GOLD STANDARDS
Muti, CSO breathe marvelous new life into familiar repertoire
Music Director Riccardo Muti’s first four Chicago Symphony Orchestra programs of 2019-20 all included at least one rarity or premiere. But Thursday evening’s concert line-up fell entirely within the so-called standard repertoire — familiar works that are regularly presented.
The secret to performing such fare is to infuse it with freshness and vibrancy and make it come off as anything but routine, however “standard” it might be. And that’s exactly what Muti and the orchestra did.
The program focused on works written in a five-decade span by three famed 19th century German composers whose lives overlapped in fascinating ways: a close friendship between Johannes Brahms and Robert Schumann and, a famed if often-complicated, philosophical divide between those two and Richard Wagner.
The evening’s centerpiece was Brahms’ Concerto for Violin and Cello in A minor, Op. 102, “Double,” a masterwork written 10 years before his death in 1897. Meant as an olive branch to famed violinist Joseph Joachim, from whom the composer had become estranged, it is the first work written for this combination.
More in the vein of a baroque concerto grosso, it shows off the two solo instruments but it is not a showpiece in the manner of many flashy concertos. Instead, this work has a kind of enlarged chamber-music sensibility, with the soloists in close dialogue with each other and the orchestra.
Instead of engaging guest soloists for the central roles, as is often the case, the orchestra turned to two its own members — associate concertmaster Stephanie Jeong and assistant principal cellist Kenneth Olsen.
Handling the concerto’s not inconsiderable technical challenges with aplomb and meshing nicely together, the two seemed right at home front and center, especially Olsen.
The cello is the concerto’s dominant solo instrument, and Olsen capitalized on the opportunity, displaying a sure, resonant, amber tone and performing with compelling expressiveness and a seemingly unflappable self-assuredness.
He was well-matched by Jeong, who also proved herself to be a first-class musician and no slouch as a soloist. She was her thoughtful, convincing best in the slow, at times dreamy second movement.
Muti adroitly backed and framed the two hometown soloists, effectively evoking the elusive, reserved quality of this music — its kind of understated romantic fervency. Perhaps most notably, he conveyed the scope and depth of the big, arching first movement, with all its changing moods and emotions.
The conductor opened the evening with a forceful, full-bodied take on the Overture to Wagner’s opera “The Flying Dutchman.’’
The piece was an ideal showcase for the Chicago Symphony’s brass, which sounded in excellent form, especially the French horn section, which has been reinforced and reinvigorated with the recent arrival of David Cooper as principal.
The evening ended with the Symphony No. 3 in E flat major, Op. 97, “Rhenish,” Schumann’s ode to the Rhine River.
Muti brought an appropriately light, nuanced approach to this work, which can too easily be smothered with too heavy a hand. After the flowing grandeur of the first movement, Muti and the orchestra brought a suitably airy, genial touch to the scherzo second movement and due gentleness to the third. The turned-in, suspended emotions of the fourth movement, which the composer marked as “Solemn,” led to a jaunty conclusion.