Among all of the great violin concertos, sonatas and other works that populate Itzhak Perlman‘s extensive catalogue, there is one piece that has become his most requested from audiences.
“It is a very simple, wonderful tune, and I suppose when you connect it to the film, it says a lot,” the 16-time Grammy-winning violinist said of John Williams’ theme from the 1993 seven-time Oscar-winning film “Schindler’s List.” “This is one of the few or the only piece that people specifically want me to play.”
The “Schindler’s List” theme is one of seven or eight film works that Perlman will perform with the Tucson Symphony Orchestra Jan. 16 for “An Evening at the Movies with Itzhak Perlman.” TSO Music Director José Luis Gomez will conduct.
This is Perlman’s first concert of the year and his first time with the orchestra since he performed Beethoven’s Violin Concerto in D major with the TSO in January 2014.
“I’m looking forward to coming back,” he said during an early December phone interview from home in New York City as his puppy Dreidel, who he described as “a little bit of a lunatic,” barked at his feet. “It’s always a wonderful experience that you experience with conductors and the sound of the orchestra. It’s wonderful. And these pieces I am playing, you have that Hollywood sound and it really fits nicely with the sound of the violin.”
Legendary violinist Itzhak Perlman returns to the Tucson Symphony Orchestra for the first time in 11 years with “An Evening at the Movies.”
The orchestra will open the concert with a half-dozen movie themes that borrow from the classical canon, from Verdi’s Overture to “La Forza del Destino” from the 1986 French film “Jean de Florette” to Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 from the 1946 Warner Bros. animated Bugs Bunny short “Rhapsody Rabbit.”
Also on the TSO half of the concert: Mascagni’s “Cavalleria Rusticana” Intermezzo from the 1980 biopic “Raging Bull” with Robert De Niro; Tchaikovsky’s “Waltz of the Flowers” from “Nutcracker” used in Disney’s “Fantasia”; and Gounod’s “Funeral March of a Marionette” from “Alfred Hitchcock Presents.”
Perlman joins the TSO in the second half, opening with Williams’ “Schindler’s List” theme, which Perlman recorded on the 1994 Grammy Award-winning soundtrack.
“It’s a very moving piece. I have been playing it for so many years,” said the 79-year-old Perlman. “It’s quite amazing how it seems to be just touching everybody who listens to it.”
Perlman bookended the program with Williams — the composer’s theme from the 1995 rom-com “Sabrina” is the finale — and included Williams’ theme from the 1992 Tom Cruise/Nicole Kidman epic Western “Far and Away” in the middle, coming after the “Casablanca” classic “As Time Goes By.”
“John’s and some other arrangements are very, very old-fashioned kind of sound, which I love in the music,” Perlman said. “It’s not very rhythmical, it’s just very lyrical. We thought that it would fit very nicely in an orchestra filled with wonderful winds and this beautiful string sound. It’s a good bunch of pieces, which I love to hear and I love to play them.”
Also on his program: the tango from 1992’s “Scent of A Woman” that earned Al Pacino a Best Actor Oscar; John Barry’s Main Title music from “Out of Africa”; Ennio Morricone’s Love Theme from “Cinema Paradiso”; and Korngold’s Marian and Robin love theme from “Adventures of Robin Hood.”
Each of the “very nice songs” run three to five minutes and are fun to play, Perlman said.
“We chose the kind of music that would be fit with violin and orchestra,” he explained. “I can guarantee to you that each one that you will hear I love because I did not choose anything that I did not feel would work on the instrument. So all of these themes I enjoy so much.”
Perlman said playing the film themes takes him and the audience back to the first time they saw the movies.
“It’s always nice to reminisce as to what actors played in the movie to which the themes are being played,” he said. “There’s that wonderful theme from ‘Casablanca,’ for example, when you look at Humphrey Bogart coming into the cafe house and this guy is playing this wonderful, famous song.”
