Hrůša leads the CSO in revelatory, shattering Shostakovich
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra is on a roll. After Manfred Honeck’s inspirational program of Beethoven and Haydn last week, another local podium favorite, Jakub Hrůša, has returned to lead the CSO in a Russian program. And Thursday night’s remarkable performance of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 11 provided not just a highlight of this season but one of the finest CSO nights of recent years.
Most of Dmitri Shostakovich’s “public” works—those written as a kind of artistic Communist Party dues paying to keep favor with Stalin and the Soviet cultural apparatchiks—are not among his most timeless efforts. That includes the symphonies Nos. 2, 3, 12 and the once-lauded No. 7, as well as more literal paeans to the regime like the choral Song of the Forests.
Outwardly, Shostakovich’s Eleventh Symphony would seem to count among that group. Subtitled “The Year 1905,” the symphony recounts the events of the “First Russian Revolution.” The programmatic movements chart the events of “Bloody Sunday,” when the Czar’s troops fired upon demonstrators, killing a hundred and wounding three times as many. That incident served to further inflame ant-Czarist feelings and ultimately led to the overthrow of the government in 1917.
Laid out in four connected movements, the Eleventh, unusually for Shostakovich, draws upon several revolutionary songs and communist odes, as detailed in Gerard McBurney’s excellent program note. Yet while the music may indeed depict these historical events, the symphony is grander and yet more layered and complex than mere agitprop tub-thumping.
Hrůša led the CSO in a powerful, riveting performance that maintained laser-like concentration and intensity for the hour-plus duration, from the somber quiet opening to the final ambivalent chimes fading away to silence at the coda.
In the opening movement (“The Palace Square”) the sense of ominous anticipation was manifest, in a vast, brooding Adagio that conveys the feeling of a gathering storm with isolated solo trumpet and horn fanfares. The music begins to rouse itself and accelerate in the second movement (“The Ninth of January”) where the firing of the guards on the petitioning demonstrators is depicted in music of grinding ferocity, with screaming piccolos, timpani, brass, and five percussionists building the sonic assault to a terrifying climax.
The third movement (“Eternal Memory”) is another bleak Adagio where dirge-like music conveys a tragic expression. Yet there are also passages of touching humanity as in the violas’ elegiac song, set against cello and bass pizzicatos, which passes to the hopeful violins. The finale (“The Alarm”) unleashes an even more violent, mechanistic onslaught of brass, percussion and screeching winds. The raging cacophony is quelled by a forlorn English horn solo yet the brutal music returns against wild, unhinged woodwinds. The symphony closes on a metallic final chord, the chimes fading away to an ambivalent silence, which seems like the opposite of triumphant or victorious.
Thursday night’s performance unfolded in a single arc with the intensity never flagging for a single bar under Hrůša’s direction. This revelatory performance made a strong case for the Eleventh Symphony as one of Shostakovich’s finest works—not just a political potboiler but a deeper and more nuanced canvas, bolstering the view of several Shostakovich contemporaries that the Eleventh is as much about the enemy within in the 1950s as the enemy without a half-century earlier.
The CSO musicians excelled in playing of searing intensity, as a unit and with several individual standouts, including David Herbert in the crucial timpani part, percussionist Cynthia Yeh’s relentless snare drumming, and superb solos from guest principal trumpet Aaron Schuman, associate principal of the San Francisco Symphony. Scott Hostetler’s English horn solo began in loud and literal fashion but eventually conveyed something of Shostakovich’s besieged individual lost in a desolate landscape.
The all-Russian program led off with more populist fare with Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with Simon Trpčeski as soloist
This week’s performances of Rachmaninoff’s Op. 1 effectively wrap the CSO’s extended observance of the 150th birthday anniversary of the composer (1873-1943), which has incorporated all his major symphonic works and concertos. (It’s too bad Rachmaninoff’s choral symphony The Bells—the composer’s favorite of his works—wasn’t slated but perhaps that will happen once a new choral director is in place.)
