then dropped into scrupulously sculpted phrases. The tone is as beautiful--even more so--than ever, the sonic equivalent of the finest, smoothest, most elegant marble.

Yet, at Cerritos, one had to wonder just for whom, or to whom, this marvelous pianist was playing. Seated at the keyboard, facing the orchestra in Mozart’s concerto, he and the players sounded in close communication with each other and with the composer. But the piano was at times nearly inaudible. Could there have been an acoustical vacuum cleaner behind the stage absorbing all the sound? Or was it the self-absorption of the pianist that caused the piano to fade into the orchestra? Even when it did sing out, it didn’t do so very strongly.

But sing it did. There was great beauty all around, especially in the way Perahia got the orchestra to second his own lyricism. What there was very little of was drama.

*

The Bach concerto displayed more vigor, but not enough to overcome the impression of a private performance upon which we might eavesdrop. On the exciting new recording, the piano stands out in riveting relief.

Perahia is not a graceful conductor. Suffering from back problems, he moves with difficulty. His technique is unconventional. But he does get what he wants. Mozart’s G-minor symphony was, just as is Perahia’s piano playing, the work of a tireless and inspired restorer. The familiar symphony sounded almost new, so carefully and precisely articulated were phrases and, in particular, harmonic details. Inner lines had immediate presence; the violas, in particular, sparkled in an unusually interesting way. St. Martin-in-the-Fields is playing on an extremely high level these days, and Perahia seems to inspire in its members the intensity and individuality of chamber music.

Indeed, that this is a band with a mind of its own was asserted from the beginning. The concert started with a lustrous account of the overture to Handel’s opera “Alcina,” performed without a conductor, but kept together by the excellent concertmaster, Kenneth Sillito.