Barenboim/Zukerman - Beethoven, 8 March 2020

Pierre Boulez Saal

Violin Sonata no.8 in G major, op.30 no.3

Violin Sonata no.9 in A minor/major, op.47, ‘Kreutzer’

Violin Sonata no.10 in G major, op.96

Pinchas Zukerman (violin)

Daniel Barenboim (piano)

All good things must come to an end. So it was with Daniel Barenboim and Pinchas Zukerman’s anniversary-year survey of the Beethoven violin sonatas, in which the final three sonatas offered a richer selection of stylistic and emotional contrast than any yet heard. A fine tribute, then, to Isaac Stern on his centenary.

The first movement of the op.30 no.3 Sonata was taken faster than I can recall. It never sounded merely fast, though, but impetuous, even tiggerish. Occasional initial smudges, vanished in any case on the exposition repeat, mattered not at all; the spirit was there and was what counted. This was, moreover, a true partnership, bringing out such musical meaning in what might appear on the page, at least to dull souls, mere scales and arpeggios. The development, over before we knew it, had nevertheless changed everything, change which continued throughout the recapitulation. Such freshness was followed by quiet, transformative confidence in the second movement, assuredly ‘molto moderato e grazioso’. It sang with neither need nor desire to exaggerate, Beethoven and his performers able both to emulate Mozart without anxiety of influence, yet also to remain entirely true to themselves. The finale, whilst recognisably in the first movement’s line, proved both grander and more skittish, following the dictates of the material yet transforming them into musical narration.

The eloquence of opening statements, violin and piano, minor and major, offered an exposition to an exposition for the first movement of the Kreutzer. The exposition proper hurtled forward, not always note-perfect in the piano part – but then, neither is Bartók, in his extraordinary recording with Szigeti – yet again with the crucial spirit far too often lacking in contemporary Beethoven. Humanism defiant and unapologetic is what we need, just as much as Beethoven; humanism defiant and unapologetic is what we had, in a performance that had one on the edge of one’s seat, in a good way. It developed, with all that that properly entailed. And it had a scale, a stature, quite different from anything we had heard previously. The slow movement, leisurely yet directed, felt just right: it had space, yet not too much. Within its overall frame, further transformations could unfold: of tempo, melody, rhythm, and ultimately of harmony too. Each variation had its own world, clearly related to and dependent on the whole, yet pointed with individual character. With the minore variation, pathos was felt as necessity, Beethoven’s Mozartian – and Bachian – lessons well learned indeed. The fourth variation immediately following conveyed a sense of wonder, of having passed beyond to a pastoral idyll. Everything was there, so long as one listened in the fullest sense of the word. The finale offered a fine sense of tonal ambiguity. Which mode would win out? This was a battle to be won, no fait accompli. Rhetoric was founded on harmony, not some strange sort of free-floating thing-in-itself, as some would have you believe. With Beethoven, only connect.

The tenth and final sonata, op.96 in G major, is not heard often enough. I am not sure that it could ever be heard enough, not in this fallen world anyway. From the outset, its greater subtlety and complexity registered: never forbidding, but inviting. Barenboim and Zukerman led us by the hand through a first movement whose developmental mastery is so perfect it almost ceases in itself to register. On the cusp of what we know as late Beethoven, it suggests – and certainly did so here – other possibilities, other pathways: related, yet not necessarily quite the same as those eventually travelled. There was no need to display anything on the sleeve, whether here or in the Adagio espressivo. Yet the more one was drawn in, the closer one listened, the more radical the scope and peculiarities of the harmonic field Beethoven and his performers mapped out. Concentration and contrasts in the scherzo came close to suggesting presentiments of Webern. The final movement, then, acted not only as a finale to this sonata but to the series as a whole. It united so many earlier tendencies, introducing a few more for good measure, in a dialectical fashion it was ultimately futile not to think of as ‘late’. Further complications proved as pleasurable as they were necessary. Heroism and mastery take many forms, both in work and performance.

