CSO Audio Program Notes

CSO Audio Program Notes

By Chicago Symphony Orchestra AssociationSociety & CultureMusicHistory
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CSO Audio Program Notes episodes

  • Program Notes: Muti Conducts Saint-Georges, Price & Beethoven 3
    Riccardo Muti and the CSO reunite! Their first performance together since February 2020 features Beethoven’s stirring Eroica Symphony. The program opens with music from the only surviving opera by Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, the Guadeloupe-born composer, violinist and champion fencer who dazzled 18th-century Parisian society. Also featured is an enchanting, lyrical gem from the String Quartet in G Major by Florence Price, the first African American woman to have her music played by a major American orchestra — the CSO in 1933.
    Learn more: https://order.cso.org/21851/
    23 min
  • CSO Program Notes: Beethoven 9 Facebook Premiere
    Join us for the Beethoven 9 Facebook Premiere!
    https://www.facebook.com/ChicagoSymphony/posts/10157359874958049
    Riccardo Muti conducts the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus in Beethoven’s most glorious and jubilant masterpiece. An exhilarating testament to the human spirit, Beethoven’s Ninth bursts with brooding power and kinetic energy and culminates in the exultant hymn, “Ode to Joy.”
    Learn more: cso.org/beethoven9
    16 min
  • CSO Program Notes: Rhapsody In Blue
    In a vibrant program of classical music inspired by the jazz revolution of the 20th century, two of George Gershwin’s iconic works are paired with one he undoubtedly influenced, Ravel’s jazzy Piano Concerto in G Major. Ravel’s most famous work, the mesmerizing Boléro, brings the program to a rousing close.
    Learn more: https://order.cso.org/9954/
    10 min
  • CSO Program Notes: Blomstedt Conducts Brahms 2
    After leading a 2018 CSO performance of Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony full of “tensile strength and spirited dynamism” (Chicago Classical Review), distinguished conductor Herbert Blomstedt returns to conduct Brahms’ radiant Second Symphony. “Scintillating and incisive” (The Straits Times) French pianist Bertrand Chamayou makes his CSO debut with Mozart’s delightful Piano Concerto No. 23.
    Learn more: https://order.cso.org/9953/
    11 min
  • CSO Program Notes: Sibelius & Nielsen: A Nordic Celebration
    From its expansive opening to its transcendent climax, Sibelius’ Fifth Symphony is one of the most vivid orchestral works of the 20th century. Finnish conductor Hannu Lintu, in his CSO debut, pairs this with the composer’s best-known work, Finlandia. Pekka Kuusisto performs Nielsen’s spirited Violin Concerto. “Nielsen was a folk fiddler and Kuusisto made it show in the gorgeous looseness of his rhythms and stripped-back grit of his sound” (The Guardian).
    Tickets and more info: https://order.cso.org/9952/
    16 min
  • CSO Program Notes: Muti Conducts Beethoven 2 & 5
    Opening with the most famous four notes in all of classical music, Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony is a staggering masterwork that became a symphonic blueprint for all subsequent composers. Riccardo Muti leads a program that also features the composer’s buoyant, humorous Second Symphony and a world premiere concerto performed by CSO Bass Clarinet J. Lawrie Bloom.
    Tickets and more info: https://order.cso.org/9951/
    21 min
  • CSO Program Notes: Cavalleria Rusticana
    Beloved by opera audiences around the world, Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana is an impassioned story of tormented love wrapped in music of fervent vibrancy. Riccardo Muti, whose command of 19th-century Italian opera is “virtually without peer” (Bachtrack), leads concert performances of the complete one-act opera with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus and an international cast.
    18 min
  • CSO Program Notes: Paul Lewis Plays Beethoven
    Renowned English pianist Paul Lewis returns to perform two of Beethoven’s extraordinary piano concertos—the good-humored First and the intricate Fourth. Sir Andrew Davis, music director of Lyric Opera of Chicago and “a Tippett conductor of proven pedigree and insight” (Gramophone), leads two fascinating works by the 20th-century English composer. Learn more: https://order.cso.org/9949/
    13 min
  • CSO Program Notes: Stravinsky & Dvořák 8
    Dvořák’s Eighth Symphony is a lyrical masterpiece that The Guardian calls “35 minutes of life-enhancing joy.” Edo de Waart conducts this profound work, along with John Adams’ exuberant “foxtrot for orchestra,” an outtake from his opera Nixon in China. The phenomenally gifted Leila Josefowicz returns to perform Stravinsky’s brilliant neoclassical Violin Concerto.
    Tickets and more info: https://order.cso.org/9948/
    16 min

About CSO Audio Program Notes

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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.

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