Three years ago Murray Perahia took up the post of principal guest conductor of the Academy of St Martin in the Fields. As their series of recordings of the Bach keyboard concertos testifies, he has established an extraordinary rapport with them. Perahia's pianism has always been marked by a flexibility and spontaneity that is secured on the disciplines of a thorough analysis of the music and a technique that is second to none. His work with the academy has shown how satisfying that combination of freedom and rigour can be in orchestral work too. In December, they came to the Barbican for an unusual all-Beethoven programme, in which the Emperor concerto, conducted from the piano, was preceded by an arrangement for string orchestra of the string quartet Op 127. You can see why conductors would be tempted by such arrangements of the late quartets. If you think that Beethoven's most profound works are those of his late period, then his symphonies may well seem limiting since, apart from the first three movements of the ninth, there is nothing that has quite the concentration of utterance of the late piano sonatas and quartets. It is understandable too that Perahia, having mastered the late sonatas, should want to see what he can do with the late quartets.
Unfortunately, the performance of Op 127 showed why these temptations should be resisted. It was not that it was in any way bad. Perahia's analytical grasp of the piece was evident and, as ever, this allowed him to manifest a keen sense of its rhetoric - just the virtues that make his solo recitals so memorable. The strings of the academy, highly responsive to his direction, were faultlessly in tune and precise. It was all entirely admirable and ultimately very dull. There may be chamber works that can survive orchestral rendering, but Beethoven's quartets are not among them. Hearing this arrangement brought home just how much their power rests on the interplay of individual voices. Performed on multiple strings, the work's harmonies sounded less daring and the plush sonorities reminded one unhappily of Elgar. The very fact that the players here were responding to a conductor rather than directly to each other took away the immediacy, and hence the danger, enjoyed by a string quartet.
The performance of the Emperor was a different matter. Because it is Beethoven's last piano concerto, and also because of its name, there is a temptation to think that it must be the most profound of the five. In fact, reverential performances can turn out rather bland. There was no danger of that at the Barbican. Apart from a properly poised and delicate slow movement, Perahia and the academy maintained the tension throughout, making the whole concerto sound bold and experimental. Since the piano is so busy so much of the time, the orchestra had no choice but to work by listening to Perahia and to each other, picking up the subtlest nuances of inflection and phrasing. This produced exactly the electricity that had been missing in Op 127. To perform this work as chamber music in this way and without playing it safe was an astonishing achievement.
At the Festival Hall, Andr?s Schiff also made the move from piano stool to podium, conducting the Philharmonia in a programme of Mozart, Mendelssohn and Haydn. In this first of two concerts, he too directed a virtuoso concerto from the keyboard - in this case the rarely heard Mendelssohn D minor. Schiff played with impressive clarity and bravura, but overall the performance gave the impression of being too constrained. Here, a partnership with a sympathetic conductor would have allowed a performance that was freer and more fluid. The concerto was framed within performances of Mozart's "little" G minor symphony and Haydn's final symphony, the 104th. In these, Schiff elicited some elegant phrasing, especially from the wind, but was far too inattentive to matters of balance. It is striking how much time experienced conductors spend telling their players to play more quietly, and Schiff's rather laissez-faire approach demonstrated why, as the textures became clogged and the contours unfocused.
It is easy to see why pianists should be tempted to take up the baton. The kind of understanding needed to interpret, say, a Beethoven sonata is not so radically different from that needed for a Beethoven symphony. For both, one has to decide how to weigh the voices and the inner parts and to do so in a way that makes musical sense. When there is hardly a surfeit of major conductors under 70, it is also understandable why orchestras should encourage distinguished instrumentalists to follow the example of Barenboim, Ashkenazy and Pletnev. The sensibility of the recitalist, however, does not always translate easily into that of the orchestral director. Barenboim, while a fine conductor, was a magical pianist, and it is difficult not to regret that he has so subordinated his instrumental to his orchestral work. Again, what has made Schiff such an interesting recitalist has been precisely the subtlety and intimacy of his musical responses - and these will not be so easily manifested in an orchestra. Like Perahia, he might well have a distinguished second career as a conductor should he so wish, but let us hope that it does not distract him from the real thing.