Zukerman/Barenboim - Beethoven, 1 March 2020

Pierre Boulez Saal

Images: Monika Rittershaus

Violin Sonata no.5 in F major, op.24, ‘Spring’

Violin Sonata no.6 in A major, op.30 no.1

Violin Sonata no.7 in C minor, op.30 no.2

Pinchas Zukerman (violin)

Daniel Barenboim (piano)

Elegant yet variegated violin playing announced the opening of Beethoven’s Spring Sonata, one of the loveliest pieces he wrote. The way the piano, or rather the pianist, leaned into his first melodic phrase and then sang – piano song, not vocal, nor for that matter violin song – proved just the ticket in response. We were to be in excellent hands, it seemed, with Pinchas Zukerman and Daniel Barenboim: a partnership whose give-and-take was very much that of equals. The first movement’s tempo was spot on. Rhythms were nicely sprung. Mozart’s utopia may have vanished, yet it seemed close –shadows included, becoming more prominent as the movement progressed. Dialogue that was magical not precious, harmonic as well as melodic, characterised the slow movement. Mysteries were revealed through phrasing and modulation alike. An initially frisky scherzo turned uncomfortable, but even the finest musicians can fall out of sync on occasion; they, like Beethoven, are only human. There was full recovery, in any case, for a finale truly worthy of the name, already of the nineteenth century in dramatic vigour, yet with vernal sweetness and chirpiness that looked back as much as forward.

The first of the op.30 sonatas, that in A major, immediately spoke with greater complexity. Barenboim and Zukerman’s first movement seemed to communicate fully Beethoven’s balance between profusion of material and longer line: no easy thing, be it in Mozart or Beethoven. It was fascinating here and in the slow movement to hear that work itself out in complement and contrast with its dramatic implications. In the latter, the very emergence of melody in both instruments made for absorbing – and far from easy – listening. The opening of the finale initially seemed less enigmatic, both more straightforward and charming. Gathering of pace, however, also afforded gathering of complexity. Here was authentic Beethovenian struggle, brought to us via outstanding playing by any standards.

Barenboim’s communication of harmonic rhythm, ever founded on the bass line, unleashed a stark yet sensitive account of the C minor Sonata. First-movement rhetorical interplay between piano and violin and motivic transformation alike fuelled the dramatic engine, its tumultuous coda the truest of climaxes. The slow movement was songful, soulful, sublime. What one could learn from Barenboim’s voicing of piano chords alone! Not, of course, that one listened to any one aspect in isolation. Dramatic eruptions gained much of their force from integration within a larger whole. The organic may well be a Romantic construct in need of deconstruction; it nevertheless became reality here. Accenting in the scherzo both gave the appearance of spontaneity and spoke of an understanding that left nothing to chance. There were many characters to encounter here, still more in a trio that was, properly, both contrasted and related to its elder sibling. Taken attacca, a finale imbued with fury and pathos made for a duly tragic conclusion both to the sonata and to the recital as a whole.

Zukerman/Barenboim - Beethoven, 29 February 2020

Pierre Boulez Saal

Violin Sonata no.1 in D major, op.12 no.1

Violin Sonata no.2 in A major, op.12 no.2

Violin Sonata no.3 in E-flat major, op.12 no.3

Violin Sonata no.4 in A minor, op.23

Pinchas Zukerman (violin)

Daniel Barenboim (piano). 

Images: Monika Rittershaus

Leap Day concerts do not come around so often: every four years, in fact. With characteristic generosity, then, the Pierre Boulez Saal offered us two. Boulez in the afternoon and Beethoven in the evening: both, of course, great passions of Daniel Barenboim. Here we heard the first of three concerts in which Barenboim, with his old friend Pinchas Zukerman, performs the complete (canonical) violin sonatas. These are works they have lived with for decades, but there was nothing routine to their performance; we heard, rather, a freshness born of internalisation/

Where to begin? Why not at the beginning? There was no sense whatsoever of limbering up. We began in medias res, rather as if this were a return to the hall after an interval, surely a reflection of work as well as performance in the case of the D major Sonata, op.12 no.1. The players’ similar, or rather mutual, conception of phrasing, articulation, and the particular character of early Beethoven shone through. The first movement requires space – and received it. Its brief development section progressed with playful wonder, expanding Haydn’s universe. There was, moreover, a fine sense of return at the dawn of the recapitulation: a second development already, Barenboim showing all the vigour of a thirty-year-old, yet the experience and wisdom that come with greater years. All was founded ultimately – as ever with Barenboim’s Beethoven – on harmony; and that was not restricted to the piano part. Barenboim presented the second movement theme with plain-spoken integrity that truly penetrated to the heart, in every sense, of Beethoven as artist and human being. Lyrical violin response and combination prepared us for a set of variations that would be far more than the sum of its parts. Harmony, once more, and an almost effortless sublimity – the struggling Beethoven is to be found later – showed us, even before the torrential turn to A minor, not only that this mattered, but how and why. The rondo finale benefited from a fine degree of post-Mozartian lilt. That syncopation did its work harmonically as well as melodically and rhythmically, rendering such distinctions justly meaningless. The music smiled and swaggered; again, the distinction did not register. Above all, it had heart.

