CHEERFUL EARFUL
CSO’s latest program an exercise in different forms of extreme listening
Abrief but wondrous world premiere, an opera overture that has long been part of pop culture, and amammoth symphony that showcases the brilliance of every section of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under the leadership of Maestro Riccardo Muti. That is the nutshell description of the orchestra’s latest program which will have its final performance here Sunday, and will subsequently be performed during the orchestra’s upcoming tour to Kansas City ( Oct. 11) and Berkeley, Ca. ( Oct. 13).
The concert also was an exercise in very different forms of extreme listening.
Muti and the CSO got things off to awild and playful start with a rousing performance of Rossini’s familiar “William Tell Overture,” whose galloping theme was long ago co- opted for use as the theme of “The Lone Ranger” television show. ( At its end Muti turned to the audience to explain its real history involving Tell’s reputation as a Swiss folk hero who opposed a dictator.)
But as with everything Muti interprets, thiswas no simple crowd pleaser. He and the orchestra make you listen with the greatest intensity— from the first sound of a solo cello, to a storm of brass and percussion, to the furious bowing of the string section. And because thiswas the overture to an opera, the melodies became potent instruments of storytelling with an almost cinematic intensity.
In her fascinating world premiere work, “All These Lighted Things ( three little dances for orchestra),’’ Elizabeth Ogonek, the CSO’s Mead Composer- in-Residence, makes you listen is a far different way. Taking inspiration from a line in a Thomas Merton poem about the progress of light throughout the day, at moments it feels as if Ogonek has found away to put your ear close to the soil and let you hear the generally unheard buzz and clatter of a microscopic insect world beneath the surface.
Scored for strings, reeds and brass, it also involves a huge array of percussion, including timpani ( the excellent David Herbert), along with crotales, marimba, slapstick, woodblock, rain sticks, triangles, Burma bells, Chinese opera gongs, vibraphone, Japanese singing bowls, cymbals and more, superbly played by Cynthia Yeh and Patricia Dash. The ultimate effect of this 15-minute work is one of total aural enchantment as delicate melodic riffs cede easily into more dissonant passages. There is a sort of ultra- modern fairy tale aura to it all, with the subtlest hints of Stravinsky along theway, and a lovely, gently swirling finale. It is a newwork that deserves many hearings, and one that is sure to offer additional pleasures with each of them.
And then therewas the big work of the evening— Bruckner’s late 19th century “Symphony No. 4 in E-flat Major ( Romantic),” a roiling mass of soundworks— a manufactured term, but one that suggests the lush, propulsive feel of the piece, which deploys every section of the orchestra to bravura effect, yet can also grow repetitive. Each movement is something of its own symphony, but all four of them stacked atop each other never seem to coalesce into a larger overall statement.
Maestro Muti clearly loves Bruckner and without question thiswork is a great gift to the CSO’s wonderful brass section, with the conductor offering a special much- deserved hug to acting principal horn Dan Gingrich and his colleagues during bows.
It is the horns that open the symphony with a solemn sound soon underscored by the hum of the strings that quickly grows into a great explosion of sound. The musical hunt is on. Bruckner also has a great flair for moving the strings fromthe sweetest passages to moments of urgency and triumph, all with a full, singing quality and a feel for conjuring the density of orchestral sound. At one point a floating line by the flute cedes to a return massing of the strings in music that at times can sound surprisingly modern. The gentle beats of a timpani drum can lead to a rapturously melodic sequence. And Muti and his musicians finesse every emotional shift with an almost magical precision.