CSO Audio Program Notes

May 10 2024 560
CSO Audio Program Notes Podcast artwork

Founded in 1891, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra is consistently hailed as one of the greatest orchestras in the world. In collaboration with the best conductors and guest artists on the international music scene, the CSO performs well over one hundred concerts each year at its downtown home, Symphony Center, and at the Ravinia Festival on Chicago’s North Shore, where it is in residency each summer. Music lovers outside Chicago enjoy the sounds of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra through best-selling recordings and frequent sold-out tour performances in the United States and around the globe. Visit cso.org for tickets and information.

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CSO Program Notes: Helmchen Plays Beethoven

May 10 2024 18 mins  
Martin Helmchen, “who brings both freshness and expressive depth to everything he plays” (Chicago Classical Review), takes on Beethoven’s First Piano Concerto, a work of youthful bravura and pensive elegance. To open the program, Kazuki Yamada conducts Takemitsu’s shimmering How slow the Wind and Franck’s D Minor Symphony, featuring a mix of soaring lyricism and brooding

CSO Program Notes: Mozart & Stravinsky

May 06 2024 18 mins  
The versatile Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider leads the CSO as soloist in Mozart’s richly melodic Violin Concerto No. 2 and Kreisler’s wistful Liebesleid. Trading violin bow for baton, Szeps-Znaider conducts Stravinsky’s Pulcinella Suite, a neoclassical gem that shines a spotlight on the orchestra’s principal players, and Mozart’s Prague Symphony, a work of grand gestures and profo

CSO Program Notes: Sheherazade

Apr 26 2024 13 mins  
Elim Chan leads Rimsky-Korsakov’s sumptuous symphonic suite Sheherazade, inspired by the legendary heroine and tales of One Thousand and One Nights. Paul Jacobs, “a virtuoso of dazzling technical acumen” (The New York Times), performs Barber’s Toccata festiva, an exuberant showcase for organ containing echoes of J.S. Bach. Learn more: cso.org/performances/23-24/cso-classica

CSO Program Notes: CSO x Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis

Apr 19 2024 15 mins  
Two mighty orchestras present a rousing, jazz-meets-classical event. Discover selections from Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet, alternating between the original orchestral version performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and imaginative new jazz arrangements presented by the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. Both ensembles join forces for a selection from Wynton Marsalis’ Swing

CSO Program Notes: Chopin & Tchaikovsky

Apr 15 2024 25 mins  
Tugan Sokhiev conducts Tchaikovsky’s youthful First Symphony, nicknamed Winter Dreams for its cozy evocation of Russian winters. Chopin’s exuberant Piano Concerto No. 1 features Russian pianist Yulianna Avdeeva, described by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette as “a one-woman powerhouse” who “stole the show.” Andrzej Panufnik’s Heroic Overture, composed in 1952, is a tribute

CSO Program Notes: Mendelssohn Elijah

Apr 04 2024 9 mins  
The 19th century’s most enduring oratorio, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, sung here in English, depicts the story of the biblical prophet Elijah, complete with his ascent to heaven on a flaming chariot. James Conlon leads the assembled forces, including Chicago favorite Lucas Meachem in the mighty title role and the Chicago Symphony Chorus performing the work’s pensive and ecstatic en

CSO Program Notes: Klaus Mäkelä & Sol Gabetta

Apr 02 2024 17 mins  
Sol Gabetta, whose “enthusiastic music-making and animated style are completely infectious” (Classical Voice), makes her CSO debut in Shostakovich’s captivating Cello Concerto No. 1 — a riveting journey through themes of defiance, sorrow and triumph. Electrifying conductor Klaus Mäkelä frames the program with Shostakovich’s Tenth Symphony, a searing portrait of the comp

CSO Program Notes: The Music of Bach

Mar 20 2024 15 mins  
Be transported to Zimmermann’s Coffee House, the Leipzig café where J.S. Bach introduced many of his instrumental works. CSO Concertmaster Robert Chen leads the dazzling Third Brandenburg Concerto, kaleidoscopic Violin Concerto in E Major and buoyant and graceful Orchestral Suite No. 1. Chen also teams up with Principal Oboe William Welter in Bach’s exquisite Concerto for Oboe

CSO Program Notes: Mahler 4

Mar 20 2024 18 mins  
Susanna Mälkki conducts a thought-provoking program anchored by Gustav Mahler’s Fourth Symphony. This celestial score, which includes a cryptic dance of death, is announced with sleigh bells and a rustic melody that ends with a child’s view of heaven, delivered here by soprano Ying Fang. Principal Flute Stefán Ragnar Höskuldsson is the soloist in a newly commissioned concert

CSO Program Notes: Also sprach Zarathustra

Mar 06 2024 23 mins  
Strauss’ Also sprach Zarathustra — with its iconic opening popularized in 2001: A Space Odyssey — sets the tone for a program of dazzling, otherworldly pieces. Bartók’s pantomime ballet, The Miraculous Mandarin, is a lurid, supernatural tale rendered in arresting colors. Czech violinist Josef Špaček takes on Martinů’s tuneful and vivacious Violin Concerto No. 1. Learn