Itzhak Perlman, Gabriela Montero, Yo-Yo Ma and Anthony McGill (not pictured) at Obama’s Inauguration Tuesday (UPI Photo/Roger L. Wollenberg).
There’s been a big to-do on every available media outlet about the bow/finger synching by the all-star classical quartet that performed at Obama’s inauguration this week.
True, it would have been ideal if violinist Itzhak Perlman, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, clarinetist Anthony McGill and pianist Gabriela Montero had played “live” on the capitol steps, but seriously, it would be impossible to keep their instruments in tune and their fingers flexible enough (and with sensation) to be able to to provide a performance up to the standards of the occasion.
For musicians of any stripe, cold is your worst enemy. The dry air can cause seams of wooden instruments to come unglued (luthiers use hide glue, which is used so that if repairs are needed the tops of instruments can be safely removed and it’s also able to flex with vibrations of the body of the instrument), wind instruments such as the oboe and clarinet can suffer from severe cracking due to the difference in temperature between the inside and outside of the fragile instruments’ wooden barrels. On instruments without frets, where microscopic changes of finger position necessary for producing vibrato, intonation adjustments, and changes of tone that result from minute changes of pressure on the fingerboard (or keyboard) are vital, the cold first removes sensation from the crucial tips of the fingers. This simply makes performing live in sub-freezing conditions impossible (witness the Olympic opening ceremonies in Salt Lake City, where the Utah Symphony had to synch with a pre-recorded track because of the cold).
So, give these fine musicians a break, they needed to do it the way they did, and in any indoor situation they would have performed “live” and to their usual impeccably high standards – unlike some pop musicians similarly faking their performances in ideal conditions.