The Chicago Symphony Orchestra welcomes Lina González-Granados and Leif Ove Andsnes, who lead the Orchestra in a revised program in place of Riccardo Muti, who, due to illness, is unable to conduct these performances. ONE HUNDRED THIRT Y-FIRST SE ASON
CHICAGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA RICCARDO MUTI Zell Music Director Thursday, April 7, 2022, at 7:30 Friday, April 8, 2022, at 1:30 Saturday, April 9, 2022, at 8:00 Tuesday, April 12, 2022, at 7:30
Lina González-Granados Conductor Leif Ove Andsnes Conductor and Piano rossini
Overture to The Barber of Seville lina gonz ález-gr anados
mozart
Piano Concerto No. 20 in D Minor, K. 466
Allegro Romanza Rondo: Allegro assai leif ove andsnes
intermission
mozart
Overture to Don Giovanni, K. 527 lina gonz ález-gr anados
mozart
Rondo for Piano in D Major, K. 485 leif ove andsnes
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Piano Concerto No. 23 in A Major, K. 488
Allegro Adagio Allegro assai
leif ove andsnes These performances are made possible by the Juli Plant Grainger Fund for Artistic Excellence. Bank of America is the Maestro Residency Presenter. United Airlines is the Official Airline of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra is grateful to WBBM Newsradio 780 and 105.9 FM for its generous support as media sponsor for this performance. This program is partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council Agency. CSO.ORG
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comments by phillip huscher | richard e. rodda gioachino rossini
Born February 29, 1792; Pesaro, Italy Died November 13, 1868; Passy, a suburb of Paris, France
Overture to The Barber of Seville Time has not been kind to Rossini. Today he is identified with a handful of comic operas (often dismissed as implausible and silly, and frequently staged as sophomoric slapstick) and a dozen or so overtures, the most famous of which brings to mind a television cowboy who rode high in the ratings from 1949 until 1965 instead of the heroic figure of William Tell. The opening sentence of the late Chicago scholar Philip Gossett’s article in The New Grove offers a healthy corrective: “No composer in the first half of the nineteenth century enjoyed the measure of prestige, wealth, popular acclaim, or artistic influence that belonged to Rossini.” Rossini was born less than three months after the death of Mozart (“He was the wonder of my youth,” Rossini later wrote, “the despair of my maturity, and he is the consolation of my old age”), was a professional contemporary of Beethoven and Schubert (as well as the young Mendelssohn and Berlioz), and lived into the era of Wagner and Brahms. But he retired in 1830, at the height of his career, leaving behind the world of opera where he had reigned since 1812, when his La pietra del paragone (The Touchstone) triumphed at La Scala. During the remaining four decades of his life, he didn’t write another opera (for a while he contemplated a treatment of Goethe’s Faust), choosing instead to preside over his celebrated salon (one of the most famous in all Europe) and to putter in the kitchen (tournédos Rossini are his most famous concoction). Only occasionally did he put pen to manuscript paper.