There was a similar immediacy to the opening of op.12 no.2, albeit in a performance instantly attuned to the work’s different character. That certainly included its A major tonality, nodding to Mozart’s KV 526 but also to Beethoven’s own early piano sonata in the same key, op.2 no.2. This first movement offered mischief that was never mere licence, drama that was never mere display. Every note mattered, without pedantry, the surprises wrought by both development and recapitulation especially captivating. The slow movement unfolded with the dignity and depth of a great seria aria. Here was a pathos Mozart would surely have appreciated. The finale’s kindred yet different syncopation (to and from its counterpart in the first sonata) benefited from similar rhythmic buoyancy, yet also hints of something darker. Beethoven never stands still, nor should his interpreters – which includes us as listeners. Barenboim delivered his final, scene-stealing piano A with perfect timing and attack.

As often seems to happen when Beethoven groups his works in threes, whether intrinsically or through our listening expectations, there was a sense of neoclassical looking back to the third of the op.12 sonatas, perhaps especially in its first movement. Not that there was any doubting the composer’s voice here, in a performance boisterous, rigorous, and lovable. Another aria for the second movement? Perhaps, but this was also rightly taken as an opportunity to show that instruments and instrumentalists can and will do things that the voice and singers cannot and will not. It proved, moreover, developmental to a degree belying Beethoven’s still relatively tender years. Barenboim’s piano bass line explained all, with modulations to make hairs stand on end, in a performance as poised as it was moving. An irrepressible finale became, quite rightly, more complex the more one listened, the truest of joy to be had from counterpoint, harmony, and their combination.

The op.23 sonata offered something undefinably – at least beyond my powers of definition – of A minor to its performance. It was not only its Mozartian inheritance, though that was surely part of it. Whatever the ultimate source and nature, there was above all a rightness to this performance, heard and communicated as if in a single, endlessly divisible breath, grabbing one from the outset. It was a tale of possession, intense in its fury and in its tenderness. The second movement offered strangely restless contrast. Barenboim and Zukerman made no effort to tone down its protean quality, nor did they exaggerate. What we heard was very much that performing ideal, however much a construct, of letting the music ‘speak for itself’, of Beethoven rather than his interpreters rendering Beethoven once again strange. The finale was doubtless haunted by Mozart, yet in that also retained its distance, haunting never being unmediated, thereby enabling something quite different and surprising to unfold. Elements of unforced surprise, whether one ‘knew’ they were coming or not, helped summon this movement’s particular musical, especially formal, qualities into being. The world of the Kreuzer Sonata felt closer than one might have expected. To be continued, then…

Zukerman/Staatskapelle Berlin/Shani - Elgar and Mussorgsky, 13 January 2020

Staatsoper Unter den Linden

Elgar: Violin Concerto in B minor, op.61

Mussorgsky-Ravel: Pictures at an Exhibition

Pinchas Zukerman (violin)

Staatskapelle Berlin

Lahav Shani (conductor)

Strange though this may sound to the uninitiated, Daniel Barenboim’s Staatskapelle Berlin now stands second to none in contemporary Elgar performance. Barenboim’s long association with the composer has latterly seen an Indian summer, much of which I have been privileged to hear. This evening, in the fourth of the orchestra’s seasonal subscription concerts and the third to include music by Elgar (!), it was time to hear from Barenboim’s similarly long-term associate, Pinchas Zukerman, and a more recent associate, Lahav Shani, with whom the orchestra already seems to be on good terms.

