Update - Lohengrin! - 2011/12 CSO Season

Hi there. I'm still around. Baby stuff has kept me from updating this site in a long while. I did indeed manage to go to a few concerts, though, so in brief:

Extended Boulez Stint

Pierre Boulez's CSO residencies have become the highlights of the past few concert season. This season, having arrived in town early for eye surgery, Boulez happily agreed to fill in for an ailing Muti last October, replacing the scheduled Cherubini with Mahler's 7th, which was broadcast on PBS' Great Performances. The performance was characterized by a warmth and spontaneity rare in Boulez performances. Boulez's first regular scheduled program in late November then featured a make-up for the canceled Ligeti violin concerto Robert Chen was supposed to have played last season under Morlot, which inexplicably got replaced with Tchaikovsky. Chen with his effortless technique is an ideal exponent for a work like this, and it was clear that his colleagues and Boulez lavished a lot of rehearsal time and attention on this work to support their concertmaster. The Ravel and Debussy that bookended the Ligeti, by contrast, had a rather phoned-in feel, despite the expert execution. The absolute highlight not only of Boulez's Chicago stint, but perhaps of the entire season, was Boulez's final program, featuring Schoenberg's Verklärte Nacht and Janáček's Glagolitic Mass. My wife and I both thought this to have been the most riveting performance we had heard in Chicago in many years. Orchestra, the CSO Chorus, soloists, and Boulez exceeded themselves on this occasion. Paul Jacobs, the organ soloist, is an animal! I've never heard that solo played like that!

I have a little plea to make at this point: if these performances were taped at all, CSO Resound simply *must* issue a recording. There is a simple reason for this: a recording of this performance would be without any meaningful competition in the market. There are two versions of Janáček's Glagolitic Mass. The one that is most often performed is a bastardized, simplified version, which was forced upon the composer when the first performers insisted that the original score was unplayable. In recent years, the musicologist Paul Wingfield has restored the original version. The differences are significant, the resulting musical experience so much richer, that, once heard, you will be unable to ever return to the simplified version without feeling deeply dissatisfied. The differences include, among other things, a more symmetrical layout, with the Intrada played both at the beginning and at the end, and the Veruju climaxes with a gigantic timpani cadenza that is massively cut in the simplified version; furthermore, the simplified version completely eliminates complex polyrhythms in the Uvod and simplifies the meter of the Gospodi, both of which lead to a much less craggy, less modern and less dramatic musical impression of the work. If you were to shop around for a recording of the Glagolitic Mass, you will undoubtedly run into three recordings that are generally most recommended by connoisseurs: Ančerl, Kubelik or Mackerras (Czech PO). Yet, all three of these (Ančerl is the most riveting) feature the simplified, bastardized version of the Mass. If you're looking for the restored Wingfield version, you're out of luck. I am aware of only three CD recordings in total, two of which are hopelessly out of print, and none of which comes close to Ančerl or Kubelik in intensity, and none of which match Boulez's performances here of last December in perfection of execution and sheer sweep. Mackerras recorded the Wingfield version on CD with Danish forces, but the result is mediocre with the orchestra and chorus not really of international caliber. A performance with Richard Hickox leading BBC forces was distributed for free with the BBC magazine a while back, but it's... well... Hickox and the BBC. Serviceable, but not stellar. Also, it's completely unavailable these days, except perhaps on ebay. An earlier performance of the Glagolitic Mass with Boulez and the CSO from 2000 was included in the "From the Archives - A Tribute to Pierre Boulez" set issued for a fundraiser by the CSO a couple of years ago, but the CSO store is out of them and it never was available anywhere else. But even Boulez's earlier self didn't perform on the level he did here this last September. Also, in 2000 his singers weren't as good and he didn't have Paul Jacobs on the organ. So, please! can we have a recording of this? Pretty please? It will be an instant award winner.

Lohengrin!

