Chicago Classical Review

Jaap van Zweden’s recent podium stands with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra have featured memorably leveling accounts of Mahler’s Sixth Symphony in 2025, as well as a less impactful reading of the Seventh, also last year. 

The Dutch maestro channeled Monty Python and returned with something completely different at Orchestra Hall this week, leading a contemporary work, a Romantic concerto, and a Classical warhorse.

Thursday’s program opened with the first CSO performances of To See the Sky: an exegesis for orchestra by Bahamian-born composer Joel Thompson, resident composer of the Houston Grand Opera and currently a doctoral student at Yale. Van Zweden, now music director of the Seoul Philharmonic, led the 2024 premiere of Thompson’s three-movement score as part of his final concerts as music director of the New York Philharmonic, and presided over a convincing account of the 20-minute triptych Thursday night.

Much of Thompson’s oeuvre addresses the experience of black men around the world today, drawing equal inspiration from the classical canon and his own Jamaican heritage. This orientation is exemplified in his 2015 Seven Last Words of the Unarmed for men’s chorus, which garnered notable acclaim and was presented locally by Carlos Kalmar and the Grant Park Orchestra in 2023. 

The point of departure for To See the Sky is a line from the French-American vocalist Cécile McLorin Salvant’s song “Thunderclouds”: “Sometimes you have to gaze into a well before you see the sky.”

The piece unfolds in three substantial paragraphs, which collectively project an air of fraught introspection. In “Sometimes…” guttural statements in the brass and double basses support swirling agitation in the strings, before a more dancelike episode offers some cautious rays of light. “…you have to gaze into a well…” opens in a hazy, dreamlike aesthetic which then alternates with driven syncopation; a somber melody for English horn and trumpet (the former played by Peoria Symphony principal oboe James Kim) nods to Copland’s Quiet City before ending on a note of repose.

The closing “…to see the sky” begins with a dense swirling reminiscent of Sibelius which opens up into a melody of cinematic sweep. Shortly before the end the percussionists introduce an ostinato for hand claps, djembe (a Bongo-like drum), and agogô (a handheld chime), which support the material to its expansive conclusion.

At times one wished Thompson had developed his rich musical ideas more fully, rather than alternating between them. To See the Sky is nonetheless an assured work that deploys the composer’s many influences to say something that feels genuinely new. Thompson was on hand to receive the appreciative applause for his effort.

The firsts continued as Japanese violin prodigy Himari made her subscription CSO debut, having first appeared with the orchestra at Ravinia this past summer. Himari is among the youngest students ever admitted to Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute of Music, and in fact looks much younger than her 14 years. (“She’s so young!” cried someone in the lower balcony as Himari took the stage.) Recently she has won accolades at a number of significant competitions that have launched an increasingly prominent solo career.

Bruch’s Violin Concerto No. 1 was heard downtown less than a year ago with Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider leading from the violin. The Danish violinist gamely dispatched his double duty last March, but Thursday’s performance of Bruch’s evergreen score seemed like more of a work in progress, though one that improved as it unfolded.

The opening Prelude lacked an essential air of fantasy, with soloist and orchestra operating in seemingly different worlds. Himari also frankly looked bored staring at her shoes during Bruch’s muscular tuttis. The work’s lyrical centerpiece took cautious flight, with Himari capturing the poetry of the Adagio’s spinning lines and seeming more in sync with van Zweden, who knitted her with the orchestral backdrop more effectively. She amply conveyed the smiling expression of the Finale where it felt like things belatedly cohered in its noble second theme.

Himari in fact made the strongest impression in her encore of Kreisler’s Recitativo and Scherzo-Caprice, almost seeming more comfortable without an orchestra, and navigating Kreisler’s virtuosic pyrotechnics with fluent artistry.

Mozart’s Symphony No. 41 (“Jupiter”), K. 551, followed the generous first half. This was down-the-middle Mozart from van Zweden, with little to cavil over but no revelations. Chortling woodwinds provided contrast to the Allegro vivace’s stateliness, and van Zweden deftly charted the Andante’s emotional vacillations, with breathless repeated triplet-sixteenths in the strings.

The conductor emphasized the fleeting shadows of the sunny Allegretto, and captured the infectious effervescence of the Molto allegro. While Mozart’s concluding contrapuntal apotheosis is always a delight to experience, one was left feeling van Zweden may be more in his element when the finale calls for a hammer blow.

The program will be repeated 7:30 p.m. Friday at Wheaton College, and 7:30 p.m. Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday at Symphony Center. cso.org

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