IPO shines in compelling premiere and Viennese repertoire
The Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra excelled Saturday night at Ozinga Chapel in Palos Heights with a progam titled “Ride the Winds.” A world premiere, a Mozart concerto showcasing one of the IPO’s own, and a Schubert symphony were all delivered with a polish that is a testament to the orchestra’s growth under Stilian Kirov, the ensemble’s music director since 2017.
The evening opened with the world premiere of will the mountains sing for me from composer Sepehr Pirasteh (b. 1993), who was born in Shiraz, Iran, and now resides in Philadelphia. Pirasteh came to the IPO’s attention through their Classical Evolve initiative, in partnership with the American Composers Orchestra’s EarShotproject. His music synthesizes Iranian folk traditions and modern classical idioms in a manner that evokes his multinational, immigrant experience.
A 15-minute meditation on shared memory and the composer’s relation to exile, will the mountains sing for me employs the melody of a song the composer’s father used to sing to him. The work seeks to capture how the meanings of early memories are changed with subsequent experience (a phenomenon Freud identified as Nachträglichkeit, or “afterward-ness”).
It begins with a solemn introduction shaded with string slides and pungent dissonances. Tense wind chords over string tremolos introduce a more agitated section, driven by an ostinato of repeated notes. In a manner reminiscent of Bartók, folk strains are implied here but in an allusive fashion. The brakes are hit, and the horn and strings intone the pained yet passionate strains of the father’s song, this material arriving near the end seemingly as a result of the emotional episodes that have come before.
Pirasteh’s new opus is a haunting, reflective statement that received superb advocacy from Kirov and the IPO, particularly principal horn Lee Shirer. One looks forward to what is to come from this burgeoning talent’s singular voice.
The IPO’s principal clarinet Trevor O’Riordan was the featured soloist in Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto, K. 622, the last significant work the composer completed before his death. O’Riordan has been with the IPO since 2012, arriving at the same time as former music director David Danzmayr. He has been a consistently standout contributor to the orchestra ever since, and this was a belated and fitting moment in the spotlight. (Inexplicably, there was no biography for the clarinetist in either the printed program or the online supplement.)
Throughout O’Riordan played Mozart’s well-worn work with supple tone and fluent technique that drew listeners to his thoughtful phrasing. The Allegro went with elegant poise, O’Riordan’s efforts responsively supported by Kirov and his colleagues.
The central Adagio felt like a sustained, glowing aria, with O’Riordan unafraid to explore the softest dynamics and attuned to Mozart’s aching harmonic pivots. He was playfully acrobatic in the dancing Rondo, while still attentive to this movement’s fleeting shadows.
For an encore, O’Riordan was joined by his 15-year-old daughter Ellery, also a clarinetist, who is now the same age O’Riordan was when he first played the Mozart Concerto. The pair offered a brief movement from a Beethoven duet that made for a sweet coda to the performance.
Schubert wrote his Symphony No. 5 when he was 19, and this youthfully effervescent work ended the night. After an unfortunately harsh wind attack set things in motion, Kirov led a largely accomplished reading of this sunniest of symphonies, sensitive to the larger structure of the gracious, untroubled Allegro. He heeded the “con moto” marking of the ensuing Andante, though the impression was overall too direct, lacking the dolce inwardness that allows this movement’s extroverted moments to provide contrast.
The dark-hued Minuetto went vigorously with Kirov lending a nuanced inflection to its landler Trio. The jovial concluding Allegro vivace scampered beguilingly, with quickly passing storm clouds providing whiffs of the composer’s later trademark ambivalence.
The Illinois Philharmonic concludes its season 7:30 p.m. May 17. Stilian Kirov conducts Gigout’s Grand Choer Dialogue, a world premiere from composer-in residence Oswald Huỳnh, the Poulenc Organ Concerto with soloist Peter Richard Conte, and Elgar’s Enigma Variations. ipomusic.org
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