Friday last week, my wife and I had the incredible good fortune of not only receiving two tickets to the opening night of Lohengrin at the Lyric Opera from two dear friends, but also of having those same friends volunteer to babysit out son in order to enable us to take advantage of their incredibly generous offer.

If you are reading this and don't have a ticket yet to one of the remaining performances, get one now! That is an order! If we weren't living in an age of jaded record collectors convinced that the 1950's were the "golden age" of Wagnerian singing, one would without hesitation say that Johan Botha's portrayal of the title hero is the stuff of legend. I have never, ever heard *anyone* sing this part with such total lack of any hint of technical difficulty, absence of any strain throughout the full four and a half hour marathon, completely effortless projection, and absolutely marvelous control of phrasing and dynamics, and I practically grew up in a German opera house, having heard Lohengrin countless times since I was a wee lad! You can scour the recordings, from Konya to Domingo to Seiffert, nobody sings like this. (Indeed, Botha seems to have just recently recorded the part himself, and the set is already being touted as reference material.) Don't miss this Lohengrin! What is more, Botha is flanked by a very fine Elsa in the form of Emily Magee, who made her career with this role a little over ten years ago (Amber Wagner, whom I haven't heard, replaces her for the last two performances), and who plays and sings the part with appropriate angelic naiveté. The other highlight is a truly demonic Ortrud portrayed by Michaela Schuster. While her voice isn't the prettiest - and it certainly need not be for this part - she exudes such a palpable manipulative malevolence that it makes your hairs stand on end even in the last row of the hall. Her superb diction is an asset as well. Another positive surprise was Georg Zeppenfeld as King Heinrich, who despite youthful appearance gave his character an appropriately profound gravitas, he too with superb diction. Greer Grimsley as Telramund is nearly as good an actor as his female counterpart, Schuster, and their joint scene at the opening of Act II was one of the most mesmerizing of the entire performance, even though Grimsley's voice sometimes tended towards the bark-y. The staging, apparently a recycling of an older Covent Garden production, is minimalist, conventional and unimaginative for sure. But in its minimalism it is also unobtrusive and lets the audience focus on the singers, who have ample acting skills to fill the void, even if Botha with his girth is a bit clumsy in his sword fights with Grimsley. In short, and once again, don't miss this Lohengrin!

CSO Announces 2011/2012 Season

I am kind of glad that the obligations of fatherhood prevented me from blogging at the height of the whole Muti collapse debacle. Some of the speculation around the media was not very nice and I am glad the doctors seem to have figured things out and hopefully patched him up for good, so that he will be able to fulfill his musical duties here in Chicago in the future. In the meantime, the CSO just announced its next season, the second with Muti as music director. Here are the highlights from my idiosyncratic vantage point:

Mahler Centennial

Besides the Concertgebouw, there is probably no other orchestra in the world that is as throughly well versed in Mahler as the CSO. Yet, for the Mahler Centennial, Muti and the CSO have chosen a peculiar route of celebration, that may in fact have some unique gems. For starters, Muti will not conduct any of Mahler's music himself. Instead, Muti's third program in the fall will be a recreation of the last concert Mahler conducted before his death, and it is an eclectic hodgepodge of rarities that makes even Muti's own frequent excursions off the beaten path look conservative. Just take a look at this:

Sinigaglia Overture to Le baruffe chiozzotte
Mendelssohn Symphony No. 4 (Italian)
Martucci Piano Concerto No. 2 (Gerhard Oppitz is the pianist)
Busoni Berceuse élégiaque
Bossi Intermezzi from Goldoniani

I'm sure the eclectic mix of lesser known Italian composers made this an especially attractive program for Muti. Either way, It will certainly be worth hearing, both for the rare opportunity to hear this music performed live at all, and because this is what Muti does best: lavish attention and careful preparation on forgotten gems to such a degree to make them sound like real masterpieces. The real Mahler conducting, however, will be left to guests, featuring the following symphonies: 1 (Zweden), 4 (Haitink), Blumine (Tilson Thomas), 6 (Salonen), das Lied von der Erde (Boulez).