Written for the Moscow Conservatory as a student, the First Piano Concerto was the 18-year-old Rachmaninoff’s inaugural major work. While he performed the first movement with the conservatory orchestra at a school concert, it is unclear whether the work was ever played complete in its original form. The composer grew to hate the piece and substantially revised it in 1917, making the solo part more brilliant and removing much of the indebtedness to Grieg’s Piano Concerto, though some echoes of that influence remain.
While the melodies aren’t quite as indelible as in his Second and Third Concertos to come nor the working out of his ideas as compelling, Rachmaninoff’s inimitable mix of keyboard fireworks and lilting lyricism are here, albeit in somewhat embryonic form.
Simon Trpčeski has recorded all of Rachmaninoff’s concertos as well as much of his solo keyboard output, and that experience was manifest in his no-holds-barred performance Thursday night. Launched with a punchy opening fanfare by Hrůša and the orchestra, Trpčeski leaped into the unbridled virtuosity of the opening movement, bringing the requisite power and panache as well as relaxing into the aching lyricism of the second theme.
The Macedonian pianist is a theatrical presence at the keyboard but he undoubtedly has the chops, tackling the fistfuls of notes with blazing speed and command, and putting across the youthful impetuosity of this score. Trpčeski artfully drew out the limpid theme of the Andante, and the final movement was as fast and exciting as one could wish, with Hrůša and the orchestra providing equally galvanic support. As well as matching his soloist’s fiery style, Hrůša illuminated details one rarely hears in this work, such as the bassoons’ singing line under the piano in the slow movement.
The vociferous ovations brought Trpčeski back out for a solo encore by his compatriot, Dimitrije Bužarovski (with Hrůša taking a seat at the back of the stage to hear it as well). “Ne si go prodavaj, Koljo” is an arrangement of a Macedonian folk song, beginning in a spare and introspective manner with a sudden jazzy breakout in the middle before returning to the subdued melancholy of the opening. The pianist played Bužarovski’s music with great nuance and sensitivity.
The program will be repeated 1:30 p.m. Friday and 7:30 p.m. Saturday. cso.org
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16 Responses to “Hrůša leads the CSO in revelatory, shattering Shostakovich”
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Posted Mar 21, 2025 at 12:27 pm by Dave
Jakub Hrůša is currently the Chicago Symphony’s finest conductor. Better than the incoming music director. Better than the outgoing music director. The best of the guests. What he and the orchestra accomplished in the Shostakovich was staggering.
Posted Mar 21, 2025 at 3:48 pm by Mike Fischer
I wholehwartedly co-sign the above comment. The CSO picked the wrong man.
Posted Mar 21, 2025 at 4:40 pm by Richard T
The 11th isn’t played that infrequently anymore, and there are now dozens of great recordings by top conductors. Yet this interpretation zooms right up to the top of the list-comparing favorably with let’s say Haitink and the Concertgebouw. I hope the CSO issues a formal recording of this on Resound.
The concert is also easily one of the most memorable CSO concerts of the past ten years. The conducting is truly outstanding (the way he modulated dynamics throughout is a specially unique aspect of his interpretation.) This will be a very hard act for our music director designate to follow, when he plays Mahler 3 in a few weeks. (CSO is charging exorbitant prices for that week–a practice without precedent through the Solti, Barenboim and even Muti years—so I’m holding off on getting a ticket).
Hrůša has already given us (within the last three years) a superb Mahler 9, the Jenůfa at Lyric, two splendid concerts (two Strauss tone poems, Lutosławski) last year. Could it be possible that we chose the wrong guy for the job?
Posted Mar 21, 2025 at 7:14 pm by Andy
One of the best CSO performances I’ve heard in years. The orchestra certainly seems to give him everything they possibly can. Would have been a fine MD pick.
Posted Mar 21, 2025 at 11:23 pm by Randy Wilson
I’m glad it wasn’t just me who felt they were hearing something extremely special on Thursday night. This treasured piece really came to its most vivid life that night.
Posted Mar 22, 2025 at 2:05 am by marie de trujillo
Could not agree more. Best performance of the CSO in 40 years! It was a privilege to be in the house to hear this. The CSO was America’s best orchestra in the Solti era and under Hrusa it’s damned close to that level of perfection again.
Posted Mar 22, 2025 at 8:29 am by A
+1 to all above comments.
