Arts & Events

Riccardo Muti & Chicago Symphony Orchestra in Residency at UCB

Reviewed by James Roy MacBean
Saturday October 14, 2017 - 12:23:00 PM

Under the auspices of Cal Performances, the renowned Chicago Symphony Orchestra is in residency this week at UC Berkeley. On Friday evening, October 13, in the first of three concerts led by their Music Director Riccardo Muti, Chicago Symphony Orchestra presented a program comprised of Gioachino Rossini’s William Tell Overture, the West Coast premiere of All These Lighted Things by CSO Mead Composer-in-Residence Elizabeth Oganek, and Anton Bruckner’s Symphony No. 4 in E flat minor “Romantic.” Earlier in the week various events took place (a master class, a colloquium, etc.) in association with UCB’s Music Department.  

Long hailed as one of the world’s leading orchestras, the Chicago Symphony possesses perhaps the finest brass section of all. I can recall being astounded back in the 1970s and 80s by the CSO brass section in Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder under Solti at Carnegie Hall. Now, under Riccardo Muti that traditon is carried forward. One has only to hear the opening horn solo in Bruckner’s 4th Symphony, elegantly played by the CSO’s principal horn player Daniel Gingrich, to realize just how fine is the CSO’s brass section. But here we are running ahead of ourselves, for prior to the Bruckner 4th Symphony there were other treasures. Leading off the program was Rossini’s famous William Tell Overture; and while most Americans know that work’s final section as the theme music of The Lone Ranger, I wager that very few Americans would recognize the beautiful cello solo that opens this work as emanating from the William Tell Overture. In any case, the CSO’s principal cellist, John Sharp, gave an exquisite rendition of this extended solo cello opening. Indeed, the entire cello section, all eleven of them, did themselves proud when they took up the principal cellist’s lead. Following this cello-dominated section is a storm scene that was rendered with clashing brass and thunderous bass drum. And, of course, the final galloping motif (of Lone Ranger notoriety) was as brilliant as ever, here given a brisk, taut reading led by Riccardo Muti. As a show-opener, what could be better than Rossini’s William Tell Overture? 

Next on the Friday evening program was Elizabeth Oganek’s All These Lighted Things, a work composed this year on commission from the CSO and which premiered a scant two weeks ago in Chicago. Inspired by the poetry of Thomas Merton, All These Lighted Things is a finely layered sound-scape, the orchestral color of which reminded me at various moments of Maurice Ravel’s music. In conversation with Oganek during intermission, I asked her if she had been influenced by Ravel’s orchestral coloration; and she replied that, indeed, the music of Ravel and Debussy had definitely been in the back of her mind, along with the music of Chopin, in composing All These Lighted Things. This 15-minute work opens with what struck me, at least, as an oriental motif in the violins soon joined by the cellos. Then the reeds are heard. Hints of a mazurka are a debt to Chopin. In the second movement, based on a slow sarabande dance rhythm, there is considerable pizzicato plucking from the cellos. (This, too, reminds me of the extensive pizzicato in the slow movement of Ravel’s String Quartet.) The third and final movement represents for Oganek “a more communal dance,” one in which the full orchestra creates a layered, composite sound. In the final analysis, All These Lighted Things is a luminous work, one that is both contemporary and, at the same time, deeply rooted in the music of French Impressionism as well as Oganek’s beloved Chopin. 

After intermission Riccardo Muti returned to lead the CSO in Bruckner’s monumental 4th Symphony in E flat minor. This symphony has been a favorite of mine ever since I heard the near-legendary conductor Sergiu Celibidache lead the San Francisco Symphony in an intensely riveting performance of this work back in the 1980s. The symphony opens in a mood of rustic serenity with a broad horn solo against tremolando strings. Woodwinds then take up the horn motif. Then the full orchestra announces a second subject dominated by Bruckner’s signature rhythm, one that will also be heard in the third movement’s scherzo. This second subject undergoes a leisurely development of thirty-two measures before giving way to a third subject, which also receives a lengthy development. This movement ends with a majestic coda dominated by a repetition of the work’s opening horn motif. 

The second movement, marked Andante quasi allegretto, opens with two brief measures of muted chords in the strings followed by a ravishing melody in the cellos. After ten measures woodwinds take up the melody against pizzicato basses. A chorale passage ensues in the strings, leading to a second principal melody, this time heard in the violas against plucked violins and cellos. A third theme, introduced by the violas, is then boldly taken up by the brass against a sweeping tide of violins. This motif blares forth, then slowly begins to fade, as soft phrases are heard in horn, oboe, and clarinet. Kettledrums rustle in the background, growing fainter as the movement ebbs to a close. 

The third movement, a Scherzo, opens with a hunting fanfare for horns, followed by a leisurely Austrian dance motif heard in flute and clarinet. Characteristically, Bruckner alternates blocs of soft passages with blocs of full sonority – here a full brass band. The fourth and final movement offers a summation of everything that has come before, with familiar motifs now exploring distant harmonic regions and creating a sense of vast architectural space. The cyclical structure of Bruckner’s way of composing is here at its finest, as one bloc succeeds another and yet another, always expanding our overall sense of musical space while also rooting us in familiar motifs we have heard earlier in this work. Finally, after a sudden pause, everything all comes together in a brilliant coda that brings this monumental symphony to a close. Throughout this 4th Symphony, Riccardo Muti sensitively brought out all the nuances of feeling that make up this Bruckner masterpiece, and we understand that Bruckner was both an instinctual composer and, at the same time, one with a unique sense of musical architectonics. 

On Saturday, October 14, at 8:00 pm the CSO will perform Schubert’s Symphony No. 8 in B minor “Unfinished,” Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto in A Major, and Schumann’s Symphony No. 2 in C Major. On Sunday afternoon, October 15, at 3:00 pm the CSO will perform Brahms’ 2nd and 3rd Symphonies. All concerts are at Zellerbach Hall.