Perlman wraps up tenure as symphony’s Artistic Partner
Itzhak Perlman’s time as Artistic Partner with the Houston Symphony winds to its conclusion this weekend. Perlman and the Houston Symphony announced the partnership in January 2020, which meant their earliest plans were scotched due to the pandemic. But performances resumed, and Perlman found himself in Jones Hall, where he played Beethoven and conducted Mozart and Tchaikovsky. Though based in New York, Perlman particularly enjoys his Houston visits: daughter Ariella Perlman plays flute and son-in-law Robert Johnson plays French horn with the Houston Symphony.
On Sunday, Perlman will present “In the Fiddler’s House,” which has roots in a 1995 TV special and album of the same title, both of which focused on klezmer, the music of Ashkenazi Jews from different parts of Europe.
The program puts him in the company of musicians like Hankus Ketsky on saxophone and piano, Andy Statman on clarinet and mandolin, Michael Albert on violin, Lorin Sklamberg on accordion, Judy Bressler on percussion and Frank London on trumpet. Also on the bill is the Klezmer Conservatory Band.
The music ranges from contemplative and prayerlike to swirling dance music. Perlman refers to it as “a music of the people.”
“Just because somebody who wrote a song was from a country with one name and now the country has a different name, the music is still there,” he said “Only the name of the country changed.”
Q: When we spoke last, there was a bit of a tangent about soup…
A: Ah, I just had some of the soup that I told you about. The garbage pail soup. The great thing about this soup, using different vegetables, every soup you make is a little bit different. It’s great, you can make a big pot of it and freeze it in quarts.
Q: Klezmer is such a music of movement. Do you recall an introduction to it? Or is it one of those sounds that was always there for you?
A: Well, look, I feel this music speaks to me, but I don’t remember when exactly I first heard it. I definitely heard it when I was growing up. So the reason I started to be involved with it is that I felt comfortable playing it. It’s not like sometimes when people do a crossover, and you can hear that it’s not really their day job. But the first time it happened, I believe it was a PBS show about klezmer. They wanted me to be, shall we say, master of ceremonies. To host. And the host had to meet these four groups that would play. And they asked, “Would you like to jam with us?” I thought it might be interesting. So I started to play and realized a lot of the soloing came very naturally to me. I did not feel like I was walking on eggs. So it was both a pleasure and an education for me. So we did a show where I was playing instead of hosting. That’s how things started. I’ve been doing it ever since. It’s a fantastic experience.
Q: More than any other music full of calls-and-responses, this one feels very conversational to me.
A: Sure, though it depends on the form of the piece. I have a set that I do with Andy Statman, who is a fantastic clarinetist, but he also plays mandolin that’s wonderful. There’s this simple thing: He does an eight-bar phrase, and then I do an eightbar phrase, and then we start to improvise. In many ways, you can call it Jewish jazz. The ways we improvise, the harmonic setups and phrases on top of it, all of that is like jazz. But we also have sections where a whole bunch of instruments play one way and I play another. I like trying to find something new. It’s a sympathetic kind of music, and it gives me great pleasure.
Q: There’s a theatricality to the violin in this music. It jumps out of the first song on the “Fiddler’s House” album, “Reb Itzik’s Nign.”
A: Yes! It is theatrical. As you said about conversation, that’s a nign (a religious vocal song) that’s just sung by a cantor or somebody. I’ll play, and there’s a singer that sings it. It’s like praying. A lot of it has to do with a religious lilt.
Q: Contrasting that prayerlike vibe, “Simkhes Toyre Time” is quite festive.
A: Absolutely. And whenever we play that, we have people dancing in the aisles. I like that people feel comfortable dancing to this music.
Q: I’ve not heard enough klezmer to know: How much geographic breadth can be heard in this program?
A: It’s interesting, some of the music, the flavor harmonically can be associated with specific areas in the world. There might be something that sounds specific to Greece, for example, a different sort of progression. Sometimes the language may be the same but the accent is different. But Yiddish is basically the same everywhere, even though it can be different. If you talk to somebody in Brooklyn, they use certain Yiddish expressions. Those might not sound the same in South America. I guess it’s a little like the garbage pail soup that we discussed. If you add more of a certain vegetable, it affects the flavor some. I always bring up food for examples.
Q: Does your violin get its own seat on the plane when you fly?
A: No, but I order meals for it. He prefers vegetarian. Of course, pasta is a favorite because it’s an Italian violin. But no, I just place it above the seat.
Q: Does an old Stradivarius require a lot of upkeep and tinkering?
A: I’ll tell you, the example I like to give is dog owners. If you own a dog and don’t worry about the dog and are relaxed, the dog will be calm and quiet. With a violin, if you pick at it too much, if you go to the violin shop and try to adjust all the time, you create problems. Let the instrument do its thing. Some days it will sound different than others. It can have nothing to do with the setup. Sometimes it’s the humidity. I tend to not be fussy about it. Maybe once a year, every two years, I’ll take it to see if it’s all right. But the rest is up to me.