Engaging Salonen premiere headlines CSO’s return

Fri Jan 31, 2025 at 2:16 pm

By Tim Sawyier

Organist Iveta Apkalna performed Esa-Pekka Salonen’s Sinfonia Concertante with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under Salonen Thursday evening. Photo: Todd Rosenberg


Riccardo Muti led the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on a 10-day domestic tour to begin 2025, taking them to four cities in Florida, followed by stops at Carnegie Hall and the McKnight Center for the Performing Arts in Stillwater, Oklahoma. Newly returned and back to business as usual at Orchestra Hall, the CSO is opening the calendar year back downtown under the legendary Finnish composer-conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen, who led the first performance of a two-week residency Thursday night.

The main event was the local premiere of Salonen’s latest work, the Sinfonia Concertante for organ and orchestra, with soloist Iveta Apkalna making her CSO debut. Composed in 2022, the Sinfonia Concertante was first heard in Katowice, Poland, in 2023, and received its U.S. premiere with the Los Angeles Philharmonic five months later. The composer says of his newest score, “The long history of the organ inspired me to imagine ‘old’ music from a hypothetical world, an alternate universe, still mine but slightly alien,” and this hybrid sensibility pervades the 35-minute score.

“Movement 1: Pavane and Drones” began with an ethereal texture before the organ stated the unadorned Pavane theme undergirding the movement’s enormous complexity. A ubiquitous half-step trill lent a pervasive sense of unease, and there was a palpable feeling of release when this shifted to a whole step late in the movement. A final, severe tutti statement of the Pavane preceded a quiet close.

“Movement 2: Variations and Dirge” was more episodic, opening with a winding, wistful melody in the English horn and principal viola that gave way to the first of several organ cadenzas, which Apkalna deftly charted from its innocent opening through an inexorable build to a vehement climax. Descending figures in the orchestra formed a consistent background texture, and these were elaborated in a brief variation before another organ cadenza, this one in the guttural depths of the instrument. After another orchestral climax came an elegiac dirge in the organ, appended to the movement after Salonen’s mother died during its composition, and offered with somber grace by Apkalna.

The concluding “Movement 3: Ghost Montage” felt like a martial, twisted carnival. It had the Bacchic feel of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony or Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, but with a harlequin twist. Salonen acknowledges the influence of “organ riffs heard in NHL ice hockey games,” which he juxtaposes with ancient, modal harmonies and a quotation from Pérotin, in keeping with the work’s composite spirit. A final brooding organ cadenza came near the end, a fey, pianissimo evaporation.

It is hard to imagine a more convincing advocate for Salonen’s work than Apkalna. An elegant stage presence, she had complete command of Salonen’s knotty score, always sensitive to her place in the larger orchestral tapestry. Salonen led with assertion, drawing committed playing from the CSO musicians throughout his extremely demanding writing. The Sinfonia Concertante is a dense, hefty work, yet Thursday’s premiere flew by, with intriguing sonorities and unexpected textures consistently sustaining the narrative.

As an encore, Apkalna offered fellow Latvian organist Aivars Kalējs’ Toccata on the Chorale “Allein Gott in der Höh sei Ehr,” where swirling figuration over the sustained chorale melody created a singular sound world merging old and new, similar to Salonen’s work but in a more transparent manner.

More familiar fare bookended the program. Salonen began with a gripping account of Strauss’ Don Juan, one that captured the 24-year-old composer’s youthful swagger as much as the title character’s. The opening pages went with surging bravado, and William Welter offered a captivating rendition of the famous oboe solo. The horn section was in fine form in their gleaming theme, and Salonen brought a grim air to the dying final bars.

The night concluded with Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra in a performance of technicolor splendor. Salonen led the opening bars with a sense of far-off mystery, and the Introduzione’s Allegro vivace section had a punchy contrapuntal vigor. The quirky wit of the second movement (“Giuoco delle coppie”) came across as the various instrumental “pairs” mostly acquitted themselves gamely; dubious attacks and pitch in the trumpets and trombones, including from guest principal trumpet Anthony Limoncelli of the Cincinnati Symphony, were the exception here.

Salonen captured the eldritch feel of the central Elegia, perhaps the composer’s most evocative “night music,” and Bartók’s madcap Shostakovich send-up jarringly derailed the “Intermezzo interrotto” as disruptively as one hopes. The Finale sped with thrilling propulsion, highlighted with incisive string playing and a collective virtuosity that provided an edge-of-the-seat end to the night.

The program will be repeated 7:30 p.m. Saturday and Tuesday. cso.org

Posted in Performances


4 Responses to “Engaging Salonen premiere headlines CSO’s return”

  1. Posted Feb 01, 2025 at 2:33 am by Chuck

    I was at Friday’s matinee concert, a total treat from start to end. The organ work conducted by composer Salonen was a gem. It’s really nice when the organ is on “full view” as it was rather than being off to the side like it usually is.

  2. Posted Feb 01, 2025 at 10:36 pm by RB

    My wife and I attended the Saturday night performance, and enjoyed it immensely. The Salonen was an impressive piece. I’ll be happy to hear it again if it is radio-broadcast, though half of the interest was trying to spot which instruments were playing when! The organist’s encore gave equal joy.

    In listening to the Bartok, memories of past performances, and personnel comings-and-goings over the decades, were much in my mind. The sections and individuals with the most striking contributions have changed over the years. At present, it is hard to miss the esprit de corp and stylistic daring among the woodwinds—with a special nod to Mr. Welter’s astonishingly nuanced playing, in both the Strauss and the Bartok.

  3. Posted Feb 04, 2025 at 9:35 pm by Mike T.

    Great concert Saturday. Reminded me of one of Hrusa’s concerts last year: a Strauss tone poem followed by a concerto, and then a Concerto for Orchestra.

    Enjoyed the Salonen piece very much. I agree that being able to see the whole organ made the experience better (Apkalna was excellent). I also like the way Salonen made full use of the lowest registers of the organ, giving the work at times an almost rock concert vibe.

    Beautiful transparency in the Bartok. I heard things in it that I’d never heard before!

  4. Posted Feb 07, 2025 at 4:09 pm by Christopher Sheahen

    I was at the Friday matinee. Excellent performances all around. Unfortunately no encore was offered after the organ work. Salonen is quite a composer. His works, like this one, are always interesting. Great new music!

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