Muti Conducts Franck and Honneger

The other real Muti highlight of next season in my mind is a program in February 2012 featuring Honneger's Pacific 231 and Franck's Symphony in D bookending a new work by composer in residence Mason Bates. The Honneger is another one of those rarities that deserves the welcome attention of a master like Muti. Philippe Jordan's mediocre performance of the Franck here a few seasons ago left such a lingering bad taste in my mouth, that I look forward to hearing it done with more commitment, as the CSO is bound to give Muti.

Noteworthy Debuts

There are two young conductors I heard many years ago in the German provinces, of whom I made a mental note, as their performances were mature well beyond their years and whose natural and intelligent musicianship promised very successful careers ahead. Coincidentally, both of them will be making their debuts here at the CSO next season. One is Kirill Petrenko, who since my first encounter with him has had a highly successful tenure as director of the Komische Oper Berlin and will soon take over the leadership of the Bavarian State Opera. He has been a regular guest meanwhile at the Berlin Philharmonic and the Metropolitan Opera (I reviewed a recent performance of the Magic Flute under his leadership here). Kirill Petrenko (not to be confused with Vassily Petrenko of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic) will be debuting at the CSO with a Russian program featuring Shostakovich's Piano Concerto No.1 (with Marc-André Hamelin) and Rachmaninov's Symphony No.3. Petrenko's one-time mentor, Semyon Bychkov, once pronounced him "the only natural-born conductor I have ever met."  I agree and would encourage you to hear his organic interpretations next March.

The other conductor, whose career I have been following for a number of years with great interest, and whom I would  like to bring to your attention is Stéphane Denève. A Solti and Prêtre apprentice, Denève has in recent years led the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, considerably improving its technical polish, and is slated to take over the SWR Radio Symphony in Stuttgart next season. With his Scottish orchestra he recently completed a cycle of Roussel symphonies for Naxos that has received great reviews. His first CSO program will, in part draw on his experience with that composer, presenting Roussel's le Festin de l'araignée alongside Ravel's Daphnis Suite No.2 and Prokofiev's 2nd Violin Concerto (with Leonidas Kavakos) and the suite from the Love of Three Oranges. In short, it is a program that both plays to Denève's strengths and (in the case of the Roussel) fits in with Muti's concept of bringing rarely-heard music to performance.

Boulez

The Boulez CSO residencies are always special. The two Boulez programs next season both feature his long time collaborator Pierre-Laurent Aimard as soloist. The first week brings us Stravinsky's A Soldier's Tale and Schoenberg's Pierrot lunaire, while the second consists of Schoenberg's Piano Concerto and the aforementioned Mahler, das Lied von der Erde. But the real gem may just be the Beyond the Score feature of Pierrot lunaire - a work which could particularly benefit from such an exposure.

Arrival Interrupted

I'm a little late to the game, so by now you will have read in all the usual places that Riccardo Muti arrived, saw, conquered, and departed prematurely with "extreme gastric distress". In the meantime, we have of course found out more details about the matter and Muti seems well on his way towards full recovery and a return to the CSO podium in February. This all makes the speculation indulged in by the local pseudo-music critic from the city's leading conservative fishwrap manufacturer seem all that more dishonest and in poor taste. Some people deserve their employers. Anyway... getting back to music...

I missed Muti's inaugural free concert in Millennium Park, as well as the Mozart-Haydn program. However, I did make it to the Friday performance of Muti's first regular subscription program, billed as the "Berlioz Spectacular". When the choice of Muti as the next CSO music director was announced, I expressed here on this blog certain reservations, which at the time I did not further elaborate. I have heard Muti conduct many times during the time that I lived in New York, with a variety of ensembles, including the Vienna and New York Philharmonics. As an avid record collector, I of course also listened to most of his discography from Philadelphia, London and elsewhere. What I heard at Symphony Center here in Chicago in that last week of September fully confirmed my prior impressions of both his qualities and shortcomings as a conductor and therefore of my queasiness over his choice as the new MD.

