Eschenbach returns and the Jussens make a CSO debut with Mozart
In the Chicago music scene of the 1990s Christoph Eschenbach was often the yang to Daniel Barenboim’s yin.
One would hear the latter conductor’s mercurial, at times meandering performances with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra during the fall season and then in the summer experience fast and tensile CSO concerts under Eschenbach at Ravinia (where he was music director from 1995-2003)
Eschenbach returned to Chicago to lead a Fleisch und Kartoffeln Austro-German program Friday afternoon. (There was no Thursday night concert this week due to Rosh Hashanah.)
Following up on their Chicago bow on the same stage in January, duo-pianists Lucas and Arthur Jussen made their CSO debut in Mozart’s Concerto for Two Pianos.
Mozart wrote the double concerto, , K.365, in 1779 as a vehicle for himself and his beloved sister, Nannerl. In lesser composer’s hands, duo keyboard concertos tend to fall into a square and predictable trading off of phrases; Mozart, characteristically, finds a way to vary the playbook with subtle and unpredictable curveballs in the duo writing along with a typically indelible fount of melody.
The Jussens played with striking polish and facility in the opening Allegro, echoing each other’s phrasing and dynamics, and trading off phrases so fluently that without the visual element, one wouldn’t even know when the other pianist picked up the leading part.
Still, there were slight differences. Lucas Jussen, the elder brother by three years (on the left), played with Classical poise and polished restraint while Arthur’s playing was more forceful and at times more theatrical—often with a head-swinging obbligato—yet no less musical or idiomatic.
In the Andante, the Dutch brothers’ playing was graceful and simpatico if not quite plumbing the full expressive potential of Mozart’s slow movement. The Jussens were at their finest in the concluding Rondo, throwing off Mozart’s challenges with seamless teamwork and stylish elan. Eschenbach and the CSO musicians lent their young colleagues equally refined and characterful support.
There was an easy musical rapport between Eschenbach and the duo-pianists. It was a heartening visual to see the collegial Jussens insist on the 84-year-old conductor stand between them and take a bow together.
Repeated curtain calls elicited an encore from the Jussens of Igor Roma’s Strausseinander. This diverting confection for two pianos breezily mixes themes from Johann Strauss Jr.’s operetta Die Fledermaus into a 176-key mashup. The Jussens made the most of the anarchic bravura as well as the bluesy middle section.
The concert led off with “Dreaming by the Fireside,” the second Interlude from Richard Strauss’s Intermezzo. For many, the interludes are more memorable than the vocal sections of this talky opera. Eschenbach drew radiant string playing in this lovely music, building inexorably to a majestic peak and then descending to a serene ncoda.
Beethoven’s “Pastoral” symphony (No 6) closed the concert.
Eschenbach’s Beethoven in his younger years leaned toward the fast and relentless— a brisk marathon training run through the forest with an eye on one’s time.
Now, the German conductor’s Pastorale breathes a more grazioso spirit. Taken at a relaxed pace, this Pastorale allowed listeners to unhurriedly enjoy Beethoven’s day in the country, benefiting the music and the performance.
Eschenbach took an expansive view of the opening movement—all repeats observed— underlining the subtle scoring and harmonic developments in a way that kept one’s attention even in this familiar music. In the ensuing “Scene by the Brook,” the principal woodwinds delivered apt gracious charm not least in the avian cadenza near the end of the movement.
William Welter’s liquid oboe playing illuminated the rustic village musicians in the third movement and Eschenbach led a storm that was imposing and effective without being overly cataclysmic. Perhaps the conductor’s emphatic style missed some of the benedictory glow of the finale but the excellent ensemble playing nicely rounded off this warm and generous Beethoven performance.
The program will be repeated 7:30 p.m. Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday. cso.org
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