The opening tutti certainly suggested a similar affinity on Shani’s part for the composer: passionate, urgent, and flexible as required, as idiomatic as it was ‘objectively’ convincing. The Staatskapelle, moreover, played as if it were playing for Barenboim himself. Tender, noble, rich, and dark: one could not reasonably have asked for more. This was a Romantic rather than a modernist Elgar, but there is nothing wrong with that. There would have been little virtue in attempting to present a performance someone else, let alone Barenboim, would have given. Zukerman’s entry suggested something similar, his golden, even glamorous tone recognisable of old. There was something, moreover, intriguing, not just here in the first movement but throughout, to the Brahmsian confrontation of soloist and orchestra we heard: these interpreters again very much their own men. Sadly, the charms of what increasingly sounded more like aggression on Zukerman’s part began to pale. Not only was he sometimes out of sync with the orchestra in his passagework – however craftily Shani covered up for him – but the unyielding, squarer quality of his playing was less than suggestive of much in the way of musical sensitivity. At its best, the glamour was irresistible, but was it Elgar? The slow movement fared better, roots in German Romanticism clear and meaningful. It was taken very slowly, but was none the worse for that. Shani, however, was still doing most of the real work. The finale was probably better forgotten. By turns unduly deliberate and running away with itself, it never settled down and threatened to seem interminable. There were wonderful moments, but the golden thread proved sadly elusive. A pity.

I felt no such reservations or difficulties concerning the second half: Pictures at an Exhibition in Ravel’s orchestration. Insofar as I had any at all, they related as ever to Ravel’s enterprise itself; even on that count, I had fewer than usual. Shani, seemingly liberated, conducted without a score, leading a performance full of incident but also possessed of long-term coherence. The opening Promenade had a similar urgency to the opening of the Elgar, yet rightly opened the door to music of very different qualities. ‘Gnomus’ boasted depth of string tone and agility in equal measure, colour, and above all mystery. There was not a little of that to ‘Il vechhio castello’ too, Gallic suavity – also heard later, in ‘Limoges: Le marché’ – balanced by occasional hints at an intriguing post-Mozartian sensibility. ‘Bydlo’, however, was more Russian, Ravel’s crescendo and diminuendo notwithstanding. (Surely he had to do something along such lines anyway. Mussorgsky’s strategy could hardly have worked as it did with orchestra.) Its shadow darkened the following Promenade and seemed also to inspire the portrait of ‘Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuyle’. Antisemitic? Undoubtedly, yet we lose something if we sit too sternly in judgement. Wagnerian brass turned Russian as we toured the catacombs. The spirit of Boris Godunov appeared not for the first time in the unease and sheer malevelonce of ‘Cum mortuis in lingua mortua’. Baba Yaga’s arrival took one’s breath away, Shani’s insistence on motor rhythms strongly suggestive of Prokofiev. Perhaps perversely, I missed the piano most for ‘The Great Gate of Kiev’, though there was no doubting the excellence of the playing, nor Shani’s command. Ravel’s cunning hints at Boris-like orchestration made their point in any case.

RPO/Zukerman - Bach, Schoenberg, Mozart, and Mendelssohn, 27 June 2014

Cadogan Hall

Bach – Violin Concerto in A minor, BWV 1041

Schoenberg – Verklärte Nacht, op.4

Mozart – Exsultate, jubilate, KV 165/158a

Mendelssohn – Symphony no.4 in A major, op.90, ‘Italian’

Arianna Zukerman (soprano)
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
Pinchas Zukerman (violin, conductor) 

Pinchas Zukerman is joining the RPO for a ‘Summer Music Festival’ at Cadogan Hall, involving chamber as well as orchestral music, the former with musicians from the Royal College of Music. This was the opening concert, in which we were treated to Zukerman as violinist as well as conductor. There was a great deal to enjoy, and we were treated to a previously unadvertised bonus, a performance of Exsultate, jubilate, with Zukerman’s daughter, Arianna.

Bach came first: the rarest of rare treats in the insanity of modern symphonic programming. Would that one could believe this to be a harbinger; alas, it seems more likely to be a late, if not quite last, hurrah from a generation of musicians who understood and experienced the necessity of performing a repertoire spanning as many centuries as possible. Zukerman’s recordings of the Bach violin concertos with Daniel Barenboim and the English Chamber Orchestra remain a choice recommendation, as do those of David Oistrakh with the RPO. Here, in a sense, then, we gained the best of both worlds, and this was for the most part a delightfully assured, musical performance, which sought to make no especial ‘points’ and was all the better for it. The tempo taken for the first movement had a sense of ‘rightness’ to it, setting up a performance whose variegated articulation was not the least of its virtues. Zukerman’s intonation was perfect throughout. (It is surprising how many violinists’ intonation is not.) Varied flourishes of vibrato were rightly the icing on the cake. And throughout, crucially, the continuo line (Clare Williams on harpsichord, Tim Gill leading the cellos) provided the foundation upon which Bach’s miraculous score was re-created. The slow movement was a little more problematical: taken at a very brisk pace and, more to the point, at times disconcertingly brusque. Matters improved as time went on, but tutti passages retained more than a little of that character. Zukerman could occasionally be a little fierce too, though there were some truly exquisite moments: diminuendi, in particular, and some especially rich tone in the lower registers of the instrument. Some might have found the finale a little on the sturdy side, but Zukerman’s tempo permitted musical values to eclipse the merely or mostly flash. Again, that perfectly centred tone of his was something truly to savour – and again, the RPO played with unflashy excellence. 