Aside from certain repertoire that Muti evidently cares about a great deal (Verdi and Tchaikovsky, in particular), I have often felt about most Muti performances that I was hearing utmost musical elegance and technical perfection and a great, natural dramatic arc, but for no particular artistic purpose. There is a certain one-size-fits-all orchestral sound with Muti (perhaps inspired by Karajan, whom he clearly reveres), that doesn't care whether Berlioz or Beethoven or Scriabin is on the menu. The orchestra sounds the same whatever the composer. This was especially evident in Muti's first week at the CSO, and I find it is lethal for Berlioz in general and Symphonie fantastique in particular.

Symphonie fantastique is a unique piece in the symphonic repertoire. Although inspired by the Eroica, its young composer departed very far from Beethoven's model, especially in terms of orchestration, and charted new territory of his own. What Berlioz did here was stands out among the work of his contemporaries and its influence did not catch on until much later. But this uniqueness was not in evidence in Muti's interpretation - the orchestral sound was entirely too monochromatic to convey the peculiarities of Berlioz's unparalleled instrumentation, his orchestral effects, or the special atmosphere evoked by the best performances of this work. The whole interpretation seemed like he was taking one of the most audacious and most weirdly orchestrated pieces and making it sound like a worship service for any other canonical romantic repertoire piece, devoid of revolutionary edge, the element of surprise, or idiosyncrasy. It is almost as if there was some strange reluctance of Muti's to step outside of himself and step into the character of the music at any given moment. He also values beautiful sound too much way to allow his band to produce any ugly sounds, but this music demands ugliness and grotesqueness at times. So this is perhaps what you get when someone, who - by his own words - has "nothing left to prove" in his musical career, is conducting the music of a 27-year-old, who still had everything to prove. The result is to me just musically uninteresting and generic in a way, despite the perfection of the execution.

And perfect it was, indeed. Whatever my criticisms above, there is absolutely no denying that the CSO musicians think very highly of Muti and that he in turn inspires them to new heights. Everyone, including customarily uninvolved string backbenchers and a recently wobbly principal horn, delivered at the absolute height of his or her musical prowess. I have never heard this orchestra play with this much dedication and involvement outside of tour performances abroad (or perhaps Barenboim's farewell). But when the conductor doesn't care to clarify textures and expose unique Berliozian instrumental combinations, when everything is played with the same beautiful, hi-gloss sheen - whether the work's hero is overjoyed, dancing with his beloved or about to be executed - then much of the musicians' hard work is artistically for naught. The woodwinds were often somewhat covered up by unnecessarily lush strings, and the last two movements simply lacked any hallucinatory element, any aspect of the bizarre, or any atmosphere of fear, death, or doom. It was more dream than nightmare. As electrified as the hall was with Muti, I would rather hear a more thoughtful and atmospheric interpretation like what Fabio Luisi did here two seasons ago - as resistant as some in the orchestra may have been to follow him as wholeheartedly as they followed Muti.

Now, at the same time as Muti's inaugural program exhibited some of his interpretive blandness in mainstream repertoire, it also exhibited some of his greatest qualities, one of which is his utter and unshakable conviction that forgotten and neglected works of music must be performed and must be given performances of the highest caliber. Maybe he is too aware in core repertoire that he is battling the ghosts of performances past, but Muti seems to open up and find an emotional energy in obscure works that he often lacks the core repertoire. All of this was in ample evidence in the second half of the program, which featured Berlioz's extremely rarely performed "sequel" to Symphonie fantastique, Lélio, ou la retour à la vie. Performances and recordings of the latter (in its complete form) are even more rare than performances and recordings of the former are ubiquitous, so having the opportunity of hearing it live and performed at such level of refinement, with meticulous observance of the composer's staging instructions, was a rare treat indeed. As requested by Berlioz, the orchestra, chorus and singers were performing in the dark behind a semi-transparent screen, with only the narrator in front. (This produced one mildly comical moment when the CSO chorus sprang into action by switching on an army of itty-bitty booklights.)

