Yesterday I said Perlman likes to push the orchestra. Here’s the best evidence: Tchaikovsky’s Valse-Scherzo, live at the Tchaikovsky Gala.
It sounds pretty under-rehearsed. Listen to how the winds struggle. Perlman and the orchestra are rarely in the same place: he’s ahead, then behind, stretching phrases wherever he likes. On paper, a bad collaboration. In practice, a fantastic performance. He dances around the orchestra, and the rubato becomes the waltz. Next to him, the Leningrad Philharmonic, arguably the best orchestra of its day, sounds a little flat-footed.
Hard to get mad at someone for not following when he leads like this.
Better sound: