MUTI conducts
BEETHOVEN 5&8
FRIDAY, JANUARY 14, 2022 CHODL AUDITORIUM AT MORTON EAST HIGH SCHOOL–CICERO
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association is grateful to
an anonymous donor for generously sponsoring this performance.
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CHICAGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA RICCARDO MUTI Zell Music Director Friday, January 14, 2022, at 7:00 Chodl Auditorium at Morton East High School–Cicero
Riccardo Muti Conductor music by ludwig van beethoven Coriolan Overture, Op. 62 Symphony No. 8 in F Major, Op. 93 Allegro vivace e con brio Allegretto scherzando Tempo di menuetto Allegro vivace intermission
Symphony No. 5 in C Minor, Op. 67 Allegro con brio Andante con moto Allegro— Allegro—Presto
This performance is generously sponsored by an anonymous donor. This performance receives generous support from the Shebik Community Engagement Programs Fund. Bank of America is the Maestro Residency Presenter. United Airlines is the Official Airline of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. This program is partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council Agency. CSO.ORG 3
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association is deeply grateful to
Megan and Steve Shebik for their endowment gift to the SEMPRE ALWAYS Campaign, which generously supports this performance.
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comments by phillip huscher ludwig van beethoven
Born December 16, 1770; Bonn, Germany Died March 26, 1827; Vienna, Austria
Coriolan Overture, Op. 62 Richard Wagner was right to point out that Beethoven might as well have written this overture for Shakespeare’s tragedy Coriolanus as for the play by Heinrich von Collin. Unlike Wagner and most concertgoers today, Beethoven knew both plays. He admired and loved Shakespeare enormously. But Collin was a friend of his, and his Coriolan had enjoyed considerable popularity in the years immediately following its first performance in 1802. Beethoven was inspired, either by friendship or theater, to put something of the story into music. Beethoven didn’t write his overture for a theatrical performance; he was writing for an audience that probably knew Collin’s play but was not attending an actual production. The first performance was given at one of two concerts at the palace of Prince Lobkowitz, where it was overshadowed by the premieres of the more genial Fourth Symphony and the Fourth Piano Concerto. The overture and the play were united just once in Beethoven’s lifetime, in April 1807, at the Burgtheater in Vienna, apparently without success.
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he Coriolan Overture is terse and strongly knit; it is as compact as anything Beethoven had written at the time. Beethoven finds enormous power in C minor, his favorite minor key. (Sketches for his Fifth Symphony, in the same key, were already well advanced at the time.) As in his Leonore Overture no. 3, finished the year before, he understood how to manipulate the outlines of sonata form to accommodate human drama. (Here, only the second theme appears in the recapitulation.) Wagner described Beethoven’s overture as a musical counterpart to the turning point in Shakespeare’s Coriolanus. Many listeners have heard, in its tightly worded argument, the conflict between Coriolanus, the exiled leader who marches against his own people, and his mother Volumnia, who pleads for mercy until her son finally yields. The main themes readily
composed 1807 f i rst p e rf o rm a n c e March 1807; Vienna, Austria 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 8 minutes f i rst c s o p e rf o rm a n c e s February 12 and 13, 1892, Auditorium Theatre. Theodore Thomas conducting July 4, 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 July 14, 1979, Ravinia Festival. James Levine conducting March 7, 9, and 10, 2019, Orchestra Hall. James Feddeck conducting March 8, 2019; Edman Memorial Chapel, Wheaton College. James Feddeck conducting c s o re c o rd i n g s 1958. Fritz Reiner conducting. CSO (From the Archives, vol. 17: Beethoven) 1959. Fritz Reiner conducting. RCA 1974. Sir Georg Solti conducting. London
f ro m to p: Ludwig van Beethoven, in a portrait by Joseph Willibrord Mähler (1778–1860), ca. 1804–05 An engraving of Heinrich von Collin (1771–1811), dramatist and friend of the composer
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lend themselves to this reading—the first fierce and determined, the second earnest and imploring. In the play, Coriolanus commits suicide; Beethoven’s music disintegrates at the end. Beethoven surely identified with Coriolanus’s
lonely pride, for it marked every day of his own life. And, although his tough public image and brilliantly triumphant music argue otherwise, we now know that he, too, fought recurring suicidal tendencies.
