New Classical Tracks: The Perlman Sound

Itzhak Perlman - The Perlman Sound (Warner Classics)

"Kids have to be more inventive and imaginative in what they want to do with their life after graduating," asserts violinist Itzhak Perlman. "I'd say, 'Don't look at one thing, look at everything.' If you think, 'I cannot play concerts with major symphony orchestras and conductors then my life is over and I can't do anything.' Wrong. If you can't do this, you can do something else. There are so many opportunities."

Itzhak Perlman should know; he's explored various avenues as a violinist, a conductor, a collaborator and as a teacher. The important thing, he says, is that one is happy making music.

As he celebrates his 70th birthday, Itzhak Perlman reflects on "The Perlman Sound," which is also the name of a new three-CD collection offering highlights of his 60-year career.

So how does Perlman create his sound?

"I don't know, I really don't know," Perlman says. "People say 'what makes you sound like you.' And the thing is, I make me sound like me. People sometimes say, 'I heard somebody on the radio and I just knew it was you.' And I cannot tell you why they knew it was me — something I do in the playing.

"As far as sound is concerned, sound is like what you hear, what you automatically hear. Certain people hear a sound a certain way. And certain people hear a different [sound] … some hear brilliance, some hear sweetness, some hear something. I always like to compare sounds to food — I do this all the time. I mean, sometimes I conduct the orchestra and I say, 'That sounded good but it sounded like yogurt. Yogurt is good - but how about some ice cream? Something really fatty?' I think that sound should be a certain quality. But the important thing about sound — the colors, the variety — you can have a sound that sounds great, but if you don't change it, if you don't use some variety, it'll be boring."

There's certainly nothing boring about The Perlman Sound. Within this three-CD set, you'll find everything from concerto highlights to Klezmer. "This collection is like a record, pun unintended, of what I did at different ages," Perlman says. "How I sounded when I was 25 or 30, 40, 50." Perlman cautions that having a long career can sometimes pose a problem. How he you keep things fresh after playing something for the tenth, twentieth or thirtieth time? "It's subtle things about phrasing, about timing," he explains. "Playing a simple tune, which I find the most difficult, to play a simple tune, to make it sound really beautiful and simple and to make it sound, quote, 'right.'

"To make it sound just right is very difficult because it's transparent. It's a little bit like cooking, I suppose. You can say, why is this dish good? Well, because it's just the right amount of salt? Nobody says that. They say either too much or too little. But they don't say it's just right. Same thing in music: Why does it sound like that? Well, it sounds like that because the timing is just right. And that's one of the things you don't want the listener to figure out. When you play something, you don't want the listener to say, 'Oh, he's doing this or that,' because then it becomes effected. What you want the listener to say is, 'You know, I like this very much,' without wondering what's in it."

And sometimes that secret sauce makes an unexpected appearance, like it did about 20 years ago when Perlman was in a recording session with legendary jazz pianist Oscar Peterson. "Well, I was just trying some new things, trying to see how it feels — with jazz, for example, the improvisation in jazz is something that's foreign to classical players," Perlman says. "But when I did stuff with Oscar Peterson, that was totally improvised. I asked if we could do standards because at least I know the tune and then I can do it.

"There was a take that we did where I played something, a little improvisation, and the producer said, 'You know, that sounded a little bit like klezmer.' And that's when I discovered I had a talent to play klezmer, so that was a good segue. So somebody asked me to host a klezmer program for PBS and then asked if I wanted to try and jam with some of the [klezmer] band … So I tried it, and it felt so comfortable for me. So I decided that we should do that, too. And that was something in my guts, something I heard as a young kid in Israel, so that was in some ways something very natural for me."

These days, Perlman is right in the thick of classical music's future, thanks to his wife, Toby, who started The Perlman Music Program, for young up-and-coming string players. He sees the intensity and commitment of these young performers. He says the audience for classical music remains strong as well. "I'm a very firm believer in the audience," he explains. "They know when something comes across the stage that's electric. They don't need to study music at the conservatory. So I believe that it's very much alive and will continue to be so. I think we've proved … you know, it's been quite a few years, no? So I'm a firm believer in that."


Itzhak Perlman, for more than 60 years, sharing his belief in classical music with The Perlman Sound.

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