I would also like to note that the encore on Thursday was dedicated to young victims of the North Macedonia nightclub fire last week.
Posted Mar 22, 2025 at 12:37 pm by Lala
It was an electrifying night at the CSO. Hrusa continues to be my favorite on the podium at CSO and everything he conducts becomes enlivened and engaged. It’s clear the players respect him from the tight knit playing they share.
Posted Mar 22, 2025 at 10:34 pm by Bill S
An amazing performance Saturday evening, despite a medical event in the audience. Does anyone know what the encore was?
Posted Mar 22, 2025 at 11:21 pm by Jeff R
Yup, we missed who should have been the next MD for the CSO. Give it time… it usually works out in the end.
What a fantastic show. Thank you JH. He knows what he has to work with… one of the world’s best orchestras and he shows it!
Posted Mar 23, 2025 at 2:50 am by niloiv
The orchestra and Maestro Hrusa surely has some special chemistry you don’t see from other guest conductors. The orchestra was playing their hearts out on Saturday evening.You can tell something extraordinary’s happening when Robert Chen beats with his bow when not playing!
There were also some heartwarming moments from the Saturday concert. Trpčeski dedicated the performance to his dad who was born on this day. He played final movement of Prokofiev Piano Sonata No.7 as an encore, and Hrusa took a back seat and was leaning forward to get a better view of the firing pianist.
At the end of the concert, after repeated curtain calls and shaking hands with all principal players (as he always does with the orchestra), Hrusa delivered a short speech to the audience, showing his appreciation for the orchestra and audience, and hoped everyone to come back to listen to this great orchestra. He said he looks forward to come back to Chicago soon, and I sure do as well!
Posted Mar 24, 2025 at 7:47 am by Robin Mitchell-Boyask
This is very interesting for me to read, not least because I assume Hrusa is in the running for Cleveland; he’s on the schedule for next year, the penultimate of Wesler-Most’s tenure. On the other hand, I have assumed he’s the next director of the Czech Philharmonic.
Posted Mar 24, 2025 at 2:37 pm by Owen Youngman
Saturday night was quite the event as well. Ovation after Shostakovich went on for about 15 minutes, concluding only when Hrusa motioned for silence so he could speak. “You are a marvelous audience. You make the musicians, and me, very happy. Please keep coming to the concerts of this glorious orchestra. And I can’t wait to be back here next year.”
Audience had roared for every bow—loudest might have been for the viola section for their amazing unisons in the third movement. Least raucous might have been for the perhaps-departing Hoskuldsson.
Trpceski began by dedicating his performance to his father on birthday, and played a different encore—third movement of the 7th Prokofiev sonata.
And yes, we did add the Hrusa/Andsnes concert to our package for next year. I’d be delighted to go to Cleveland regularly to hear him, replacing my twice yearly trips to San Francisco for more Salonen.
Posted Mar 25, 2025 at 7:12 pm by Chander Balakrishnan
We have been subscribers for a long while. The performance Last Friday matinee was one of the most electrifying.
Posted Mar 28, 2025 at 4:44 am by Bugajsky, Anton
Saturday night’s encore was Prokofiev’s opening movement to the Piano Sonata 7. Twas exquisitely played.
I’ve heard a lot of disappointed opinions of Klaus. I’ve seen him at the helm of the CSO no less than 3 times and loved each concert. I, and my concert mate were quite excited by the CSO’s choice.
My question for those that don’t like the choice but love the CSO performances: Are you aware that the members of the orchestra had the most seats on the Board that made the choice of Klaus? Does one simply not trust their judgment?
A genuine curiosity.
Posted Mar 29, 2025 at 4:51 pm by Ed S
I attended the concert that Saturday and I wholeheartedly concur that the performance of Shostakovich’s 11th was incredible, laser focused and intense, one of the best I’ve ever heard (same for the 8th under Jurowski, which I heard about 2 years ago with the CSO). I also concur that this symphony is unfairly maligned: its power and emotion is overwhelming at times.
Hrusa should be the music director, or at least a main guest conductor. I loved the piano encore, the third movement of Prokofiev’s 7th sonata, one of my all-time favorites.
A great night of music-making at Orchestra Hall.