London’s Royal Philharmonic Orchestra is celebrating its 70th anniversary with a tour that on Monday brought the ensemble with its principal guest conductor, violinist Pinchas Zukerman, to the Harris Theater for Music and Dance.
The orchestra’s last visit, four years ago, presented a virtual pops program that included nothing written in the past 70 years and no music by a British composer.
Monday’s offerings slightly improved upon that with an unusual performance of one of the greatest of all concertos and the most popular work by England’s giant, Edward Elgar.
Zukerman has for some years presented the Beethoven Violin Concerto by simultaneously playing and conducting. Almost no one before our own time did this, though it’s easy to see why they may have wanted to do it, given that it imposes a single interpretative authority that mightily impresses audiences.
What’s lost is the electricity that comes from conductor and soloist striking sparks off each other. Instead, as Zukerman’s performance demonstrated, a single view easily can be drained of tension as the orchestral accompaniment becomes inert, sounding as if it were merely fitted around the violin rather than vibrating with its own personality.
Monday’s account came across as leisurely and brought into being mostly as a large-scale setting for beguiling violin tone. The best moments were the quietest, as from after the Fritz Kreisler cadenza to the end of the first movement and throughout the Larghetto.
Like the opening “Egmont” Overture, Zukerman’s concerto was more portentous than dramatic or exciting. It showed no awareness of historically informed performance. Careful progress was not disturbed even by playfulness in the finale, though the audience nonetheless gave a standing ovation.
Fittingly, Elgar’s “Enigma” Variations had greater energy and color, particularly in fast sections. However, the score seemed to be played as pure music instead of as quirky character studies, and the depth of feeling of the great “Nimrod” variation remained largely buried.
The encore was the slow movement from Elgar’s Serenade for Strings, hushed music played with velvety string tone and increased emotion.
Alan Artner is a freelance critic.
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