composed 1813, 1816
he second decade of the nineteenth century was Rossini’s heyday, and in the middle years of that decade he turned out a rapid-fire string of delectable works for the stage that has rarely been matched: Tancredi and The Italian Girl in Algiers in 1813, The Turk in Italy the following year, The Barber of Seville in 1816, and Cenerentola and The Thieving Magpie in the first half of 1817. Legend has long insisted that Rossini wrote The Barber of Seville at lightning speed—nine days, according to one account—and although he did no doubt compose quickly, the idea of making an opera of the first play in Beaumarchais’s
1972. Sir Georg Solti conducting. London
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f i rst p e rf o rm a n c e February 20, 1816; Rome, Italy i n st ru m e n tat i o n two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, trombone, timpani, percussion, strings a p p roxi m at e p e rf o rm a n c e t i m e 7 minutes f i rst c s o p e rf o rm a n c e s March 14, 1921; Pabst Theater, Milwaukee. Frederick Stock conducting March 22, 1923, Orchestra Hall. Frederick Stock conducting July 24, 1936, Ravinia Festival. Ernest Ansermet conducting m o st re c e n t c s o p e rf o rm a n c e s August 11, 2018, Ravinia Festival. James Conlon conducting May 30, 31, and June 1, 2019, Orchestra Hall. Matthias Pintscher conducting c s o re c o rd i n g s 1958. Fritz Reiner conducting. RCA
1978. Sir Georg Solti. London (video)
a bove: Gioachino Rossini, as a young man, ca. 1815. Library of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Rome
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Figaro trilogy had long been on his mind. The opera was not originally called The Barber of Seville—it was premiered, to a disastrous audience reception in 1816 as Almaviva, a title picked to distinguish it from Paisiello’s popular opera on the same subject. And the now-famous overture was borrowed from Aureliano in Palmira, an opera written three years earlier and tacked onto the Almaviva score, since Rossini always saved composing an overture till the very last moment, and apparently had neither time nor inclination
to write something new. Regardless, it is one of Rossini’s most famous—and finest—creations, from its requisite slow introduction, with its jarring shifts of light and dark, to the joyously fast music and wit of its main section. It has had many admirers, from Beethoven to Verdi, and it long ago became so popular that it will always be identified with the Rossini comedy for which it was never intended. —Phillip Huscher
wolfgang mozart
Born January 27, 1756; Salzburg, Austria Died December 5, 1791; Vienna, Austria
Piano Concerto No. 20 in D Minor, K. 466 This was Beethoven’s favorite of all Mozart’s piano concertos. It’s the only one he played in public (and the only one for which he wrote cadenzas). Throughout the nineteenth century, it was the sole concerto by Mozart that was regularly performed—its demonic power and dark beauty spoke to musicians who had been raised on Beethoven, Chopin, and Liszt. When it was fashionable to dismiss Mozart as an outdated composer with fussy manners and empty charm, this score brought people to their senses. It’s surely one of the most celebrated pieces ever written—“almost as much myth as work of art,” as Charles Rosen put it. Mozart and Beethoven met for the first time in 1787, two years after this concerto was premiered in Vienna. Beethoven wanted to study with Mozart—he may even have had a few lessons with him at the time. But it wasn’t until 1792, the year after Mozart’s death, that Beethoven settled in Vienna, and so he ended up studying with Haydn instead, finding little comfort—or truth—in Count Waldstein’s famous prophecy that he would “receive Mozart’s spirit from Haydn’s hands.” As a favor to Mozart’s widow Constanze, and as tribute to the
composed February 10, 1785, entered in catalog f i rst p e rf o rm a n c e February 11, 1785; Vienna, Austria. The composer as soloist i n st ru m e n tat i o n solo piano, flute, two oboes, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, timpani, strings ca d e n z a s Beethoven and Hummel a p p roxi m at e p e rf o rm a n c e t i m e 32 minutes f i rst c s o p e rf o rm a n c e s January 14 and 15, 1916, Orchestra Hall. Ossip Gabrilowitsch, as soloist, Frederick Stock conducting July 6, 1961, Ravinia Festival. John Browning as soloist, Josef Krips conducting m o st re c e n t c s o p e rf o rm a n c e s August 9, 2018, Ravinia Festival. Garrick Ohlsson as soloist, James Conlon conducting May 9, 10, and 11, 2019, Orchestra Hall. Mitsuko Uchida as soloist, Riccardo Muti conducting
a b o v e : Wolfgang Mozart, in the unfinished oil portrait by brother-in-law Joseph Lange (1751–1831), 1782
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composer he most admired, Beethoven played Mozart’s D minor concerto between the acts of La clemenza di Tito at a memorial performance on March 31, 1795, no doubt improvising that night the famous cadenza that he later wrote down. (Mozart’s own cadenzas haven’t survived, although they are mentioned in one of his father’s letters; at these performances, Leif Ove Andsnes plays cadenzas by Beethoven [first movement] and Hummel [third movement].) It’s the only time Beethoven is known to have played one of Mozart’s concertos in public, although he was certainly well acquainted with others and particularly liked the one in C minor. It’s easy to understand what attracted Beethoven—as well as later nineteenth-century musicians—to this concerto. It belongs to a handful of works by Mozart that suggested he was the earliest great romantic composer. This is his first concerto in a minor key—in itself an unusual, forward-looking choice. Like the terrifying chords that open Don Giovanni (and return when Don Juan is dragged down to hell), or the Lacrimosa from the Requiem (the last music Mozart wrote), the concerto established D minor as the darkest of keys and seemed at first almost to exhaust its tragic potential.
