As its name suggests, Symphony II is all too aware of its second-banana status to the towering Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
That modesty aside, the 12-year-old ensemble can point to the “Orchestra of the Year” citation recently awarded by the Illinois Council of Orchestras for excellence and durability. Indeed, despite a limited slate, it consistently shows the maturity, reliability and mainstream appeal that are hallmarks of top-notch regional orchestras.
After all, a large portion of Symphony II’s personnel is drawn from Lyric Opera’s pit orchestra, and most of them get a year-round workout by performing in the Grant Park Orchestra as well. And in conductor Larry Rachleff, the players have a seasoned leader who over the last decade has instilled discipline and vigor into their performances.
The group’s concert Sunday night in Pick-Staiger Concert Hall demonstrated most of its strengths in a potpourri program that put style ahead of substance. William Bolcom’s Commedia for “Almost” 18th Century Orchestra, the Third Violin Concerto (in B Minor) of Saint-Saens and Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 1 all share an eagerness to please.
Bolcom’s 10-minute piece, which opened the concert, is a smartly crafted pastiche of quotes from Mozart and modernist brass-heavy gestures, all to convey a madcap romp. It runs out steam rather quickly, although Rachleff and his crew captured its sparkling, clownish essence.
Elmar Oliveira, who enjoys the distinction of being the only American violinist ever to win the gold in the Tchaikovsky Competition, was the soloist in the Saint-Saens. He was in fine form, handling with panache the surfeit of sinuous passages that drive this lovely, suave but empty-headed concerto. His intonation was razor-sharp, yet at times, his violin sounded too brittle. There’s not much for the orchestra to do except elaborate on the virtuosic display, and the accompaniment was lively.
Shostakovich wrote the first of his symphonies, a genre that later became a profound emotional outlet for him, at the tender age of 19. Much of it is theatrical and nimbly orchestrated.
Symphony II’s performance hit the mark in bringing forth the contrast between sardonic and riotous in the opening movement, the braggadocio in the second and the tortuous, ominous grandiosity in lengthy third. It was so brilliant in execution that it more than lived up to the orchestra’s latest prize.