Of course, as far as sequels go, Lélio is like a big film studio making a low budget sequel to a blockbuster movie using scraps scavenged from the cutting room floor. None of the music was written specifically for the purpose of incorporation into Lélio and without the spoken narration it would be an irredeemably incoherent hodgepodge. Nonetheless, Muti's conviction coupled with Gérard Dépardieu's dramatic narration made for a very special evening. That said, I don't know why Dépardieu couldn't have memorized the entire text, given that he already performed this same program with Muti last season in Europe. I also don't understand why the overhead translation omitted more than 30% of the text. Lélio also showcased Muti's other great quality. Among the living he is simply unsurpassed at un-messing very messy choral-orchestral situations and putting orchestra and vocals on a level playing field. In this he will be a true heir to Sir Georg Solti, who was at his best in this discipline. So, perhaps one of the best things to hope for in this CSO-Muti marriage is that this period might mark a new golden age for the Chicago Symphony Chorus. I can't remember the last time I heard them sound this good. The vocals soloists on the other hand were a tad uneven. While Kyle Ketelsen merged luxurious air-power with utmost control and perfect French diction, Mario Zeffiri wasn't quite as convincing, and Muti had to repeatedly gesture to him to adjust the tenor's dynamics.

(PS: I can't help but imagine that some amount of vanity was involved in selecting an opening night program that involves a piece in which the narrator says: "Watch the conductor! He is very important!", and which ends with "We have many more works of music ahead of us than this feeble sketch.")

One concert is hardly a basis for making predictions about the future success of a new maestro-orchestra alliance and I won't engage in any such speculation here. There is no question the orchestra loves him right now, and so does the Chicago audience. But I have yet to hear something from Muti that convinces me that musically this will be something new that we haven't heard before. The CSO is already known as an unparalleled machine of symphonic precision. It does not need Muti for that. Muti is saying and doing all the right things right now to keep musicians and administration happy and excited about him. But the honeymoon will end eventually, and then we will have to see whether a nearly septuagenarian with only abstract awareness of iPods is the right person to lead this orchestra into a new era and conquer the hearts of new audiences. We will then also see whether Muti's stated commitment to being a musical ambassador, who will reach out to underprivileged groups in the city, will go beyond the token gestures he has made so far.

In the meantime, I will happily flock to Symphony Center to hear Muti unearth another forgotten Hindemith piece or any choral mass spectacle. But I don't think I will be terribly inclined to pay top dollar to hear perfectly executed but emotionally uninvolved performances of German romantics or French repertoire in generic sound when Muti is on the podium. In this respect I simply expect more from a CSO concert than what I have heard Muti deliver.

Still Here

Hi readers (all five of you?),

I'm still around. Sorry I haven't blogged much. I meant to cover the monthlong CSO-Boulez 85th birthday bash, all of which I of course attended, as well as a few more CSO concerts, but never got around to it. I have a brand new beautiful baby boy, who is naturally far more interesting to me than blogging at the moment. So please forgive if I go on a hiatus now. I'm not sure if and when I will be in a position to continue the blog. I will be going to hear Morlot return to the CSO this Saturday and encourage you to go as well, if you're in the Chicago area. When else will you get a chance to hear Martinu's Frescoes of Piero della Francesca live and with such competent podium leadership? I may catch some of Haitink's valedictory CSO Beethoven cycle as well next month, but don't know if I'll have time to write about either one...