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he opening, with its syncopated, throbbing D minor chords, is not about theme or harmony so much as gesture and tension. Like much truly dramatic music, it’s ominously quiet. The piano, surprisingly, doesn’t repeat this music when it enters, but begins with its own highly individual phrases—in fact, the soloist traverses the entire movement without once playing these signature chords. In the same way, the piano’s opening lines—as pure and unadorned as recitative—are not imitated by the orchestra. The relationship between soloist and orchestra had never before been so tense or complex. (When Haydn turned pages at a performance, Leopold
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Mozart boasted that this allowed him to appreciate “the artful composition and interweaving, as well as the difficulty of the concerto.”) Their uneasy interplay—sometimes accommodating, occasionally unyielding—is what carries this music into the realm of high drama. This is the first concerto with which Mozart so openly reveals not only the form’s symphonic qualities, but its affinity with the world of opera as well. The piano alone begins the second movement, a serene romance that brings relief without completely banishing the tragic mood. In particular, an explosive G minor interlude—“the noisy part with the fast triplets,” as Leopold called it—recalls the unrest that came before—and will soon return. When Leopold Mozart arrived in Vienna on February 10, 1785, the day before the premiere of his son’s new D minor concerto, he noted that there was no time to rehearse the finale, since the parts were still being copied. (“Your brother did not even have time to play through the rondo,” he wrote home to Nannerl, “as he had to supervise the copying.”) The music shows no sign of haste, however. Rosen even argues that this is the first concerto with outer movements “so strikingly and openly related.” Mozart’s care and wisdom are evident everywhere. Once again, it’s the unaccompanied piano that launches the argument, this time with unusual urgency. This isn’t a conventionally cheerful rondo, but a highly charged, forceful conclusion to a tragic work. (In its darkness and power, it anticipates the minor-key finale of Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto.) Finally, just as the chilling D minor of Don Giovanni ends in the brilliance of D major, so too this drama, in a radiant coda that is the equivalent of the tidy happy ending the eighteenth-century opera stage demanded. —Phillip Huscher
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wolfgang mozart
Overture to Don Giovanni, K. 527 Don Giovanni has fascinated and challenged every generation since it was written. Goethe said that only Mozart could have set his Faust to music, and that “it would have to be music like Don Giovanni.” E.T.A. Hoffmann was so enraptured by the opera that he changed one of his names from Friedrich to Amadeus—despite the fact that Mozart never actually used that name himself. Flaubert said that “the three finest things in creation are the sea, Hamlet, and Mozart’s Don Giovanni.” And even Beethoven, who claimed that Lorenzo Da Ponte’s libretto was unworthy of music, liked Mozart’s just fine, and quoted Leporello’s famous catalog aria in his own Diabelli Variations.
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ozart wrote the Overture to Don Giovanni at the last minute, working through the night—Constanze plied him with food and drink and told stories to keep him awake—and completing it just in time to have the parts copied before the final rehearsal that morning. The premiere had already been postponed twice, once because of insufficient rehearsal time, and again when one of the leading singers got sick. The overture begins with premonitions of the opera’s dark side—lightning-bolt chords, murmuring undercurrents, and then the famous rising and falling chromatic lines that compress all the opera’s demonic drama into a few chilling measures of music (they will return at the opera’s climax). Mozart then cuts to music that suggests the bravado of Don Juan’s innumerable conquests (Leporello’s catalogue raisonné tallies 2,065 and still counting). In the opera house, the overture plunges straight into the drama, but Mozart quickly recognized that the overture he had written in such haste was worth playing on its own, and so he wrote thirteen measures that bring it to a stately conclusion without for a moment erasing the suspense of its cliffhanger opening.