ludwig van beethoven
Symphony No. 8 in F Major, Op. 93 In a life characterized by difficulties—with people, work, romance, and more— 1812 may well have been the most difficult year Beethoven ever had. In any case, the toll was great: in October, shortly after he finished his Eighth Symphony, Beethoven sank into a serious depression, finding creativity a tiresome effort. Over the next two years, he wrote only the two cello sonatas, op. 102, and a handful of occasional pieces. The main problem of 1812 involved an unknown woman, who has come to be known as the “Immortal Beloved.” Conjecture about her identity is one of the favorite games of Beethoven scholarship. (In his watershed biography of Beethoven, Maynard Solomon suggests Amalie Brentano, who is the most plausible.) The evidence is slight—essentially little more than the astonishing letter Beethoven wrote on July 6 and 7, which was discovered among his papers after his death. It’s Beethoven’s only letter to a woman that uses the informal German du, and, in its impassioned, unsparing tone, it tells us much about the composer, if nothing at all about the woman in question. This wasn’t the last time Beethoven would find misery and longing where he sought romance and domestic harmony, but
it’s the most painful case we have record of, and it certainly helped to convince him that he would remain alone—and lonely—for life. The diary he began in late 1812 finds him despondent at the failure of his relationships and more determined than ever in his single-minded dedication to music. It also admits thoughts of suicide.
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eethoven’s Eighth Symphony quickly followed his Seventh, and, particularly in light of its predecessors, it was misunderstood from the start. When Beethoven was reminded that the Eighth was less successful than his Seventh, he is said to have replied: “That’s because it is so much better.” Contemporary audiences are seldom the best judges of new music, but Beethoven’s latest symphony must have seemed a letdown at the time, for, after symphonies of unexpected power and unprecedented length, with movements that include thunder and lightning and that lead directly from one to another, the Eighth is a throwback to an easier time. The novelty of this symphony, however, is that it manages to do new and unusual things without ever waving the flag of controversy. The first movement, for example, is of modest dimensions, with a compact first theme—its first two quick phrases like a textbook definition of antecedent-consequent (question-and-answer) structure. The next subject comes upon us
abov e : Ludwig van Beethoven, engraving by Blasius Höfel (1792–1863) after a painting by Louis René Letronne (1790–1842), published by Artaria in Vienna, 1814. Beethoven-Haus Bonn
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without warning—unless two quiet measures of expectant chords have tipped us off. The whole moves like lightning, and when we hit the recapitulation—amid thundering fff timpani, with a new singing theme high above the original tune, we can hardly believe we’re already home. But just when Beethoven seems about to wrap things up, he launches into a giant epilogue that proves, in no uncertain terms, just how far we’ve come from the predictable, four-square proportions of the works by Haydn and Mozart. For early nineteenth-century audiences who were just getting used to Beethoven’s spacious slow movements, the second movement of the Eighth was a puzzle, for it’s neither slow nor long. It is also, through no fault of its own, nothing like the second movement of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony, which had been an instant and tremendous hit. The incredible nineteenth-century practice of inserting that beloved slow movement into the Eighth Symphony says more about the tastes of earlier generations than about any supposed deficiencies in Beethoven’s Allegretto. The scherzo that follows isn’t a scherzo at all, but a leisurely, old-world minuet, giving us all the room and relaxation we missed in the Allegretto. As always, there’s method in Beethoven’s madness, though it was often only the madness that got noticed. In the context of the composer’s personal sorrows of 1812, it’s either astonishing or perfectly predictable—depending on your outlook on human nature—that the finale is one of the funniest pieces of music Beethoven ever wrote. The tone is jovial from the start—a light, rambunctious theme—and the first real joke comes at the very end of that theme, when Beethoven tosses out a loud unison C-sharp—an odd exclamation point for an F major sentence. Many moments of wit follow: tiny whispers that answer bold declarations; gaping pauses when you can’t help but question what will happen next; places where Beethoven seems to enjoy tugging on the rug beneath our feet. But he saves his best punch line for last, and he has been working up to it all along. When that inappropriate C-sharp returns one last time—as it was destined to do, given the incontestable logic of Beethoven’s wildest schemes—it’s no longer a stumbling block in an F major world, but a gateway to the unlikely key of F-sharp minor. It takes some doing to pull us back to terra firma: the trumpets begin by defiantly hammering away on F-natural, and Beethoven spends the last pages endlessly turning somersaults through F major, until memories of any other sounds are banished for good.
composed 1811–12 f i rst p e rf o rm a n c e February 17, 1814; Vienna, Austria 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 27 minutes f i rst c s o p e rf o rm a n c e s March 25 and 26, 1892, Auditorium Theatre. Theodore Thomas conducting July 5, 1936, Ravinia Festival. Rudolph Ganz conducting m o st re c e n t c s o p e rf o rm a n c e s August 2, 2002, Ravinia Festival. Christoph Eschenbach conducting December 3, 4, and 5, 2015, Orchestra Hall. Riccardo Muti conducting c s o re c o rd i n g s 1958. Fritz Reiner conducting. CSO (From the Archives, vol. 11: The Reiner Era II) 1961. Pierre Monteux conducting. VAI (video) 1966. Kirill Kondrashin conducting. CSO (From the Archives, vol. 17: Beethoven) 1966. Leopold Stokowski conducting. CSO (From the Archives, vol. 5: Guests in the House) 1973. Sir Georg Solti conducting. London 1988. Sir Georg Solti conducting. London
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ludwig van beethoven
Symphony No. 5 in C Minor, Op. 67 This is the symphony that, along with an image of Beethoven, looking agitated and disheveled, has come to represent greatness in music. In fact, many people know only the very opening seconds, just as they may remember vividly and accurately no more than the Mona Lisa’s smile, or the first ten words of Hamlet’s soliloquy. It’s hard to know how so few notes, so plainly strung together, could become so popular. There are certainly those who would argue that this isn’t even Beethoven’s greatest symphony, just as the Mona Lisa isn’t Leonardo’s finest painting—Beethoven himself preferred his Eroica to the Fifth Symphony. And yet, it’s hardly famous beyond its merits, for one can’t easily think of another single composition that, in its expressive range and structural power, better represents what music is all about. Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony has spoken forcefully and directly to many listeners—trained and untrained—over the years; we each listen and understand in our own way. We can probably find ourselves somewhere here, among the characters of E.M. Forster’s Howard’s End: Whether you are like Mrs. Munt, and tap surreptitiously when the tunes come—of course not so as to disturb the others; or like Helen, who can see heroes and shipwrecks in the music’s flood; or like Margaret, who can only see the music; or like Tibby, who is profoundly versed in counterpoint, and holds the full score open on his knee; or like their cousin, Fräulein Mosebach, who remembers all the time that Beethoven is “echt Deutsch”; or like Fräulein Mosebach’s young man, who can remember nothing but Fräulein Mosebach: in any case, the passion of your life becomes more vivid, and you are bound to admit that such a noise is cheap at two shillings. That is why we still go to concerts, and, whether we see shipwrecks or hear dominant sevenths, we may well agree, when caught up in a captivating performance, “that Beethoven’s Fifth abov e : Ludwig van Beethoven, holding the manuscript to his Missa solemnis. Detail from the painting by Joseph Karl Stieler (1781–1858), 1820, the only portrait the composer sat for during his lifetime. Beethoven-Haus Bonn
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composed 1804–08 f i rst p e rf o rm a n c e December 22, 1808; Vienna, Austria i n st ru m e n tat i o n two flutes and piccolo, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons and contrabassoon, two horns, two trumpets, three trombones, timpani, strings a p p roxi m at e p e rf o rm a n c e t i m e 36 minutes f i rst c s o p e rf o rm a n c e s October 16 and 17, 1891, Auditorium Theatre. Theodore Thomas conducting July 18, 1936, Ravinia Festival. Willem van Hoogstraten conducting m o st re c e n t c s o p e rf o rm a n c e s August 1, 2019, Ravinia Festival. Rafael Payare conducting February 20, 21, 22, and 23, 2020, Orchestra Hall. Riccardo Muti conducting c s o re c o rd i n g s 1944. Désiré Defauw conducting. CSO (From the Archives, vol. 17: Beethoven) 1959. Fritz Reiner conducting. RCA 1961. George Szell conducting. VAI (video) 1968. Seiji Ozawa conducting. RCA 1973. Sir Georg Solti conducting. London 1986. Sir Georg Solti conducting. London 1990. Sir Georg Solti conducting. CBS/Sony (video) 1994. James Levine conducting. Disney (excerpts from the first movement for Fantasia 2000)
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Symphony is the most sublime noise that has ever penetrated into the ear of man.”
