Perfect performance

The nuances of music elude me. Putting words, not notes, together is my forte. I have an immense admiration for musicians, and I have tried to understand their trade, but I concede defeat.\nI am illiterate when it comes to reading musical scales. I've tried to learn to play musical instruments -- the oboe and the piano, most notably -- but to no avail. I don't know what a tetrachord, a leitmotif or a solfeggio are, and I can't detect a tonal difference between something in B-flat major and something in C minor. \nLike many people, I'm lost at sea, adrift in the world of music, and my only point of navigation is what sounds good or what stirs me. This is not scientific by any means, but using this grading scale has not failed me in the past, and certainly didn't fail me Saturday evening for one of the most breathtaking musical performances I've ever seen.\nItzhak Perlman, considered as the reigning virtuoso of the violin by just about anyone with a pulse, is everything in concert that everyone says he is. The 56 year-old, born in Israel and educated at the Academy of Music in Tel Aviv and the Julliard School of Music in New York, delivered a bristling sold-out performance Saturday at the IU Auditorium. \nI had been told of Perlman's talent and musical deftness by many prior to the concert. I have seen "Schindler's List" a number of times, and each time I'm haunted by Perlman's solitary violin on the film's score. But it was amazing to watch Perlman fluidly fiddle and produce an amazing amount of the highest quality sound from such a small instrument.\nAccompanied by Rohan De Silva, a dazzling Sri Lankan pianist who took second billing, Perlman was delicate yet bold, effervescent and subdued. Like any great performer, he had a full-bodied passion, and the affection he has for his craft was clearly visible on his face, in his arms and in his aura which radiated through the auditorium.\nMozart and Beethoven were the centerpieces in the first half of Perlman's performance, but the second half felt more personal. Perlman performed a local premiere "Episodes for Violin & Piano" by composer Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, who won the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for Music. With funding from the Florida Arts Council, Zwilich wrote the work for Perlman, and the connection he had with the piece was immediately clear from the first few bars of music.\nGood music, like good oratory, can raise your heart rate and silence an audience. (As Perlman wiped his brow with a pocket square during a break in the performance, there was an awkward round of coughing from people who had held it in and feared to peep while he was performing.) Perlman, one of our few truly great musicians, accomplished both.