composed 1787 f i rst p e rf o rm a n c e October 29, 1787; Prague, Bohemia i n st ru m e n tat i o n two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, timpani, strings a p p roxi m at e p e rf o rm a n c e t i m e 6 minutes f i rst c s o p e rf o rm a n c e s December 5, 1891, Auditorium Theatre. Auguste Vianesi conducting (complete opera) July 22, 1947, Ravinia Festival. William Steinberg conducting m o st re c e n t c s o p e rf o rm a n c e s August 14 and 16, 2014, Ravinia Festival. James Conlon conducting (complete opera) September 27, 28, and 29, 2018, Orchestra Hall. Riccardo Muti conducting c s o re c o rd i n g 1959. Fritz Reiner conducting. RCA
—Phillip Huscher
a bove: Wolfgang Mozart, silverpoint drawing by Dora Stock (1760–1832), made when Mozart visited Dresden in April 1789
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wolfgang mozart
Rondo for Piano in D Major, K. 485 Mozart’s life was hectic during the winter of 1785–86. He completed the Piano Concerto in E-flat major (K. 482) on December 16, just four days after putting the finishing touches on the Violin Sonata, K. 481. He had recently received a commission from Emperor Joseph II for a musical diversion (The Impresario) to be given at the orangery of Schönbrunn Palace in February, and was making revisions and additions to Idomeneo for a revival of that opera in March. Work on numerous chamber and vocal pieces was also squeezed into his schedule, as was the tutelage of a sizable group of private students. His main concern at the time, however, was the composition of The Marriage of Figaro, which he was readying for production in the spring, as soon as the theaters opened following the end of the Lenten prohibition of operatic performances. Mozart’s father, Leopold, wrote that his son was “up to his ears” in work.
composed 1786
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eavening Mozart’s major works during those winter months were some songs, vocal ensembles, Masonic choruses, duos for basset horns (a kind of alto clarinet), and the Rondo in D major (K. 485), composed in January 1786 for his student Charlotte von Würben. Despite its title, the rondo is really a sonata-form piece built on a single theme, a perky melody (which also found its way into the Piano Quartet in G minor of 1785, K. 478) that Mozart borrowed from the Quintet in D major, op. 11, no. 6 by Johann Christian Bach, whom he had befriended in London a dozen years before. The theme’s treatment, however, returning, as it does, in a variety of keys without the expected contrasting episodes, follows a formal technique used by Christian’s older brother Carl Philipp Emanuel in his Piano Sonatas for Connoisseurs and Amateurs, published in the early 1780s. The D major rondo is, therefore, not only a tribute to the influences brought to bear on Mozart’s music by the sons of Sebastian Bach, but also to his ability to transmute those influences into his own characteristic musical gold. —Richard E. Rodda
t o p t o b o t t o m: Wolfgang Mozart, oil portrait by Joseph Hickel (1736–1807), ca. 1783 Leopold Mozart (1719–1787), portrait by Pietro Antonio Lorenzoni (1721–1782). Mozarteum Foundation
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wolfgang mozart
Piano Concerto No. 23 in A Major, K. 488 From 1782, the year after he moved to Vienna, until 1786, Mozart wrote fifteen piano concertos. That’s an incredible outpouring of important music and it corresponds precisely to Mozart’s heyday as a performer. These concertos were his main performing vehicles—as well as his primary source of income—and time has placed them among the crowning glories of all music. There’s little else in all Mozart’s output, aside from the great operas, to compare with the magnificence, subtlety, and consistent brilliance of these scores, and in no other works did Mozart so ingeniously merge the symphonic, operatic, and chamber music styles into a uniquely personal language of expression. In the winter of 1785–86, Mozart wrote three piano concertos while he also worked on The Marriage of Figaro. This was the most productive period of his life and the only reasonable way to explain the enormous and varied output of these six months is to assume that the intense work on the complicated musical and dramatic structures of Figaro set his mind racing with more ideas than a single four-act opera could contain. It has been suggested that the purely mechanical task of writing it all down would produce only six full pages per day. Neither that challenge, nor the infinitely greater one of conceiving so much glorious music, appears to have inconvenienced Mozart in the least. Throughout the winter, he kept to his regular routine of teaching and performing, while also maintaining a full social calendar. The only activity that seems to have suffered was his correspondence, so we have only a sketchy account of his daily life at the time.