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or a while, this piece was somewhat overshadowed by the Ninth Symphony, which seemed to point the way to the rest of the nineteenth century and emboldened generations of composers to think differently of the symphony, or of music in general. But the Fifth has never really lost its appeal. Robert Schumann, whose musical predictions have often come true, wrote that This symphony invariably wields its power over men of every age like those great phenomena of nature. . . . This symphony, too, will be heard in future centuries, nay, as long as music and the world exist. It is surely no coincidence that Theodore Thomas, the founder and first music director of the Chicago Symphony, included this symphony on the Orchestra’s inaugural concerts in October 1891, as well as the concert given in December 1904 to dedicate Orchestra Hall. “I care not from what the station in life come the thousands who sit before me,” Thomas once told a reporter. “Beethoven will teach each according to his needs.” A familiarity earned by only a handful of pieces in any century has largely blunted much of the work’s wild power for our ears today. And, knowing the many works that couldn’t have been written without this as their example has blinded us to the novelty of Beethoven’s boldest strokes: the cross-reference between the famous opening and the fortissimo horn call in the scherzo, the way the scherzo passes directly—and dramatically—into the finale, and the memory of the scherzo that appears unexpectedly in the finale— all forging the four movements of the symphony into one unified design. The idea of a symphony tracing the journey from strife to victory is commonplace today, but Beethoven’s Fifth was an entirely new kind of symphony in his day. There’s no way to know what the first audience thought. For one thing, that concert, given at the
Theater an der Wien on December 22, 1808, was so inordinately long (even by nineteenth-century standards), and jammed with so much important new music, that no one could truly have taken it all in. J.F. Reichardt, who shared a box with Prince Lobkowitz, later wrote: “There we sat from 6:30 till 10:30 in the most bitter cold, and found by experience that one might have too much even of a good thing.” Reichardt and Lobkowitz stayed till the end, their patience frequently tried not by the music— to which these two brought more understanding than most—but by the performance, which was rough and unsympathetic. Surely some in the audience that night were bowled over by what they heard, though many may well have fidgeted and daydreamed, uncomprehending, or perhaps even bored. Beethoven’s was not yet the most popular music ever written, and even as great a figure as Goethe would outlive Beethoven without coming to terms with the one composer who was clearly his equal. As late as 1830, Mendelssohn tried one last time to interest the aging poet in Beethoven’s music, enthusiastically playing the first movement of the Fifth Symphony at the piano. “But that does not move one,” Goethe responded, “it is merely astounding, grandiose.” Take the celebrated opening, which Beethoven once, in a moment he surely regretted, likened to Fate knocking at the door. It is bold and simple, and like many of the mottoes of our civilization, susceptible to all manner of popular treatments, none of which can diminish the power of the original. Beethoven writes eight notes, four plus four—the first ta-ta-ta-TUM falling from G down to E-flat, the second from F to D. For all the force of those hammer strokes, we may be surprised that only strings and clarinets play them. Hearing those eight notes and no more, we can’t yet say for certain whether this is E-flat major or C minor. As soon as Beethoven continues, we hear that urgent knocking as part of a grim and driven music in C minor. But when the exposition is repeated, and we start over from the top with E-flat major chords still ringing in our ears, those same ta-ta-ta-TUM patterns sound like they CSO.ORG 9
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belong to E-flat major. That ambiguity and tension are at the heart of this furious music—just as the struggle to break from C minor, where this movement settles, into the brilliance of C major— and will carry us to the end of the symphony.
