CSO Audio Program Notes

Greek virtuoso Leonidas Kavakos performs Brahms’ Violin Concerto, a work that he has recorded with a “wonderful poise and instinctive elegance” (The Guardian). A cornerstone of the violin repertoire, the concerto brims with orchestral drama, rapturous melodies and earthy folk-dance rhythms. Riccardo Muti concludes the program with Beethoven’s exhilarating Seventh Symphony. Learn more: https://order.cso.org/21924/

Greek virtuoso Leonidas Kavakos performs Brahms’ Violin Concerto, a work that he has recorded with a “wonderful poise and instinctive elegance” (The Guardian). A cornerstone of the violin repertoire, the concerto brims with orchestral drama, rapturous melodies and earthy folk-dance rhythms. Riccardo Muti concludes the program with Beethoven’s exhilarating Seventh Symphony. Learn more: https://order.cso.org/21924/

Virtual Preconcert Conversation for Muti Conducts Saint-Georges, Price & Beethoven 3 For tickets and more info: https://order.cso.org/21851/

Riccardo Muti and the CSO reunite! Their first performance together since February 2020 features Beethoven’s stirring Eroica Symphony. The program opens with music from the only surviving opera by Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, the Guadeloupe-born composer, violinist and champion fencer who dazzled 18th-century Parisian society. Also featured is an enchanting, lyrical gem from the String Quartet in G Major by Florence Price, the first African American woman to have her music played by a major American orchestra — the CSO in 1933. Learn more: https://order.cso.org/21851/

Join us for the Beethoven 9 Facebook Premiere! https://www.facebook.com/ChicagoSymphony/posts/10157359874958049 Riccardo Muti conducts the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus in Beethoven’s most glorious and jubilant masterpiece. An exhilarating testament to the human spirit, Beethoven’s Ninth bursts with brooding power and kinetic energy and culminates in the exultant hymn, “Ode to Joy.” Learn more: cso.org/beethoven9

In a vibrant program of classical music inspired by the jazz revolution of the 20th century, two of George Gershwin’s iconic works are paired with one he undoubtedly influenced, Ravel’s jazzy Piano Concerto in G Major. Ravel’s most famous work, the mesmerizing Boléro, brings the program to a rousing close. Learn more: https://order.cso.org/9954/

After leading a 2018 CSO performance of Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony full of “tensile strength and spirited dynamism” (Chicago Classical Review), distinguished conductor Herbert Blomstedt returns to conduct Brahms’ radiant Second Symphony. “Scintillating and incisive” (The Straits Times) French pianist Bertrand Chamayou makes his CSO debut with Mozart’s delightful Piano Concerto No. 23. Learn more: https://order.cso.org/9953/

From its expansive opening to its transcendent climax, Sibelius’ Fifth Symphony is one of the most vivid orchestral works of the 20th century. Finnish conductor Hannu Lintu, in his CSO debut, pairs this with the composer’s best-known work, Finlandia. Pekka Kuusisto performs Nielsen’s spirited Violin Concerto. “Nielsen was a folk fiddler and Kuusisto made it show in the gorgeous looseness of his rhythms and stripped-back grit of his sound” (The Guardian). Tickets and more info: https://order.cso.org/9952/

Opening with the most famous four notes in all of classical music, Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony is a staggering masterwork that became a symphonic blueprint for all subsequent composers. Riccardo Muti leads a program that also features the composer’s buoyant, humorous Second Symphony and a world premiere concerto performed by CSO Bass Clarinet J. Lawrie Bloom. Tickets and more info: https://order.cso.org/9951/

Beloved by opera audiences around the world, Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana is an impassioned story of tormented love wrapped in music of fervent vibrancy. Riccardo Muti, whose command of 19th-century Italian opera is “virtually without peer” (Bachtrack), leads concert performances of the complete one-act opera with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus and an international cast.

Renowned English pianist Paul Lewis returns to perform two of Beethoven’s extraordinary piano concertos—the good-humored First and the intricate Fourth. Sir Andrew Davis, music director of Lyric Opera of Chicago and “a Tippett conductor of proven pedigree and insight” (Gramophone), leads two fascinating works by the 20th-century English composer. Learn more: https://order.cso.org/9949/

Dvořák’s Eighth Symphony is a lyrical masterpiece that The Guardian calls “35 minutes of life-enhancing joy.” Edo de Waart conducts this profound work, along with John Adams’ exuberant “foxtrot for orchestra,” an outtake from his opera Nixon in China. The phenomenally gifted Leila Josefowicz returns to perform Stravinsky’s brilliant neoclassical Violin Concerto. Tickets and more info: https://order.cso.org/9948/

Austrian conductor Manfred Honeck leads a program of richly melodic dance music by the Strauss family and Mozart’s virtuosic Piano Concerto No. 21 featuring Jan Lisiecki, whose “pristine, lyrical and intelligent playing shows uncommon maturity” (The New York Times). Former Mead Composer-in-Residence Mason Bates calls his new work, written in honor of Manfred Honeck’s 60th birthday, “a theatrical and fast-paced conjuring of the classic Resurrection narrative.”

Taking inspiration from Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, Tchaikovsky’s Fourth explores fate, progressing from dark despair to defiant triumph. John Storgårds leads this powerfully expressive work, along with the first CSO performance of the deeply moving blue cathedral by Jennifer Higdon, winner of the 2018 Nemmers Prize in Music Composition. The dazzling Ray Chen, making his CSO subscription series debut, brings his “liquid tone that carries with it emotional depth of great intimacy” (The Huffington Post) to the youthful bravura of Wieniawski’s First Violin Concerto. Tickets and more info: https://order.cso.org/9945/

Juanjo Mena conducts the CSO in a program featuring Holst’s powerful and haunting The Planets. Sally Matthews, a soprano of “incandescent verve” (The Times, London), performs two scenes from Barber’s 1966 opera that opened the Metropolitan Opera's new house at Lincoln Center. Detroit-based composer James Lee III’s celebratory Sukkot Through Orion’s Nebula illustrates an ancient Hebrew harvest festival refracted through the lens of the Book of Revelation.