composed entered in catalog March 2, 1786
ozart entered the A major piano concerto (K. 488) in his catalog on March 2, 1786, only a month after the one-act comic opera, The Impresario; just three weeks before the famous C minor concerto (K. 491); and less than two months before The Marriage of Figaro. Although it’s not documented, Mozart probably performed the A major concerto at one of the Vienna Lenten concerts a few days after finishing it. This and the other two concertos of the Figaro winter are the first in Mozart’s output to call for clarinets. (Sketches show that Mozart started writing this A major concerto as early as 1784
1975. Daniel Barenboim conducting. Deutsche Grammophon
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f i rst p e rf o rm a n c e Probably spring of 1786; Vienna, Austria. The composer as soloist i n st ru m e n tat i o n solo piano, flute, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, strings ca d e n z a Mozart a p p roxi m at e p e rf o rm a n c e t i m e 26 minutes f i rst c s o p e rf o rm a n c e s December 10 and 11, 1920, Orchestra Hall. Harold Bauer as soloist, Frederick Stock conducting June 28, 1962, Ravinia Festival. John Browning as soloist, Jean Martinon conducting m o st re c e n t c s o p e rf o rm a n c e s March 5, 6, and 7, 2020, Orchestra Hall. Bertrand Chamayou as soloist, Herbert Blomstedt conducting July 9, 2021, Ravinia Festival. Jorge Federico Osorio as soloist, Marin Alsop conducting c s o re c o rd i n g s 1941. Frederick Stock conducting. Columbia
a b o v e : Wolfgang Mozart, miniature portrait of the composer painted by Joseph Mathias Grassi (1757–1838), ca. 1783
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with oboes instead.) Mozart begins as if he were following the conventional recipe for a classical concerto (which is totally unlike him), but then, after a few pages, he proceeds to ignore nearly every subsequent instruction. The result is the kind of risky—though not reckless—creation known only to the very greatest chefs and composers. The tone of the entire movement is generous and warmly lyrical, although, as in the duet in the same key between the count and Susanna in act 3 of Figaro, there’s still room for mischief, doubt, and the thrill of imminent danger. Mozart marks the slow movement adagio instead of the more common andante—what he has to say can’t be rushed. This magnificent and justly famous
music stands alone among all of Mozart’s concerto movements, not only because of its tempo or key (it’s his only work in F-sharp minor), but also because it unlocks a tragic power that won’t surface in music again until Beethoven. The wind writing is particularly expressive, and the piano solo is as simple and haunting as any slow aria. Even in Figaro, with its celebrated mixture of laughter and tears, there’s scarcely a moment that plunges so deeply into the heart. The finale, a buoyant and delightful rondo, brings us back to A major, and, after the adagio’s revelations, it sounds like the happiest key on earth. —Phillip Huscher
Phillip Huscher has been the program annotator for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra since 1987. Richard E. Rodda, a former faculty member at Case Western Reserve University and the Cleveland Institute of Music, provides program notes for many American orchestras, concert series, and festivals.
a b o v e : The Kohlmarkt in Vienna, a drawing of a portion of the city center by Carl Schütz (1745–1800), 1786
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profiles Lina González-Granados Conductor These concerts mark Lina González-Granados’s debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
Colombian American Lina González-Granados has distinguished herself nationally and internationally as a talented young conductor of symphonic and operatic repertoire. Her spirited interpretations, as well as her dedication to highlighting new and unknown works by Latin American composers, have earned her international recognition, most recently as the recipient of the 2021 Sphinx Medal of Excellence, the third prize and ECHO Special Award (European Concert Hall Organization) of La Maestra Competition, and the 2020 and 2021 Solti Foundation U.S. Career Assistance Award. González-Granados was recently appointed resident conductor by the LA Opera, a position she will hold from July 2022 through June 2025. She was also winner of the fourth Chicago Symphony Orchestra Sir Georg Solti International Conducting Competition, and became the CSO’s Solti Conducting Apprentice under the guidance of Zell Music Director Riccardo Muti, beginning in February 2020 and continuing through June 2022. In addition, she has held positions as conducting fellow of the Philadelphia Orchestra and Seattle Symphony. Her 2021–22 season highlights include a return to the New York Philharmonic, as well as debuts with the National Symphony (U.S.), Gulbenkian
P H OTO BY TO DD RO S E NB E RG
Orchestra, Spanish National Orchestra, Barcelona Symphony, Nürnberger Symphoniker, Filarmonica Arturo Toscanini, Kristiansand Symphony, Tapiola Sinfonietta, Polish National Radio Symphony, Orquesta del Principado de Asturias, Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y León, and Tenerife Symphony. She will also conduct The Barber of Seville at the Dallas Opera. González-Granados is an active and fervent proponent of the inclusion and development of new works for chamber and large orchestra, especially music from Latin American composers. She is the artistic director of Unitas Ensemble, a chamber orchestra she founded that performs the works of Latinx composers and provides access to free community performances for underserved communities. Her work with Unitas has earned her numerous community awards, most recently a Spark Boston Award from the City of Boston. She has also commissioned multiple world, North American, and American premieres, as well as the creation and release of the Unitas Ensemble album Estaciones, recorded alongside the Latin Grammy Award–winning Cuarteto Latinoamericano. Born and raised in Cali, Colombia, GonzálezGranados made her conducting debut in 2008 with the Youth Orchestra of Bellas Artes in Cali. She holds a master’s degree in conducting with Charles Peltz, a graduate diploma in choral conducting from the New England Conservatory with Erica Washburn, and a doctorate of musical arts in orchestral conducting from Boston University. Her principal mentors include Marin Alsop, Bernard Haitink, Bramwell Tovey, and Yannick Nézet-Séguin.