A good number more strings joined the orchestra for Verklärte Nacht. This proved to be quite an unusual performance. In many, though not quite all, it paid off, but Zukerman certainly proved himself no slave to received tradition. The veiled opening, dark, even ominuous, seemed all the more so for being taken at an unusually slow tempo. It actually made the music sound closer to Mahler, recalling the first movement of the Second Symphony and even looking forward to the Sixth, despite the different keys involved. The opening, at least, was quite different in its lack of Brahmsian flexibility, though that would come later, Zukerman showing himself willing both to linger and to press on. Indeed, different sections of the work exhibited clearly differentiated character, the programme coming across more strongly than often. Despite one passage in which conductor and orchestra seemed to lose their way – I am not quite sure what happened – climaxes and turning-points were handled with musical and dramatic understanding. Graver passages seemed especially to benefit from Zukerman’s approach; some others might have benefited from more in the way of late Romantic abandon, sounding a little studied by comparison with other performances. I was not entirely convinced by the considerable slowing towards the end, suggesting almost an formal arch rather than a journey toward transfiguration, but the final bars themselves somewhat redressed the balance.

 

Arianna Zukerman showed herself a winningly forthright soloist: not flawless, but with a nicely operatic spirit. In the first movement of Mozart’s motet, the lower range showed a degree of strain, and the cadenza’s intonation was unfortunate. But her phrasing was musical, and was clearly conceived of in tandem with Zukerman’s exquisite direction of the orchestra, woodwind in particular. Even when, once again, as in the third movement, the soloist’s intonation wandered, the RPO sounded gorgeous. The final ‘Alleluia’ was taken with evident relish; it was difficult not to smile, in Haydnesque fashion, at the prospect of the Divinity.

 

Mendelssohn’s Italian Symphony received a lovely performance with which to finish. The first movement opened with real attack, a true sense of life. Bright and bushy-tailed, Mendelssohn’s score benefited once again from splendidly variegated playing. The vivace in Allegro vivace was properly heeded. There was a delightful, subtle slowing for the advent of the second group, but the exposition repeat was not taken and was missed (at least by me!) The development section was admirably clear with an excellent sense of direction, the recapitulation offering a real sense of arrival – and also of difference, bubbling woodwind nicely to the fore. What one might call the ‘light inexorability’ of tread to the second movement was perfectly captured. It was interesting to note that often Zukerman felt no need to conduct at all, suggestive of well-directed rehearsal. The minuet received a loving, old world performance. Too relaxed? Perhaps just a little, at times, though certainly not by much. Its trio continued in similar vein, boasting especially fine Harmoniemusik, which inevitably had one think of Mozart’s serenades. Any slight doubts had evaporated by the return of the minuet. The finale wanted nothing in vigour, urgency, or, where required, lightness of touch. A fine sense of chiaroscuro ensured that it was not unrelenting, indeed that it was blessed by musical ‘character’.

 

Stravinsky, Haydn, Hindemith: Staatskapelle Berlin/Zukerman, 11 December 2007

Philharmonie, Berlin

Stravinsky – Concerto in D for string orchestra
Haydn – Violin Concerto no.1 in C major, Hob VIIa:I
Hindemith – Trauermusik for viola and string orchestra
Haydn – Symphony no.99 in E flat major

Staatskapelle Berlin
Pinchas Zukerman (violin, viola, conductor)

The Stravinsky Concerto in D began promisingly. That inhuman implacability of Stravinsky’s motor rhythms, the essence of his neo-classicism and yet utterly removed from ‘real’ Austro-German Classical-Romantic music, registered with considerable power. After that, however, the orchestra sounded out of sorts and simply miscast. The Staatskapelle Berlin is, after all, one of the great standard-bearers of the traditional German orchestral sound, far more so than the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. The second-movement Arioso sounded sweet enough, but the sound was more appropriate to watered-down Tchaikovsky than to Stravinskian aggression.
The outer movements brought instances of incisive rhythm, but all too often the music simply chugged along, putting one in mind – perhaps not entirely unfairly – of an updated run-of-the-mill eighteenth-century composer. This work hardly represents Stravinsky at his greatest and needs a Karajan to convince one otherwise. Perhaps Pinchas Zukerman’s mind was distracted by his forthcoming instrumental duties, since he did little to impart the urgency requisite to this music.

