United States Blossom Music Festival 2026 [2] – Beethoven: Itzhak Perlman (violin & conductor), Cleveland Orchestra. Blossom Music Center, Cuyahoga Falls, 9.7.2026. (MSJ)
Beethoven – Romance No.1 in G major, Op.40; Romance No.2 in F major, Op.50; Overture to Egmont, Op.84; Symphony No.7 in A major, Op.92
As this concert was about to start, the sky could be seen darkening to the northwest of Blossom Music Center, the Cleveland Orchestra’s summer home, and warnings about inclement weather were flashed in the concert pavilion advising lawn patrons to move inside for cover. But then, it was almost as if the storm looked down and saw that Itzhak Perlman was about to appear with the Cleveland Orchestra and decided it couldn’t crash the party. The storm abruptly veered off to the south, leaving Blossom with nothing more than a light rain shower with atmospheric rumbles of thunder in the distance. And that’s about how magical the whole evening felt as Itzhak Perlman made his first return to Blossom in three decades, this time conducting as well as playing. The audience gave him a standing ovation on his first entrance and grew more enthusiastic as the concert progressed.
A superstar in the classical firmament, Itzhak Perlman has added conducting to his resume in recent years while continuing to play the violin. He took on both roles here, starting the concert with Beethoven’s two lyrical Romances: relatively short works, they are early compositions, more classical than romantic in style. Perlman brought the same grace to the pieces as he would to a Mozart concerto, indicating tempo to the orchestra with his bow when not engaged in solo passages. In those parts, Cleveland Orchestra concertmaster Joel Link – who knows more than a thing or two about keeping an ensemble together from his years with the Dover Quartet – subtly backed up Perlman to keep the group coordinated with the soloist in the livelier passages of the second Romance. As he enters his eighth decade, Perlman’s intonation is ever so slightly less laser-perfect than it once was, but what is remarkable is that the bloom and warmth of his tone is completely intact. In the years of attending Cleveland Orchestra concerts, one will inevitably have heard dozens of fine violinists. Not one can match Perlman for glowing warmth of tone, even now.
To close the first half of the concert, Perlman relinquished his violin and brought out a conducting baton for a weighty rendition of the Egmont overture. The work was part of the incidental music Beethoven wrote for a production of Goethe’s drama about the Dutch nobleman who became a martyr for his nation’s rebellion against Spain. The overture’s somber opening, in a spacious sarabande rhythm, depicts an atmosphere of oppression which Perlman emphasized by encouraging the Cleveland strings to dig in deep. Oboist Jeffrey Rathbun led off the plangent woodwind responses before the main Allegro depicted Egmont’s battles. Perlman opted for a broad and grave approach, soft-grained but noble, with a jubilant coda.
His approach to Beethoven’s Symphony No.7 was mellow and joyous, less of a high-tension thoroughbred than Antonello Manacorda’s thrilling rendition two summers ago at Blossom (review here) but more buoyant than Franz Welser-Möst’s attempt to make the work into another pastoral symphony (review here) in 2017. Perlman’s tempos fluctuated slightly at times, but he gave the orchestra space to animate the music with rich tone and color. While Perlman is, of course, a master of string playing, he by no means neglected the woodwinds and brass, making sure that their moments of color popped.
The highlight of the performance was a deeply felt second movement, autumnal and glowing without ever losing its quiet, steady momentum. Perlman savored moments such as the middle sections of the inner movements but was shrewd enough to let the players off the leash in the finale which romped with joyful energy without rushing. The main rhetorical touch Perlman used in the finale was to slightly extend the pause between the opening volleys of the movement and its later recurrences, allowing the sound to bloom epically through the Blossom pavilion. The performance brought the crowd to their feet once again, completing an evening of ovations for a beloved master.
Mark Sebastian Jordan
Featured Image: Itzhak Perlman plays Beethoven with the Cleveland Orchestra at the Blossom Music Festival © Kevin Libal/TCO