CSO Audio Program Notes

CSO Audio Program Notes

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

  • Apr 6-11 - Prokofiev Symphony No. 5 and Dvorak Cello Concerto
    Welcome to this digital edition of Phillip Huscher's Program Notes for upcoming concerts by the CSO Apr 6-11. Charles Dutoit leads the CSO in the US Premiere of Stravinsky's recently re-discovered Funeral Song as well as Prokofiev's Fifth Symphony, which the composer called "a symphony of the greatness of the human spirit, a song of praise of free and happy mankind." Norwegian cellist Truls Mork, who "enthralls the audience from the first to last note" (The Strad), performs Dvorak's popular Cello Concerto.
    13 min
  • Mar 30 - Apr 1 - Mahler's Song of the Earth
    Welcome to this digital edition of Phillip Huscher's Program Notes for upcoming concerts by the CSO Mar 30 - Apr 1. Over the last 10 years, Bernard Haitink and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra have explored Mahler's legacy, taking Chicago audiences on a symphonic journey through landscapes of rich musical wisdom and piercing detail. Now they turn to one of the best loved of all his pieces, his Song of the Earth, a setting of poems that perfectly embodied Mahler's bittersweet view of the brevity of human life, and inspired some of the most beautiful and haunting music he ever wrote.
    22 min
  • Mar 16-21 - Muti, Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 3 and Uchida
    Welcome to this digital edition of Phillip Huscher's Program Notes for upcoming concerts by the CSO Mar 16-21. Riccardo Muti leads Rossini’s Overture to La scala di seta and Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto featuring Mitsuko Uchida, an artist who “guides the audience through every conceivable emotion” (The Telegraph). Muti closes the program with a world premiere by CSO Mead Composer-in-Residence Samuel Adams and Schumann’s Fourth Symphony, in which the composer departed from the standard symphonic form to make a groundbreaking symphony in one movement.
    27 min
  • Mar 9-11 - Salonen and Yo-Yo Ma
    Welcome to this digital edition of Phillip Huscher's Program Notes for upcoming concerts by the CSO Mar 9-11. Stravinsky's ballet about the lovelorn puppet Petrushka remains one of the most striking orchestral works of the modern repertoire. Esa-Pekka Salonen couples Petrushka with John Adams' equally playful Slonimsky's Earbox and the world premiere of Salonen's own Cello Concerto, played by the legendary Yo-Yo Ma.
    24 min
  • Mar 2-7 - Salonen Conducts Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring
    Welcome to this digital edition of Phillip Huscher's Program Notes for upcoming concerts by the CSO Mar 2-7. The shock waves produced by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's full-metal performance of The Rite of Spring proved that Stravinsky's epoch-making ballet can still pack a seismic wallop” (Chicago Classical Review). Esa-Pekka Salonen leads the CSO in Stravinsky's pioneering masterpiece in a program that also celebrates John Adams' 70th birthday with Scheherazade.2, performed by violinist Leila Josefowicz.
    22 min
  • Feb 23-25 - Muti Conducts Prokofievs Ivan the Terrible with Gerard Depardieu
    Welcome to this digital edition of Phillip Huscher's Program Notes for upcoming concerts by the CSO Feb 23-25. The collaboration between Sergei Prokofiev and director Sergei Eisenstein was one of the most brilliant in 20th-century art. Riccardo Muti leads the CSO and Chicago Symphony Chorus in Prokofiev's music from Eisenstein's epic film Ivan the Terrible, the riveting story of a bloodthirsty tyrant, with narration by internationally renowned actor Gérard Depardieu.
    14 min
  • Feb 16-18 - Muti, Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 4 and Bronfman
    Welcome to this digital edition of Phillip Huscher's Program Notes for upcoming concerts by the CSO Feb 16-18. Rossini's Overture to Semiramide opens this performance featuring Yefim Bronfman in Beethoven's Fourth Piano Concerto. One of Mendelssohn's grandest symphonic works, the Reformation Symphony was written to celebrate the 300th anniversary of the Augsburg Confession, the creed of the Lutheran Church.
    14 min
  • Feb 9-11 - Vivaldi, Corelli and Vivica Genaux
    Vivica Genaux brings her "astounding ability to wind her way through some of Vivaldi's hair-raising obstacle courses of notes at lightning-speed tempos" (Los Angeles Times) to this concert with violinist and conductor Fabio Biondi. Genaux will perform several show arias by Vivaldi and his contemporaries, accompanied by a selection of Vivaldi's violin concertos and two of Corelli's Concerti grossi.
    12 min
  • Feb 3-4 - Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty and Britten's Young Persons Guide to the Orchestra
    Bramwell Tovey, "one of the most versatile and charismatic musicians in the world” (MusicalAmerica.com), makes his CSO subscription series debut with a program featuring Britten's The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, the composer's famous theme and variations that spotlight each section of the ensemble. Tchaikovsky's music from Act 2 of Sleeping Beauty contains one of his most beloved waltzes.
    15 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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