Some rare performances indeed

The baby lamb and 14 varieties of wine would have to wait.

In a social move executed as surely as a stroke on his violin, Pinchas Zukerman flipped the program of a benefit salon at the Beverly Hills estate of reclusive arts philanthropist Richard D. Colburn.

“If you’ve got 14 wines, what do you think, that I’m not going to play first?” the internationally acclaimed violinist quipped as he stood before 68 guests gathered in Colburn’s palatial music room. Guests had tossed back champagne and sampled caviar and foie gras at the reception in the pool pavilion. And now, before the musical offerings, according to the program resting beside each gold-edged charger, it was time for dinner: a five-course meal with wine tasting, beginning with pepper-cured gravlax and ending with chocolate cake filled with liquid white chocolate truffle.

Not yet. A drowsy audience wouldn’t do. Not for music played on rare Stradivari and Guarneri instruments, some belonging to the Colburn Collection. So Zukerman -- “Pinky” to pals -- joined principal Los Angeles Philharmonic violist Evan N. Wilson and cellist Daniel Rothmuller in an impromptu performance, with each artist rhapsodizing about the prized strings.

In L.A.’s salon society, wealthy music aficionados and accomplished musicians gather in private homes to enjoy what others can only wonder about. Some salons, like Colburn’s on Tuesday, which netted $65,000 for the American Youth Symphony, are fundraisers. Others are arranged as expressions of gratitude to major arts benefactors, observed opera and chamber music buff Carol Henry, who, along with her husband, Warner, attended the $1,250-per-person event. Still others are staged “for the pure enjoyment of sharing music,” added Henry, who confided that she and her husband host half a dozen such affairs each year. Former Yugoslavian Prime Minister Milan Panic, another guest, frequently has music salons in his home, he said. “Music is beautiful to enjoy. And if you can do it in your home, then, it’s marvelous.”

For the 92-year-old Colburn, the retired entrepreneur who financed the $25-million downtown L.A. home of the Colburn School for the Performing Arts, having musicians perform at his Italian-style estate perpetuates a passion for music that began when he took his first violin lesson as a young boy. “I like helping organizations committed to music,” he said before the party began, sitting across a desk from his 49-year-old spouse of one year, documentary film producer Lisa Colburn -- ninth wife, 10th marriage -- in his property’s free-standing office building.

He also likes helping “young people of exceptional talent” by lending them instruments from his 72-piece violin, viola and cello collection, he said. “I’ve been collecting them since I was in my early 30s, and right now, 55 are on loan. That’s where they’re supposed to be.” Recalling a visit to a collector of rare violins as a teenager, Colburn said he became infuriated when the man brought out a Stradivarius but refused to let him touch it. “When I reached out, he pulled it back,” he said. “I thought he was handing it to me to hold and set a bow to. I thought to myself, ‘Stradivari didn’t make that instrument to be locked up in a cabinet.’ ”

After mingling with buzzing guests during the cocktail hour, the feisty Colburn hollered “Quiet hours! Quiet hours!” and invited them to move into the main house to view the rare instruments arrayed in his music room with its huge muted Flemish tapestry, blue and white porcelain collection and Hearstian-scaled fireplace. (In fact, the fireplace, once owned by William Randolph Hearst, was purchased at a warehouse in San Simeon, Lisa Colburn confided.) Touting the value of a fine violin as opposed to a “cigar box -- my parents gave me a cigar box,” he advised the crowd to “save your money and buy a Stradivarius.”

The Westwood-based American Youth Symphony, founded in 1964, seeks to give aspiring musical students ages 16 to 25 the opportunity to perform symphonic works in preparation for professional careers, music director Alexander Treger said as he moved among guests who included Israel Philharmonic Orchestra conductor Zubin Mehta, violin collector William Sloan and symphony board chairman Herb Gelfand. “We have placed 108 people in major orchestras around the world. It is my dream that they will all end up in one of the best orchestras in the world.”