CSO Announces First Muti Season

So the CSO finally announced the first season to be led by its new music director, Riccardo Muti. And programming-wise the next season looks... very much like many preceding seasons. Muti never was one for experimentation in programming and he's not about to start with that here in Chicago. Most programs for the season follow the time-honored formula of: 1. overture/short work, 2. concerto-ish work, 3. big meaty symphony; without much of a thematic connection or logic to the pairings besides to say that we need some vegetables alongside the meat and potatoes for the sake of balance. That is not to say that the season is not going to be interesting. The big difference will be the return of opera in concert performance with a week of Verdi's Otello in April 2010. Muti has also always been an advocate for lesser known works of neglected masters, and there will be some worthwhile examples of that next season, too. Old friends and new faces among visiting guest conductors and soloists will add their spices and ingredients to a season that in sum will be as varied as any the CSO has presented in recent years. (Highlights below).

Speaking of soloists and guest conductors... every change of music directors often means a complete revamp of guest rosters, as soloists chose not to reappear without their favored collaborator on the podium and young guest conductors lose their most powerful advocates. Sometimes, these decisions follow less rational reasons. In Chicago, happily, change has been more fluid. The "friends-of-Danny" didn't turn their backs on the CSO when Barenboim left, and some of Haitink's protegés will be back in Muti's first season (e.g. Jaap van Zweden, who made a stunning debut with Bruckner's 5th here two years ago). There will nonetheless be a number of new faces and returns by great masters not seen here in many years.

Whatever critics and cognoscenti think about the daringness of the programming, or lack thereof, in the end the success of Muti's tenure will be measured by ticket sales, and by continuing to preserve the image of the CSO as the top orchestra in the land that continues to attract top musical talent from around the world. As survey upon survey shows, what will matter most is whether Muti's appointment generates the requisite buzz to incite enough curiosity and goodwill for the orchestra, and whether the programming offers enough familiar blockbusters to keep a critical mass of subscribers coming back each season. With a stable budget despite the current treacherous financial environment, a top roster of musicians, and continued critical acclaim, the CSO finds itself in possibly the most enviable situation among US orchestras. While having snagged the one available maestro of great stature for its new music director will certainly add to its lustre, it remains to be seen whether an older conductor, who until recently did not know what an ipod is, will be the right figure to lead the CSO at the beginning of the 21st century and reach new, younger audiences. Or perhaps he will prove everyone wrong and will demonstrate that in the end it is simply top quality music making that matters, and marketing should be better left to full-time marketing people. We shall see. We are just at the beginning of this story.

As to Muti's first season, herewith a list of personal highlights:

Free Millennium Park Concert

Muti will kick off his tenure with a free concert in Millennium Park that will feature Liszt's Les Préludes and Respighi's Pines of Rome. With a program so well geared towards showcasing the CSO's brassy goodness and Muti's strengths in musical drama it is hard to imagine that this concert will be anything but an unqualified success.

CSO Symphony Ball

Special events are often more notable as social occasions than for their musical quality, but when the date marks the first appearance of Anne-Sophie Mutter with the CSO in more than two decades (I suppose she is too expensive for a full subscription week), it is certain to be of musical importance as well, even if Mutter's recent interpretive development is not your thing. Mutter will be performing the Beethoven concerto.

Eleven Weeks of Muti

To show that he's serious, Muti will be around for eleven subscription weeks - more than a quarter of the regular season - spread around among the months of September, October, February, April, and May. Highlights include a Berlioz program featuring Symphonie fantastique and its companion piece Lélio (with Gérard Depardieu as narrator), the aforementioned concert performance of Otello, and various rarities like Strauss' Aus Italien and Hindemith's Concert Music for String Orchestra and Brass. Vadim Repin returns after much too long of an absence to play the Tchaikovsky concerto under Muti's baton in February 2011.

Last Boulez Concerts before Sabbatical

The last week of November and the first week of December of this year will be your last chance to hear Pierre Boulez conduct the CSO for a year, before our beloved Conductor Emeritus takes a sabbatical to finish orchestrating the last of his Notations. Both weeks are easily the most interesting programs of the season. The first features Debussy's Le Martyre de Saint Sébastien and La Mèr, as well as concertmaster Robert Chen in Ligeti's violin concerto (originally programmed for this season but substituted with Tchaikovsky). The second features Berg's Lyric Suite, Schoenberg's Transfigured Night and Janacek's fantastic Glagolitic Mass.