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Leif Ove Andsnes Conductor and Piano These concerts mark Leif Ove Andsnes’s conducting debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. f ir st cso performa nces July 17, 1993, Ravinia Festival. Grieg’s Piano Concerto, Lawrence Foster conducting January 5, 6, 7, and 10, 1995, Orchestra Hall. Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto no. 3, Neeme Järvi conducting most r ecent cso perfo r m a n ces August 1, 1998, Ravinia Festival. Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto no. 3, Lawrence Foster conducting September 19, 20, and 21, 2019, Orchestra Hall. Grieg’s Piano Concerto, Riccardo Muti conducting
With his commanding technique and searching interpretations, the celebrated Norwegian pianist has won acclaim worldwide, playing concertos and recitals in the world’s leading concert halls and with its foremost orchestras, while building an esteemed, extensive discography. He is the founding director of the Rosendal Chamber Music Festival, was coartistic director of the Risør Festival of Chamber Music for nearly two decades, and has served as music director of California’s Ojai Music Festival. A Gramophone Hall of Fame inductee, he holds honorary doctorates from the University of Bergen in Norway and the Juilliard School in New York. Leif Ove Andsnes is currently partnered with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra on Mozart Momentum 1785–86, a major multi-season project exploring one of the most creative and seminal periods of the composer’s career, for which he leads the ensemble in Mozart’s piano
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concertos nos. 20–24 at key European venues, in addition to having recorded them for the Sony Classical label. The project marks his second artistic partnership with the orchestra, following The Beethoven Journey, a four-season focus on the composer’s music for piano and orchestra, which saw Andsnes give more than 230 performances in 108 cities across twenty-seven countries, as chronicled in the documentary Concerto: A Beethoven Journey and captured on an award-winning Sony Classical series. Now recording exclusively for that label, the pianist recently received his eleventh Grammy Award nomination, and he has been recognized with six Gramophone awards. Recent releases include Chopin: Ballades and Nocturnes, Billboard magazine’s best-selling Sibelius, and collaborations with Marc-André Hamelin, Matthias Goerne, and the Danish National Symphony and Bergen Philharmonic orchestras. Andsnes’s previous discography comprises more than thirty EMI Classics recordings, many of them bestsellers, spanning repertoire from the baroque to the present day. His accolades include the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Instrumentalist Award, the Gilmore Artist Award, and Norway’s Peer Gynt Prize and Commander of the Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav. He was the first Scandinavian to curate Carnegie Hall’s Perspectives series, and he has been pianist-in-residence of the Berlin Philharmonic, artist-in-residence of the New York Philharmonic, and the subject of a London Symphony Orchestra Artist Portrait series. Leif Ove Andsnes was born in Karmøy, Norway, and studied at the Bergen Music Conservatory. He is currently an artistic adviser for the Jirí Hlinka Piano Academy in Bergen, where he lives with his partner and their three children. leifoveandsnes.com
PHOTO © HELGE HA N S EN / S ON Y M U S I C EN TERTA I N M EN T
chicago symphony orchestra The Chicago Symphony Orchestra is consistently hailed as one of the world’s leading orchestras, and in September 2010, renowned Italian conductor Riccardo Muti became its tenth music director. During his tenure, the Orchestra has deepened its engagement with the Chicago community, nurtured its legacy while supporting a new generation of musicians and composers, and collaborated with visionary artists. The history of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra began in 1889, when Theodore Thomas, then the leading conductor in America and a recognized music pioneer, was invited by Chicago businessman Charles Norman Fay to establish a symphony orchestra here. Thomas’s aim to build a permanent orchestra with