Some Chicago Symphony subscribers grumble that the orchestra plays too much modern music, and others wish it would do more. Still others suggest they would be willing to attend more regularly if only the music was more accessible to classical newbies like them.
Practiced musical diplomat that he is, Daniel Barenboim is endeavoring to please each and every interest group in the programming to be presented by the CSO during the 2001-02 season, the orchestra’s 111th.
He may just succeed. The balance of new and unfamiliar scores with standard repertory, the artists roster, the special events, and the synergistic programming of the Symphony Center Presents series make for as strong a mix as the orchestra has offered during Barenboim’s decade as music director.
In the big-guns department, he is following up on this season’s “Mahler and Modernism” festival with “Wagner and Modernism,” a three-week perspective of concerts, lectures and exhibits juxtaposing two of his artistic passions.
The Wagner side of the equation includes excerpts from two of the “Ring” operas, “Goetterdaemmerung” and “Die Walkuere” (Act I, with singers Angela Denoke, Peter Seiffert and John Tomlinson), as well as two complete performances of “Tristan und Isolde,” with Christian Franz and Waltraud Meier in the title roles.
Barenboim already has been announced as conducting Act II of “Tristan” at Ravinia in August.
The modernist portion of the festival will include new works commissioned or co-commissioned by the CSO — the world premiere of Elliott Carter’s Cello Concerto, written for and performed by Yo-Yo Ma; and a piece by German composer Isabel Mundry.
Otherwise, Barenboim’s 11th season as artistic chief again showcases him in his many musical guises, as pianist and conductor with the CSO, and as song collaborator and chamber musician on the Symphony Center Presents series.
He will team up with violinist Maxim Vengerov for the Opening Night gala on Sept. 21, and he will take part in the fifth annual free Day of Music on Sept. 22.
Barenboim and the orchestra will toast the holidays in December with a pairing of excerpts from Tchaikovsky’s “Nutcracker” Suite and Duke Ellington’s jazz arrangements of the same music.
Barenboim also will present a piano recital and will partner singers Dorothea Roeschmann and Thomas Quasthoff, as well as violinists Itzhak Perlman and Vengerov, in other recitals.
Barenboim will kick off the season’s MusicNOW contemporary music series and direct a program with the Civic Orchestra of Chicago.
The CSO will mount two tours under Barenboim. An eight-concert European tour in September will launch the orchestra’s three-year residency at the International Festival of Music Lucerne in Switzerland.
The following month he and the CSO will present six concerts in New York, Washington, D.C., Boston and Newark, N.J.
Principal guest conductor Pierre Boulez can be depended on to provide penetrating insights into music extending from the early 20th Century to the early 21st. He will interrupt his podium sabbatical in November to lead two weeks of CSO subscription concerts and direct a MusicNOW concert. One Boulez program holds Mahler’s mammoth “Resurrection” Symphony, the other music by Stravinsky, Bartok and Gyorgy Kurtag.
The orchestrated versions of Boulez’s own “Notations” V and VI are due to receive their world premiere under Barenboim.
A very different sort of 20th Century giant — British composer Benjamin Britten — will be honored in a two-week festival directed by his longtime friend, cellist and conductor Mstislav Rostropovich. Repertory includes the stirring “War Requiem” (with the Chicago Symphony Chorus and vocal soloists), Symphony for Cello and Orchestra (John Sharp, soloist) and a recital of Britten and Schubert songs sung by tenor Ian Bostridge.
Apart from German conductor Ingo Metzmacher, who is making his CSO debut, the dozen guest conductors are familiar faces. Resident conductor William Eddins will be on the podium for two subscription weeks. Zubin Mehta continues his traversal of Berlioz’s epic opera “Les Troyens” with Part II, featuring singers Jon Villars and Nadja Michael. Other conductors include Pinchas Zukerman, David Robertson, Michael Gielen, Christian Thielemann, Antonio Pappano, Daniele Gatti, Franz Welser-Moest and Ivan Fischer.
Visiting orchestras are the Berlin Philharmonic, Claudio Abbado conducting; Kirov Orchestra under Valery Gergiev; St. Petersburg Philharmonic, Yuri Temirkanov conducting; Philadelphia Orchestra under Wolfgang Sawallisch; Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Herbert Blomstedt conducting; Orchestre de Paris under Christoph Eschenbach; and Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Riccardo Chailly conducting.
Artists who will appear in Symphony Center Presents recitals include singers Ben Heppner, Anne Sophie von Otter, Matthias Goerne and Jessye Norman; pianists Evgeny Kissin, Stephen Kovacevich, Radu Lupu, Andras Schiff, Peter Serkin, Murray Perahia, Alfred Brendel and Maurizio Pollini, plus two piano duos — Martha Argerich and Nelson Freire, and Saleem Abboud-Ashkar and Shai Wosner. (Abboud-Ashkar, a Palestinian, and Wosner, an Israeli, are Barenboim proteges.) There also will be concerts by Ravi Shankar, sitar; Anne-Sophie Mutter and Gidon Kremer, violin; and John Williams, guitar.
For subscription ticket information, phone 312-294-3000.