Notable Visitors

Among next season's guest artists, the following offerings strike me as particularly worthwhile: In late October, Jaap van Zweden returns to conduct Shostakovitch's 8th Symphony; the following week Michael Tilson Thomas brings an all-Copland program; Charles Dutoit returns for two weeks in March with Penderecki's Concerto Grosso for Three Cellos (CSO cellists Sharp, Olsen, and Kleijn are the soloists), Elgar's Enigma Variations and Stravinsky's Pétrouchka, while Kissin performs the Grieg concerto; Kurt Masur returns after I don't know how many eons to conduct Bruckner's 4th; and last but certainly not least: Ludovic Morlot returns with yet another fascinating program featuring CSO principal trumpet Chris Martin in not one but two concertos by Tomasi and Jolivet, bracketed by two relative rarities, Dutilleux's Symphony No.2 and Roussel's Bacchus and Ariadne Suites 1 & 2.

Haitink Closes Season

Having established a truly unique musical partnership with the orchestra, it is a relief to see that the commencement of Muti's tenure does not mean that we will not be seeing Bernard Haitink on  a regular basis anymore. Indeed, the still-Principal Conductor will close the next season with two weeks of typical Haitink-fare: Brahms's 4th and Mahler's 9th. Not to be missed.

CSO 2010/2011 Season Sneak Peek

The full CSO program for next season has not yet been released. But Carnegie Hall, in announcing its own next season, reveals three CSO programs which will be the capstone of Muti's first season as music director and which he and the orchestra will take on tour to New York (and possibly elsewhere). Opera-in-Concert fans will be looking forward to hearing Muti and the CSO in a full concert performance of Verdi's Otello. Those fearing that the new maestro would neglect the 20th century will be relieved to see Muti encroaching on solid Boulezian territory with Varèse's Arcana. The three CSO programs at Carnegie next season are as follows:

Friday, April 15, 2011 at 8 PM
CHICAGO SYMPHONY
ORCHESTRA
Riccardo Muti, Music Director and Conductor
Aleksandrs Antonenko, Tenor (Otello)
Krassimira Stoyanova, Soprano (Desdemona)
Nicola Alaimo, Baritone (Iago)
Barbara Di Castri, Mezzo-Soprano (Emilia)
Juan Francisco Gatell, Tenor (Cassio)
Antonello Ceron, Tenor (Roderigo)
Paolo Battaglia, Bass (Montano)
Eric Owens, Bass-Baritone (Lodovico)
Chicago Symphony Chorus
Duain Wolfe, Director

VERDI Otello (concert performance)


Saturday, April 16, 2011 at 7:30 PM
CHICAGO SYMPHONY
ORCHESTRA
Riccardo Muti, Music Director and Conductor
Gérard Depardieu, Actor
Mario Zeffiri, Tenor
Baritone to be announced
Chicago Symphony Chorus
Duain Wolfe, Director

ALL-BERLIOZ PROGRAM
Symphonie fantastique
Lélio


Sunday, April 17, 2011 at 2 PM
CHICAGO SYMPHONY
ORCHESTRA
Riccardo Muti, Music Director and Conductor

ANNA CLYNE rewind
VARÈSE Arcana
SHOSTAKOVICH Symphony No. 5

Frankfurt Dispatch: Paavo and his Band

Events conspired against me and thwarted my plans to hear Jansons conduct Mahler in Amsterdam and Skrowaczewski conduct Bruckner in Munich. As a consolation prize I got to hear Paavo Järvi do Martinu, Ravel and Nielsen in Frankfurt.

