Brenda Zwickel responds to me:

>> ...  I reserve judgment on whether or not one can be a completely
>>effective conductor whilst playing, but she gave it her all.
>
>Did she ever poke herself in the eye with the bow?  Perlman came
>perilously close to doing that several times ...

Ah, Bren --

Yes, Iona could definitely bob & weave with the worst of them...

Whenever I see the "new expressiveness" of our [ahem] finest artistes,
I can't fail to recall the physical presence of, say, Heifetz or
Piatigorsky, neither of them exactly slouches, who comported themselves
with a minimum of fuss and bother (Piatigorsky, whose master class I
attended, said that Heifetz used to play "with that face like a gefilte
fish"), but whose playing contained all the passion one (or at least I)
could hope for.  Today's players, of course, don't trust us to divine
the essence of the music without some visual cues.  Sometimes, watching
the mugging going on in performance, I marvel at the fact that there are
people who are actually opposed to the use of high-powered attack rifles...

Sorry to be so curmudgeonly, Bren, but we West Coast millionaires hate
to be disturbed in our mansions first thing of a Sunday morning...

I'll have the valet post this message now.

Yrs devotedly,

Roger