performance capabilities of the highest quality was realized at the first concerts in October 1891 in the Auditorium Theatre. Thomas served as music director until his death in January 1905—just three weeks after the dedication of Orchestra Hall, the Orchestra’s permanent home designed by Daniel Burnham. Frederick Stock, recruited by Thomas to the viola section in 1895, became assistant conductor in 1899 and succeeded the Orchestra’s founder. His tenure lasted thirty-seven years, from 1905 to 1942—the longest of the Orchestra’s music directors. Dynamic and innovative, the Stock years saw the founding of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, the first training orchestra in the United States affiliated with a major symphony orchestra, in 1919. Stock also established youth auditions, organized the first subscription concerts especially for children, and began a series of popular concerts. Three eminent conductors headed the Orchestra during the following decade: Désiré Defauw was music director from 1943 to 1947; Artur Rodzinski assumed the post in 1947–48; and Rafael Kubelík led the ensemble for three seasons from 1950 to 1953. The next ten years belonged to Fritz Reiner, whose recordings with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra are still considered performance hallmarks. It was Reiner who invited Margaret Hillis to form the Chicago Symphony Chorus in 1957. For the five seasons from 1963 to 1968, Jean Martinon held the position of music director. Sir Georg Solti, the Orchestra’s eighth music director, served from 1969 until 1991. His arrival launched one of the most successful musical partnerships of our time, and the CSO made its first overseas tour to Europe in 1971 under his direction, along with numerous award-winning recordings. Solti then held
the title of music director laureate and returned to conduct the Orchestra for several weeks each season until his death in September 1997. Daniel Barenboim was named music director designate in January 1989, and he became the Orchestra’s ninth music director in September 1991, a position he held until June 2006. His tenure was distinguished by the opening of Symphony Center in 1997, highly praised operatic productions at Orchestra Hall, numerous appearances with the Orchestra in the dual role of pianist and conductor, twenty-one international tours, and the appointment of Duain Wolfe as the Chorus’s second director. Pierre Boulez’s long-standing relationship with the Orchestra led to his appointment as principal guest conductor in 1995. He was named Helen Regenstein Conductor Emeritus in 2006, a position he held until his death in January 2016. Only two others have served as principal guest conductors: Carlo Maria Giulini, who appeared in Chicago regularly in the late 1950s, was named to the post in 1969, serving until 1972; Claudio Abbado held the position from 1982 to 1985. From 2006 to 2010, Bernard Haitink was the Orchestra’s first principal conductor. Cellist Yo-Yo Ma served as the CSO’s Judson and Joyce Green Creative Consultant from 2010 to 2019. Hilary Hahn currently is the CSO’s Artist-in-Residence, a role that brings her to Chicago for multiple residencies each season. Jessie Montgomery is the current Mead Composerin-Residence. She follows ten highly regarded composers in this role, including John Corigliano and Shulamit Ran—both winners of the Pulitzer Prize for Music—and Missy Mazzoli, who completed her threeyear tenure in June 2021. In addition to composing works for the CSO, Montgomery curates the contemporary MusicNOW series. The Orchestra first performed at Ravinia Park in 1905 and appeared frequently through August 1931, after which the park was closed for most of the Great Depression. In August 1936, the Orchestra helped to inaugurate the first season of the Ravinia Festival, and it has been in residence nearly every summer since. Since 1916, recording has been a significant part of the Orchestra’s activities. Current releases on CSO Resound, the Orchestra’s independent recording label, include the Grammy Award–winning release of Verdi’s Requiem led by Riccardo Muti. Recordings by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus have earned sixty-three Grammy awards from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.