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f one understands and remembers those four measures, much of what happens during the next thirty-odd minutes will seem both familiar and logical. We can hear Fate knocking at the door of nearly every measure in the first movement. The forceful horn call that introduces the second theme, for example, mimics both the rhythm and the shape of the symphony’s opening. (We also can notice the similarity to the beginning of the Fourth Piano Concerto—and, in fact, ideas for both works can be found in the same sketchbooks, those rich hunting grounds where brilliance often emerges in flashes from a disarray matched by the notorious condition of the composer’s lodgings.) Although the first movement is launched with the energy and urgency of those first notes, its progress is stalled periodically by echoes of the two long-held notes in the first bars; in the recapitulation a tiny, but enormously expressive, oboe cadenza serves the same purpose. The extensive coda is particularly satisfying not because it effectively concludes a dramatic and powerful movement, but because it uncovers still new depths of drama and power at a point when that seems unthinkable. The Andante con moto is a distant relative of the theme and variations that often turn up as slow movements in classical symphonies. But unlike the conventional type, it presents two different themes, varies them separately, and then trails off into a free improvisation that covers a wide range of thoughts, each springing almost spontaneously from the last. The sequence of events is so unpredictable, and the meditative tone so seductive that, in the least assertive movement of the symphony, Beethoven commands our attention to the final sentence. Beethoven was the first to notice his scherzo’s resemblance to the opening of the finale of Mozart’s great G minor symphony—he even
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wrote out Mozart’s first measures on a page of sketches for this music—but while the effect there is decisive and triumphant, here it is clouded with half-uttered questions. Beethoven begins with furtive music, inching forward in the low strings, then stumbling on the horns, who let loose with their own rendition of Fate at the door. At some point, when Beethoven realized that the scherzo was part of a bigger scheme, he decided to leave it unfinished and move directly, through one of the most famous passages in music—slowly building in tension and drama, over the ominous, quiet pounding of the timpani—to an explosion of brilliant C major. Composers have struggled ever since to match the effect, not just of binding movements together—that much has been successfully copied—but of emerging so dramatically from darkness to light. The sketchbooks tell us that these fifty measures cost Beethoven considerable effort, and, most surprisingly, that they weren’t even part of the original plan. Berlioz thought this transition so stunning that it would be impossible to surpass it in what follows. Beethoven, perfectly understanding the challenge—and also that of sustaining the victory of C major once it has been achieved—adds trombones (used in symphonic music for the first time), the piccolo, and the contrabassoon to the first burst of C major and moves forward toward his final stroke of genius. That moment comes amid general rejoicing, when the ghost of the scherzo quietly appears, at once disrupting C major with unexpected memories of C minor and leaving everyone temporarily hushed and shaken. Beethoven quickly restores order, and the music begins again as if nothing has happened. But Beethoven still finds it necessary to end with fifty-four measures of the purest C major to remind us of the conquest, not the struggle.
Phillip Huscher is the program annotator for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
profiles Riccardo Muti Conductor Riccardo Muti is one of the world’s preeminent conductors. In 2010, he became the tenth music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. It was recently announced that he would extend his tenure through the 2022–23 season at the request of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association. Muti’s leadership has been distinguished by the strength of his artistic partnership with the Orchestra; his dedication to performing great works of the past and present, including thirteen world premieres to date; the enthusiastic reception he and the CSO have received on national and international tours; and eight recordings on the CSO Resound label, with three Grammy awards among them. In addition, his contributions to the cultural life of Chicago— with performances throughout its many neighborhoods and at Orchestra Hall—have made a lasting impact on the city. Born in Naples, Riccardo Muti studied piano under Vincenzo Vitale at the Conservatory of San Pietro a Majella, graduating with distinction. He subsequently received a diploma in composition and conducting from the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory in Milan under the guidance of Bruno Bettinelli and Antonino Votto. He first came to the attention of critics and the public in 1967, when he won the Guido Cantelli Conducting Competition, by unanimous vote of the jury, in Milan. In 1968, he became principal conductor of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, a position he held until 1980. In 1971, Muti was invited by Herbert von Karajan to conduct at the Salzburg Festival, the first of many occasions, which led to a celebration of fifty years of artistic collaboration with the Austrian festival in 2020. During the 1970s, Muti was chief conductor of London’s Philharmonia Orchestra (1972–1982), succeeding Otto Klemperer. From 1980 to 1992, he inherited the position of music director of the Philadelphia Orchestra from Eugene Ormandy. P H OTO BY TO DD RO S E NB E RG