Haydn’s first violin concerto fared much better. The strings were slightly reduced (from twelve first violins to ten, and so forth), which maybe was not strictly necessary but nor did it do any harm. A harpsichord continuo was introduced. Again, I am not convinced of the necessity of its tinkling, but again it did no harm. Although there is a limit to what one can accomplish directing from the violin, Zukerman here proved in command of the performance. He shaped phrases nicely and imparted a measured flexibility that does not always result from such situations, especially in the hands of less experienced directors, who might be happy simply to keep the show on the road. (They would undoubtedly benefit from a conductor, although this seems increasingly unfashionable.) Zukerman’s violin tone was as beautiful as ever, which is certainly not something one should take for granted in a soloist. The absolute surety of his technique and, more importantly, the utterly musical ends to which it was put, provided a master-class in violin performance. Phrases were perfectly rounded, and there was no question of unduly dominating his orchestra. Instead, he emerged as if the senior member of one of the most distinguished string sections in the world. Each movement was appropriately characterised, without resorting to the caricatures that many performers, especially of the ‘authentic’ variety, appear to believe appropriate to eighteenth-century music. Thus the Presto finale veritably sparkled, without ever sounding hard-driven, and – a rarity these days! – the Adagio actually was an Adagio, rather than a hurried, choppily-phrased Andante. Zukerman and his players truly captured the essence, not so easily distilled, of what is in many senses a Baroque concerto in Classical style. C.P.E. Bach more than once came to mind, and not without good reason. This is not Mozart, nor is it later Haydn; there was no attempt to force this sunny work into a more ‘developed’ mould than it could take.

Hindemith’s Trauermusik also convinced, even if the level of musical invention can hardly be said to represent the composer at his most inspired, let alone to approach Haydn. The players and conductor, however, sounded convinced, which is what matters. Once again, their sonority sounded just right for the music, although here I felt that the distinct character of the work’s four movements might have been more sharply characterised. As an opportunity for Zukerman to display the equal beauty of his viola tone, however, this was an undoubted success. Not only was there an almost incredible richness to his sound; the subtleties of shading were just as impressive. Once again, Zukerman achieved the right balance between leading where necessary but also sounding as though drawn from the ensemble under his direction.

Haydn’s Symphony no.99 is, of course, music on quite a different level. It received a good performance, without ever searing itself upon one’s memory as a great rendition should. The strings were now at last joined by woodwind, brass, and timpani, which made the logic of the programme somewhat difficult to follow. It might have made more sense had this been a purely string orchestral programme, but never mind. The clarinets sometimes sounded unduly forceful, so much so that I was momentarily in doubt whether they should have been there at all. There were also a couple of surprising blemishes from the otherwise beautiful horns. The orchestra in other respects despatched the music with considerable aplomb, but there was slightly a sense of it being despatched rather than of anything more profound. The strings’ burnished tone was a joy in itself, and certainly not something to be taken for granted, but I felt a slight lack of digging deeper than the notes. For instance, the Adagio flowed without ever sounding rushed, and its harmonies ravished, yet there was little sense of how close to the mysteries of Beethoven one really is with the London symphonies. Likewise, the minuet and trio danced along merrily – and musically. But there is more at stake, not least with Haydn’s cross rhythms, than registered here. Haydn’s fabled sense of humour counted for little at the end of the finale, flawlessly etched as it was by correctly antiphonal violins and their colleagues. That said, Zukerman once again turned phrases elegantly and his chosen tempi once again seemed just right. Given some of the horrors perpetuated in the name of ‘authenticity’ – does anyone seriously think that eighteenth-century musicians were quite that unmusical? – I was not unduly worried, although I could not help thinking of the altogether more arresting experience of Mariss Jansons’s Haydn, which I reviewed in November.