Symphonic programs that leap across national borders sometimes can resemble those cheap European package tours: If it’s Tuesday, it must be Mahler. But the concert presented by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on Thursday night at Symphony Center proved an unusually absorbing itinerary, made more so by Lorin Maazel’s spit-and-polish direction.
Maazel, beginning a two-week residency, bridged different cultures and composing styles with much the same technical brilliance that made his New York Philharmonic performance so special the previous week.
You could hardly blame audience members for yelling “bravo” before the final notes had barely sounded — that’s how strong a current of excitement he and the CSO generated.
Transitional works by the young Johannes Brahms and the young Bela Bartok — representing Germany and Hungary, respectively — were set against Sergei Prokofiev’s Fifth Symphony, a wartime masterpiece from Soviet Russia that reveals Prokofiev at the height of his creative powers.
Brahms’ Serenade No. 2 does not turn up very often, which is a shame because it shows the 26-year-old composer at his sunniest and most engaging, unencumbered by deep thoughts. The five movements brim with melody, intriguingly scored for a violin-less orchestra rich in woodwind and viola coloration.
Maazel paid his musicians the compliment of staying out of the way as much as possible. This shifted attention to the CSO’s splendid woodwind choir, which brought a light, open, dancey quality to the bucolic Scherzo while crisply defining the rhythms of the final Rondo.
The folk impulse is even stronger in Bartok’s Two Pictures (1910). The music finds Bartok moving away from the influence of Debussy and Richard Strauss and embracing Hungarian ethnic impulses. Now coolly atmospheric, now razor-sharp and characterful, Maazel reminded us the best Bartok orchestra in the world resides in Chicago.
The Prokofiev Fifth invites different approaches: Some conductors go only for the big audience-rousing moments while others probe its symphonic logic. Maazel leaned toward the latter view without holding back on orchestral razzle-dazzle.
A sensation of massive, limitless strength drove the opening movement; the sound never turned raucous despite Prokofiev’s brass-heavy scoring. Maazel coaxed his players through the Scherzo, which moved with the inexorable force of a clockwork juggernaut. Such was his exacting control of pulse that he could begin the long accelerando at a crawl before shifting into thrilling overdrive.
Maazel’s view paid particular dividends in the great Adagio, which grew from brooding diffidence to warm, dark song reminiscent of Prokofiev’s “Romeo and Juliet” ballet.
Until the finale’s blazing final pages, Maazel was coolest when the music was red-hot — meting out Prokofiev’s coruscating energy in finely calibrated degrees of intensity. The crowd burst into loud and lengthy applause.
The program will be repeated at 8 p.m. Saturday. You won’t want to miss this one — or next week’s Maazel concerts, either.
