In a sense, the Daniel Barenboim era at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra has already begun. His grand unveiling of plans took place in a recent Orchestra Hall press conference, when it was clear to all observers that, five months before taking over Georg Solti`s job, Barenboim already was thinking and acting like our Symphonic Commander in Chief, part general, part visionary.
Elaborating on already announced plans for the orchestra`s 101st season, our music director designate suggested that the CSO has a vital role to play within the community that extends well beyond putting on weekly concerts of symphonic masterworks, essential though that service may be. In short, the 48- year-old Barenboim wants to expand the orchestra`s participation in the cultural and intellectual life of Chicago on a scale no previous music director has attempted.
Although many of his ideas remain in the discussion phase, he has identified two broad areas of expansion for the coming season.
First, the CSO will initiate closer dialogue with the neighboring Lyric Opera, Art Institute of Chicago and other institutions, as well as with various area universities. ”I want to try to collaborate as much as possible with other institutions,” Barenboim explained. ”All the arts are related. I don`t believe in compartmentalization, either within music or between music and the other arts.”
Second, at the conductor`s urging, contemporary music will assume a higher profile in CSO programming. ”We must get the public to listen more often, and more carefully, to 20th Century music if we are going to maintain the vital link between the composer, performer and audience,” he said.
”I don`t think there was one person attending the world premiere of Wagner`s `Ring` at Bayreuth in 1876 who thought of early Beethoven symphonies as `modern music.` But there are a lot of people today who still consider Schoenberg and Stravinsky works from 1910 and 1920 to be `modern.` I think it is our duty, and for me it is a joy, to fight this (attitude).”
The conductor`s ”visiting card,” as he puts it, for the coming season suggests that he really wants to talk with other local arts and civic leaders, not only to learn how they perceive the Chicago Symphony but also how our orchestra might more creatively serve the area from which it draws its multimillion-dollar support.
The populist phase of the Barenboim Plan will begin on Sept. 21, when he will lead the CSO in a free concert at Grant Park. A more ambitious venture will take various orchestra chamber units across Michigan Avenue to the Art Institute for three Sunday afternoon concerts that will explore the links between chamber music and visual art. The first program will focus on modern art and modern music, the second on classical and Romantic traditions, the third on folk influences. The new chamber series begins Dec. 15.
He said the CSO will take part in a seminar on Samuel Barber`s music this autumn to coincide with the Lyric Opera production of Barber`s ”Antony and Cleopatra” and the orchestra`s all-Barber symphonic and choral concert Oct. 24-29.
”This collaboration with Lyric Opera is only in embryo,” Barenboim said. ”We are limited in the choices we had this year (but) we hope that this will be more extensive in the future.”
Composer/conductor Pierre Boulez will lecture at Northwestern University during his four-week residency with the CSO beginning in late November. And the CSO`s training ensemble, the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, will present a free concert of scores by black American composers Oct. 12 at Orchestra Hall, cosponsored by the Center for Black Music Research at Columbia College.
The CSO will also launch a mentor program for young conductors in collaboration with the American Symphony Orchestra League.
”I have long felt that many of the problems with symphonic musical life nowadays come from the fact that there really is not an ideal training ground for young conductors,” Barenboim said. ”Any soloist has the luxury of doing a certain amount of experimentation in the solitude of his or her study, but what outlets do inexperienced conductors have?”
The three conductors chosen for 1991-92-Tsung Yeh, David Loebel and Christopher Wilkins-will spend up to six weeks in Chicago, observing rehearsals, studying scores and rehearsing the Civic Orchestra. If everything goes as planned, all three will conduct a Civic concert in autumn 1992.
With respect to contemporary music, Barenboim appears to regard his role as a combination of facilitator, advocate and go-between. He said it isn`t a matter of making people like every modern score they hear; rather it is a question of fostering a climate of understanding between the composer and performer as well as between the performer and audience.
”Never has there been such a gap in communications as there is now,”
the conductor said. ”There are very great performers who make no bones about their lack of interest in contemporary music. How, then, can we expect the public to relate to the music that is being written today?”
Barenboim believes that because many new works are performed only once, they are denied the chance to establish themselves in the repertoire.
”I have always felt that second performances of contemporary music are more important than the first,” he explained. ”The lack of receptiveness to 20th Century music comes directly from the fact that the music has not been properly digested, either by the orchestra or the conductor.
”If contemporary music is to have significance to musicians and the public, it must be played with a certain regularity. The works that we feel are important and are particularly successful will be coming back,” he promised, citing Symphony No. 1 by former CSO composer-in-residence John Corigliano. Barenboim will repeat the work here in March 1992 and take it abroad as part of his first European tour as music director.
Nothing about Barenboim`s modern music programming for next season (which includes the premieres of commissioned works by Luciano Berio, Ralph Shapey, Lukas Foss, Pierre Boulez and Easley Blackwood) suggests that he is following the path of least subscriber resistance.
Barenboim will direct the premiere of University of Chicago composer Ralph Shapey`s ”Concerto Fantastique” at subscription concerts Nov. 21-23. On Nov. 10, Orchestra Hall will celebrate Shapey`s 70th birthday with two concerts separated by a conversation between him and his Pulitzer Prize-winning pupil, CSO composer-in-residence Shulamit Ran.
But Barenboim is playing no favorites. A glance at the CSO`s 20th Century plans for next season reveals a healthy representation of musical styles, from the grandfather modernists Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Berg, Bartok and Webern, to living eminences like Berio and Boulez, to more conservative voices like Bloch, Bernstein, Harris, Hindemith and Shostakovich.
About half of these works will fall within Boulez`s extended podium residency. The composer/conductor`s multiseason participation in a wide range of orchestra activities promises a period of musical discovery for Chicago audiences-just the kind of adventure-laden events to launch a great orchestra into its second century.
”I can`t change everything but what I can try to (do) is give contemporary music the benefit of the best possible performance conditions,” Barenboim said.
”This is not the last word,” he added, referring to his plans for the 101st season. ”It was not possible to do everything we had hoped, not only because of a lack of time but also because it really is a new venture. I hope that if the results are positive, we will be able to enlarge this kind of programming in the future.”
