Violinist Stella Chen impresses in versatile CSO debut
Genuine musical epiphanies are rare.
Years ago while I was driving through the English countryside, Edward Elgar’s Serenade for Strings came on the radio. Surrounded by the green rolling hills, I felt that for the first time I completely understood this music—not just its national origin but the essence of the pastoralism, aching nostalgia and trace of melancholy that permeate not just this work, but so much of English classical music.
Elgar’s Serenade was heard as part of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra concert led by Dame Jane Glover Thursday night.
Music director of Music of the Baroque since 2002, Glover was a spirited and assured podium presence as she led a lightish, Essentially English program of works for chamber orchestra. But the spotlight was seized by violinist Stella Chen in a most impressive CSO downtown debut.
Chen is subbing this week for the originally slated Robert Chen (no relation) who was back in his concertmaster chair Thursday night. The soloist, who has made regular appearances with the Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra and other regional ensembles, was heard in two contrasting works.
First up was The Lark Ascending by Ralph Vaughan Williams. This celebrated work is regarded by many as the epitome of the English pastoral school of music—or, to its detractors, the Cow Looking Over a Fence school. Yet there is an eloquence and affecting weight of meaning beneath the surface of this outwardly simple work.
Chen offered a poetic, beautifully played portrait of the title avian in this postwar work. Drawing on a wide dynamic palette, the violinist played the softer sections with lovely tone, often winnowing her sound down to a barely audible thread. Chen’s final solo—as the lark takes wing and recedes into the distance—was magical and utterly beguiling, her violin fading almost imperceptibly to silence.
Too bad a loud cough had to spoil the violinist’s hushed concluding solo Thursday night—the worst of several moments from a noisy and restive Orchestra Hall audience. Yes, it’s February in Chicago but if you can’t control your cough without disrupting a performance you should stay home.
Glover and the ensemble provided Chen with attentive, equally sensitive accompaniment, the British conductor giving her room to phrase freely and pointing up the contrast of the folk-like middle section.
Elgar’s Serenade for Strings led off the evening. While the outer movements conveyed the score’s amiably relaxed lyricism, the deeper waters of the central Larghetto proved less successful— cool in expression and undone by Glover’s fussy over-moulding of the arching lines.
The prevailing mood of rustic introspection was dispelled by Benjamin Britten’s Suite on English Folk Tunes “A time there was …”. Dedicated to the memory of Percy Grainger, Britten’s final work for orchestra (1974) retools several folk tunes and country dances in five sections. While Britten’s sardonic arrangements feel a bit self-conscious at times, Glover led a lively and boisterous account with worthy solo contributions from harpist Julie Smith Phillips and, especially, Scott Hostetler, whose expressive, long-breathed English horn solo in “Lord Melbourne” was the highlight of the Britten performance.
Stella Chen returned after intermission to show another side of her artistry with Ravel’s Tzigane. The outlier work of the program, Ravel’s flashy, Magyar-flavored showpiece was written for the Hungarian virtuoso Jelly d’Arányi.
Tzigane opens with an extended violin solo that makes up half of its nine-minute span, which Chen played in an elegant and somewhat restrained manner. If the solo was a bit short on outsized gypsy swagger, Chen handled all of the dizzying minefields of the second half—slides, trills, harmonics, left-hand pizzicato and constant tempo gear-shifts—with flawless aplomb. The soloist was unfazed even when, in the midst of the performance, her chinrest came loose and went flying noisily onto the stage. With Glover and the CSO lending equally high-stepping support, Chen tackled the concluding section’s fireworks with impressive polish and blazing bravura.
The evening closed with music of Franz Joseph Haydn, the most neglected of the great composers. Haydn’s Symphony No. 104, the “London,” would be the composer’s final work in a genre he largely created.
I have had mixed feelings about Glover’s Haydn performances with Music of the Baroque, finding them missing some of the composer’s earthy qualities as well as an essential humor.
Yet this CSO performance of Haydn’s symphonic swan song was first class in nearly every respect—vivacious in spirit and ideally balanced with a fine blend of tonal refinement and animal spirits.
The Adagio introduction of the opening movement was grandly scaled and the ensuing main Allegro went with crackling velocity. The slow movement was gracious and stately with the minor-key middle section nicely pointed by the British conductor. Likewise the vigorous ensuing Minuet was spelled by the folk-like strains of the Trio.
The performance was rounded off with a wonderfully energetic finale. Glover steadily built the increasingly complex repetitions of Haydn’s simple four-note theme to a peak, and Vadim Karpinos’s dynamic timpani rolls accented the vitality en route to an exhilarating double bar.
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The week’s CSO concerts are dedicated to the memory of Eric Wicks. A member of the orchestra’s violin section for 38 years, from 1968 to 2006, Wicks passed away October 28 at the age of 89.
The program will be repeated 1:30 p.m. Friday and 7:30 p.m. Saturday. cso.org
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