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Chicago Symphony Orchestra Riccardo Muti Zell Music Director
Jessie Montgomery Mead Composer-in-Residence Hilary Hahn Artist-in-Residence violins Robert Chen Concertmaster The Louis C. Sudler Chair, endowed by an anonymous benefactor Stephanie Jeong Associate Concertmaster The Cathy and Bill Osborn Chair David Taylor Assistant Concertmaster* The Ling Z. and Michael C. Markovitz Chair Yuan-Qing Yu Assistant Concertmaster* So Young Bae Cornelius Chiu Alison Dalton Gina DiBello Kozue Funakoshi Russell Hershow Qing Hou Matous Michal Simon Michal Blair Milton ‡ Sando Shia Susan Synnestvedt Rong-Yan Tang Baird Dodge § Principal Lei Hou Ni Mei Fox Fehling § Hermine Gagné Rachel Goldstein Mihaela Ionescu Sylvia Kim Kilcullen Melanie Kupchynsky Wendy Koons Meir Aiko Noda Joyce Noh Nancy Park Ronald Satkiewicz Florence Schwartz viol as Li-Kuo Chang Acting Principal The Paul Hindemith Principal Viola Chair, endowed by an anonymous benefactor Catherine Brubaker Youming Chen Sunghee Choi Wei-Ting Kuo Danny Lai Weijing Michal
Diane Mues Lawrence Neuman Max Raimi cellos John Sharp Principal The Eloise W. Martin Chair Kenneth Olsen Assistant Principal The Adele Gidwitz Chair Karen Basrak The Joseph A. and Cecile Renaud Gorno Chair Loren Brown Richard Hirschl Daniel Katz Katinka Kleijn David Sanders Gary Stucka Brant Taylor basses Alexander Hanna Principal The David and Mary Winton Green Principal Bass Chair Daniel Armstrong ‡ Robert Kassinger Mark Kraemer Stephen Lester Bradley Opland harp Lynne Turner flutes Stefán Ragnar Höskuldsson Principal The Erika and Dietrich M. Gross Principal Flute Chair Emma Gerstein § Jennifer Gunn piccolo Jennifer Gunn The Dora and John Aalbregtse Piccolo Chair oboes William Welter Principal The Nancy and Larry Fuller Principal Oboe Chair Michael Henoch Assistant Principal The Gilchrist Foundation Chair Lora Schaefer Scott Hostetler
english horn Scott Hostetler cl arinets Stephen Williamson Principal John Bruce Yeh Assistant Principal Gregory Smith e-fl at cl arinet John Bruce Yeh bassoons Keith Buncke Principal William Buchman Assistant Principal Dennis Michel Miles Maner contrabassoon Miles Maner horns David Cooper Principal Daniel Gingrich Associate Principal James Smelser David Griffin Oto Carrillo Susanna Gaunt trumpets Esteban Batallán Principal The Adolph Herseth Principal Trumpet Chair, endowed by an anonymous benefactor Mark Ridenour Assistant Principal John Hagstrom The Pritzker Military Museum & Library Chair Tage Larsen
tuba Gene Pokorny Principal The Arnold Jacobs Principal Tuba Chair, endowed by Christine Querfeld timpani David Herbert Principal The Clinton Family Fund Chair Vadim Karpinos Assistant Principal percussion Cynthia Yeh Principal Patricia Dash Vadim Karpinos James Ross librarians Peter Conover Principal Carole Keller Mark Swanson orchestra personnel John Deverman Director Anne MacQuarrie Manager, CSO Auditions and Orchestra Personnel stage technicians Christopher Lewis Stage Manager Blair Carlson Paul Christopher Ramon Echevarria Ryan Hartge Peter Landry Todd Snick
trombones Jay Friedman Principal The Lisa and Paul Wiggin Principal Trombone Chair Michael Mulcahy Charles Vernon bass trombone Charles Vernon
* Assistant concertmasters are listed by seniority. ‡ On sabbatical § On leave The Louise H. Benton Wagner Chair currently is unoccupied. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra string sections utilize revolving seating. Players behind the first desk (first two desks in the violins) change seats systematically every two weeks and are listed alphabetically. Section percussionists also are listed alphabetically.
12 ONE HUNDRED THIRT Y-FIRST SE ASON