On September 18, 2024, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra opened its 134th season with a cleverly curated and beautifully presented program led by Colombian-Austrian violinist/conductor Andrés Orozco-Estrada, and featuring American violinist Benjamin Beilman, graciously replacing Hilary Hahn, in recuperation from injury. The concert was held at Orchestra Hall, 220 S. Michigan, Chicago, and reprised the following day.
The evening began with an eloquent Star Spangled Banner, reverently observed by the audience on its feet, and progressed through 6 fine works of American, European and South American composers. Orozco-Estrada, Chief Conductor Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionalle della Rei and professor of orchestral conducting at the Vienna University of Music and Performing Arts, is a treat to observe: energetic, elegant, highly spirited.
This was the first CSO performance of conductor-composer Michael Tilson Thomas’ Agnegram, 1998, revised 2016, a delightfully effervescent and witty piece of music, with an enormous and exuberant complement of percussive sounds, including timpani, gong, tom-tom, chimes, bass, glockenspiel, marimba, xylophone, snare drum, cymbals, whip, blocks, triangle, ratchet, tambourine, cymbal, cowbell, even police whistle! The work is a 90th birthday celebratory creation for Agnes Albert, pianist, supporter, muse and friend of the San Francisco Symphony, which Tilson Thomas led for decades, and purports to embody her personality with themes taken from her name and tunes she loved. It’s martial air and jazzy feel was played with great panache and verve.
The remarkably talented young pianist Beilman accompanied the orchestra in Samuel Barber’s Violin Concerto, Op. 14, 1939-1940; both the individual for whom the piece was commissioned and Beilman are graduates of the Curtis Institute of Music. The 25 minute 3-movement concerto for medium-sized chamber orchestra opens with an extended melody of enormous lyrical effect, instantly presented by the violin, interspersed with a bright folksy theme. The second movement Andante was darker, moodier, opening with a cerebral theme in the oboes, becoming almost Asian in texture. Ultimately, the vivid last movement was rhythmic and precipitous, ending with a flourish.
In encore, after numerous ovations, Beilman pronounced the single word “Bach”, before producing a quiet, reflective, thoughtful rendition of the 3rd movement in J.S. Bach’s Partita No. 3 in E major for solo violin, BWV 1006.1 (1720), Gavotte en Rondeau. With this showpiece for virtuoso performers, often heard in popular broadcasts, Beilman captured great finesse and sound in just under 3 minutes.
The Romeo and Juliet Fantasy-Overture after Shakespeare, by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, (revised twice, third version 1886) is a spellbindingly lovely romantic montage of mood, personalities and themes. Strikingly contrasting melodies offer periods of somber reflection, deathless passionate love and angry tyrannical feuding, culminating in the suggestion of sorrowful “star-crossed” dual death.
West Side Story, 1957, (this overture version was arranged by Maurice Peress, 1965), was a unique and stunning musical; premiering on Broadway in 1957, it was the combined work of composer Leonard Bernstein, librettist Arthur Laurents, lyricist Stephen Sondheim, and director/choreographer Jerome Robbins. The obvious yet thoroughly well-adapted references to Romeo and Juliet captured the major themes expressed by the Bard- and by Tchaikovsky- in a stylistically relevant way with an urban gang Gotham milieu. In the original 1961 film version the unforgettable overture introduces The City, shot from above. As performed by the CSO, the instantly recognizable love songs, profoundly moving, yearning, in tribute to first passion worldwide, melded with cityscape sounds, “rumble rousing” and regret are a paean to the universal tragedy.
Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Andrés Orozco-Estrada, Conductor, Benjamin Beilman, Violin
Under the skillful baton of Orozco-Estrada, the 2 different scores, based on the great play, were crisp, deeply sonorous, stylish and stirring. Listened to in sequence of time, one reflects on how love must prevail over the toxicity of tribal hatred, ancient or modern- and what better inspiration can there be than glorious music?
Argentinian composer Alberto Ginastera created Four Dances from Estancia, Op. 8A, 1941, a ballet on the life of the gauchos of the cattle ranches of the pampas. With 7 CSO musicians on the vast array of percussion including timpani, drum kit, marimba, xylophone, gongs, suspended cymbal, crotales, finger cymbals, chimes, and etc, this was an almost extravagant array of rhythmic intensity, thoroughly Latin in flavor. The 4 dances progress from Agricultural Workers, a malamba (folkdance) dressed with intense brass, fast-paced violins and driving woodwinds, to Wheat Dance, a sweet and lifting melody by flute and violin, through The Cattlemen, a thoroughly exciting assertive piece, to the close with Final Dance, a driving, complex, brilliant climax.
For information and tickets to all the fine programming of The Chicago Symphony Orchestra, go to www.cso.org
All photos by Todd Rosenberg Photography
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