A conductor-orchestra relationship really is like a marriage. Unless the two are on the same page regarding their musical philosophies and are also otherwise temperamentally compatible results will be mediocre. Even a conductor with brilliant ideas and brilliant technique cannot coax a great performance out of an orchestra that just doesn't buy into the way he does business. I found most of Paavo Järvi's recent Chicago appearances examples of a mild orchestra-conductor mismatch with rather uninspired music making verging on boredom. What a delight it was then to hear him with the hr Sinfonieorchester (also known in English as the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra), of which he has been music director since 2006, in an imaginative and extremely well presented program.

I used to live in Frankfurt for a number of years and remember this orchestra well under its previous music director, Hugh Wolff. Hearing it again after four years made immediately apparent the improvements in quality Järvi has already achieved in this short time: the strings are fuller and much better coordinated, the colorful winds can be heard better, and the brass are more accurate. As a whole the band is much better blended and balanced.

Järvi opened the first half with Martinu's Three Frescoes of Piero della Francesca in honor of the 50th anniversary of the composer's death. (The CSO will be presenting the same work under Ludovic Morlot later this season.) This inexcusably neglected masterpiece with its myriad shades of coloration was an ideal showpiece to exhibit the new virtuosity of Järvi's finely calibrated orchestra.

The concert also saw the debut performance of the Japanese-German pianist Alice Sara Ott, who gained public attention after substituting at last minute for an indisposed Murray Perahia last year in Basel and at age 21 already has a recording contract with Deutsche Grammophon. Her sexed-up promotional images notwithstanding, one can happily report that Ott is a serious artist. She phrases with natural musicality, has an admirable variety of attacks and tonal colors, and has an overarching interpretive concept of the piece in which piano and orchestra are equal participants. Like many pianists of the younger generation, however, she is somewhat risk-averse and has a tendency towards playing things safe. This caused the first movement of the Ravel Concerto in G, in particular, to remain a bit earth bound. The second and third movements flowed more freely (fine contributions from the solo English horn) and the audience was rewarded with a Chopin Nocturne as an encore.

The second half of the program consisted of a powerful reading of Nielsen's Symphony No.2 "the Four Temperaments". As in the Martinu, Järvi managed to coax a deep and rich sound out of his orchestra while always maintaining polyphonic clarity.

Dohnanyi and Lewis

Just as I backhandedly fault the CSO for something, they do their darndest to prove me wrong. Last Thursday night's concert with Christoph von Dohnanyi and Paul Lewis was characterized by one thing: superb sectional balancing, in particular a brass section that gently supported the woodwinds instead of sticking out or even covering them up. No small feat in Schumann's treacherous 2nd Symphony (kudos to Jay Friedman, Mark Ridenour and Daniel Gingrich who led the group). Perhaps it was the deep impression left by the Berlin Philharmonic on Monday -- a number of CSO musicians were in the audience on Monday, as they hosted the Berliners at a post-concert reception in return for the gracious reception the Berliners threw for the CSO during the Chicagoans' last European tour. I don't know, but the CSO seemed to be playing with an unusual warmth. As a whole, it was a very fine account of Schumann's 2nd, propelled along by that Dohnanyi-style unrelenting motoric drive. We need more high-quality performances like these to keep dispelling the nonsense that Schumann was a poor orchestral composer.

Bartok has been central to Dohnanyi's repertoire and the Divertimento for String Orchestra which opened the program showed why. Dohnanyi stakes out a convincing middle ground between the Bartok-as-Modernist and Bartok-as-Folklore approaches, producing a completely natural, warm account that showed off the prowess of the CSO string section. Paul Lewis was the soloist in Mozart's Piano Concerto No.2, making his CSO debut. Lewis has shown himself on previous recital appearances and on recordings to be a very thoughtful pianist and he kept that promise here. With a natural sense of phrase, sensitive touch and a fine palette of colors Lewis's version had all the prerequisites for an engrossing performance of Mozart. My only criticism would be that the last movement was a bit too monochrome, lacking somewhat in Mozartean humor.