From 1986 to 2005, he was music director of Teatro alla Scala, and during that time, he directed major projects such as the three Mozart/Da Ponte operas and Wagner’s Ring cycle in addition to his exceptional contributions to the Verdi repertoire. His tenure as music director of Teatro alla Scala, the longest in its history, culminated in the triumphant reopening of the restored opera house on December 7, 2004, with Salieri’s Europa riconosciuta. Over the course of his extraordinary career, Riccardo Muti has conducted the most important orchestras in the world: from the Berlin Philharmonic to the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and from the New York Philharmonic to the Orchestre National de France; as well as the Vienna Philharmonic, an orchestra to which he is linked by particularly close and important ties, and with which he has appeared at the Salzburg Festival since 1971. When Muti was invited to lead the Vienna Philharmonic’s 150th-anniversary concert, the orchestra presented him with the Golden Ring, a special sign of esteem and affection, awarded only to a few select conductors. In 2021, he conducted the Vienna Philharmonic in the New Year’s Concert for the sixth time. Muti has received numerous international honors over the course of his career. He is Cavaliere di Gran Croce of the Italian Republic and a recipient of the German Verdienstkreuz. He received the decoration of Officer of the Legion of Honor from French President Nicolas Sarkozy. He was made an honorary Knight Commander of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II. The Salzburg Mozarteum awarded him its silver medal for his contribution to Mozart’s music, and in Vienna, he was elected an honorary member of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, Vienna Hofmusikkapelle, and Vienna State Opera. Russian President Vladimir Putin awarded him the Order of Friendship, and the State of Israel has honored him with the Wolf Prize in the arts. In October 2018, Muti received the prestigious Praemium Imperiale for Music of the Japan Arts Association in Tokyo. CSO.ORG 11
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In September 2010, Riccardo Muti became music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and was named 2010 Musician of the Year by Musical America. At the 53rd annual Grammy Awards ceremony in 2011, his live performance of Verdi’s Messa da Requiem with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus was awarded Grammy awards for Best Classical Album and Best Choral Performance. In 2011, Muti was selected as the recipient of the coveted Birgit Nilsson Prize. In 2011, he received the Opera News Award in New York City and Spain’s prestigious Prince of Asturias Award for the Arts. That summer, he was named an honorary member of the Vienna Philharmonic and honorary director for life of the Rome Opera. In May 2012, he was awarded the highest papal honor: the Knight of the Grand Cross First Class of the Order of St. Gregory the Great by
Pope Benedict XVI. In 2016, he was honored by the Japanese government with the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Star. On August 15, 2021, Muti received the Great Golden Decoration of Honor for Services to the Republic of Austria, the highest possible civilian honor from the Austrian government. Passionate about teaching young musicians, Muti founded the Luigi Cherubini Youth Orchestra in 2004 and the Riccardo Muti Italian Opera Academy in 2015. Through Le vie dell’Amicizia (The Roads of Friendship), a project of the Ravenna Festival in Italy, he has conducted in many of the world’s most troubled areas in order to bring attention to civic and social issues. riccardomuti.com riccardomutioperacademy.com
Muti Tours and Teaches Across the Globe The longtime musical partnership of the Vienna Philharmonic and Riccardo Muti logged a new chapter with the orchestra’s recent tour of Asia and Egypt (November 3–21, 2021). “Expectations were high even before the performance,” read The Korea Times; “It was the most-anticipated and biggest performance in Korea by an overseas ensemble since the COVID-19 pandemic started.” Organized under strict safety and travel protocols, the tour included performances in Tokyo’s Suntory Hall and in the Japanese cities of Nagoya, Himeji, and Osaka and in Seoul, Daejeon, and Busa, South Korea. The November 20 and 21 performances opened the concert hall in the new Administrative Capital’s City of Arts and Culture in Cairo, Egypt. During rehearsals for the tour in Vienna, Muti received the honor of an appointment as a Foreign Honorary Member of the Russian Academy of the Arts, an award bestowed by Dmitri Ljubinski, the Russian ambassador to Austria. From December 4 to December 15, Muti partnered for the first time with Fondazione Prada to present the seventh edition of the Italian Opera Academy, focusing on Verdi’s opera Nabucco, at the foundation’s headquarters in Milan, Italy. Commenting on the partnership with the Academy, legendary Italian fashion designer Miuccia Prada said, “Thanks to this collaboration with Riccardo Muti and his Academy, the foundation has become for eleven days a place of musical research and cultural study not only for the ten young talents who have worked closely with the Maestro, but for hundreds of enthusiasts and students who, by participating in the sessions, were able to grasp the importance and richness of his teachings.” For more, visit cso.org/experience.
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The Chicago Symphony Orchestra is grateful to
Bank of America for its generous support as the Maestro Residency Presenter.
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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
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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.
Chicago Symphony Orchestra Riccardo Muti Zell Music Director
Duain Wolfe Chorus Director and Conductor 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.
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All-Access Chamber Series Curated and performed by members of the CSO, the All-Access Chamber Music series presents free concerts in Orchestra Hall and venues throughout the city.
Symphony Center Tuesday, April 19, 6:30 Tuesday, May 17, 6:30 Kehrein Center for the Arts Tuesday, March 22, 6:30 South Shore Cultural Center Sunday, May 1, 3:00 Beverly Arts Center Sunday, June 5, 3:00
Get your free tickets today!
These concerts are generously sponsored by an anonymous donor.
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