Fiery piano virtuosity and a worthy CSO podium debut
This week’s Chicago Symphony Orchestra program boasts a debut by a rising conductor and the return of one of the hottest young pianists around. If the most successful results came when the two were on stage together, the elements still made for a largely enjoyable evening.
Making his local bow was Santtu-Matias Rouvali. Chief conductor of the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra and principal conductor of the Philharmonia Orchestra, Rouvali has been an increasingly high-profile presence on major international podiums. A tall, graceful conductor with a voluminous, Rattle-esque crown of curly hair, the Finnish conductor looks much younger than his 39 years.
Tchaikovsky’s Capriccio italien served as a worthy calling card. This musical postcard from Tchaikovsky’s Mediterranean sojourn is not among the Russian composer’s most timeless inspirations, drawing on local found material in Italy for a touristy tone poem of sorts.
Directing the music in a focused, confident manner, Rouvali found a breadth and surprising weight in Tchaikovsky’s showpiece, flexibly varying tempos within a spacious approach. The pairs of trumpets and cornets opened with a duly arresting fanfare and Rouvali brought a singing canto line to the populist secondary theme, the bright brilliance of Italian sunshine aptly conveyed at the first climax.
Most impressive was the transparency and how effectively Rouvali brought out the colors of Tchaikovsky’s kaleidoscopic scoring. The conductor’s slightly overdone pause before the concluding section was a tad theatrical but this was a vibrant and stylish Capriccio with Rouvali making one hear this familiar music in a fresh light. Kudos especially to the high brass players: cornetists Mark Ridenour and John Hagstrom and trumpets Anthony Limoncelli (guest principal from the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra) and Tage Larsen.
Seong-Jin Cho was the evening’s soloist in Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 2. Written in 1913, the work was revised a decade later when the original score was lost in a fire.
Perhaps due in part to its bifurcated composition, Prokofiev’s Op. 16 has been regarded by some as the most dispensable of his five piano concertos, not entirely without reason. A lyrical Romantic opening movement is followed by three fast movements with the tempo and increasingly flashy pyrotechnics in roughly inverse proportion to the musical substance.
Or so one thought. While the Second Concerto still seems overall like something less than the sum of its parts, Cho, Rouvali and the CSO made such a powerful case for this music that it called for revising one’s previous opinion.
A first-prize winner of the International Chopin Piano Competition a decade ago, Cho has emerged from teen idol status to become a widely respected artist—blessed not only with a stainless-steel technical arsenal but great musical taste and insight in a wide array of repertoire. The Korean pianist recently completed a tour of Ravel’s nearly complete keyboard music, performing this marathon program in several cities.
The opening Andantino is the longest part of the concerto, and Cho found an engaging no-man’s land between Rachmaninoff and Prokofiev for this music. His playing and refined touch rounded off the spikiness and conjured a lean yet natural Romanticism that felt just right while still bringing explosive fire and unerring polish to the cadenza.
The Scherzo was tossed off with strength and almost nonchalant effort, Cho making the endless runs up and down the keyboard in this moto perpetuo seem like child’s play. In the ensuing Intermezzo, the orchestra under Rouvali stomped like a destructive giant in grotesque music that seems to anticipate “Montagues and Capulets” from Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet ballet to come. Here Cho gave full vent to Prokofiev’s edgy style, throwing off the anarchic Lisztian complexities in dazzling fashion.
The finale proved most illuminating in this performance with Cho and Rouvali nearly symbiotic partners. (The duo collaborated in the same concerto last week with the New York Philharmonic.) Both explored this music in a depth one didn’t know was there, finding a pensive drama and expressive weight amid the bravura that made a convincing Throwback Thursday to the lyrical opening movement. In the long climactic cadenza Cho put across all the dizzying demands with a power, brilliance and note-perfect intensity that was almost unbelievable. Rouvali and the CSO were fully simpatico with their soloist in this extraordinary performance, one of the most stunningly virtuosic piano feats Chicago has seen in recent years.
Cho offered a break from the razzle-dazzle with his limpid encore of Ravel’s concise À la manière de Borodine.
Surprisingly, the most mixed performance of the evening came with Sibelius’s Symphony No. 5. Rouvali has just released the final installment in his recorded cycle of Sibelius symphonies (Alpha).
Like nearly every Finnish conductor, Rouvali seemed to have an innate sense of where this music of his great compatriot should go. Yet his individual ideas on how to get there proved rather more mixed.
In the first movement, Rouvali set up anticipation with nicely baleful horns in the opening bars. He directed the movement with quirky little decelerandos and accelerandos that kept things interesting. Keith Buncke floated a compelling and atmospheric bassoon solo, and Rouvali alertly led the surging ebb and flow of the movement to a grandly affirmative coda.
Doubt crept in with the conductor’s literal approach to the Andante where balancing seemed less adept and the various congested lines diluted the introspective simplicity of the music.
Rouvali’s finale accomplished what it is supposed to, building the tension inexorably to the resolute, widely spaced final chords. Yet en route to that stirring close, the conductor’s relentless fiddling with the tempo and constant shifting of the music proved distracting—feeling the opposite of natural and like needless micromanagement from a young maestro, rather than allowing Sibelius‘s majestic music to unfold in its own eloquent way.
That said, the playing was beyond reproach across all sections with the horns in particular standing out, even when helpful direction from the podium proved more intermittent.
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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Posted Feb 28, 2025 at 5:07 pm by Steve R.
I enjoyed last night’s concert and have three comments:
1) I disagree with the supposedly “prevailing opinion” that the piano concerto is one of Prokofiev’s “most dispensable”. It is, in fact, one of his best.
2) The concluding section of the Tchaikovsky was ridiculously theatrical. Such an obvious attempt by the conductor to hog the spotlight should be actively discouraged.
3) True that the CSO’s playing was top-notch as usual, but the conductor did, indeed, have severe problems balancing the orchestra. He didn’t seem to realize it.
Great program, but I’m not anxious to see Rouvali again.