A trumpeter returns to sound again with Muti, CSO
in symphonies by Haydn and Schubert Thursday night. Photo: Todd Rosenberg
Riccardo Muti is back in town to lead the final two weeks of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra season. The CSO’s music director emeritus for life opened his stand Thursday night with a pairing of Viennese symphonies that framed a double-helping of trumpet concertos, spotlighting the return of Esteban Batallán.
Appointed by Muti as the CSO’s principal trumpet in 2019, the Spanish musician went on sabbatical last fall to take up the same position with the Philadelphia Orchestra. Apparently, it took just half a season for Batallán to discover that the grass is even less green in Philly than in Chicago. (He is still listed as principal trumpet on the Philadelphia Orchestra website.)
Regardless, it is good to have the prodigal trumpeter return to the home-team fold—not only for Batallán’s own excellent playing but to provide a crucial anchor to a brass section that is in something of a transition period.
Playing the higher-pitched piccolo trumpet, Batallán brought understated virtuosity to Telemann’s Trumpet Concerto in D major in his first subscription appearance as a concerto soloist. This is a slight work cast in four brief movements—the soloist is entirely silent in the Grave section—but made a worthy vehicle for his first-class musicianship.
Batallán floated a graceful high solo line in the opening Adagio with faultlessly even trills, brought a festive Christmas-concerto esprit to the first Allegro and sailed through the stratospheric hurdles of the finale with easy confidence and natural Baroque style, without inflating the work’s modest dimensions. Muti led the backing string ensemble in sympathetic support, the overly busy harpsichord apart.
After intermission Batallán turned to Haydn’s Trumpet Concerto—no, not that Haydn Trumpet Concerto (in E flat by Joseph Haydn) but one of the two by his less-talented younger brother, Michael.
M. Haydn’s Concerto, also in D major, is no timeless masterpiece either and one can fully understand why this two-movement piece was only now making its belated CSO premiere. Despite the claims made in the program notes about the work’s showy brilliance, the bravura is fairly low-key here as well if no less demanding.
In the opening Andante, Batallán fluently charted the elegant solo line’s segue into increasingly high-flying iterations. The concluding Allegro is more stately than brilliant yet Batallán dispatched the technical challenges like child’s play. Muti and colleagues again lent attentive support.
Joseph Haydn’s 104 symphonies continue to be shamefully neglected by most American orchestras, so it was good to see the composer get some attention with his Symphony No. 48, which opened the program. The “Marie Theresa” nickname stems from the Austrian empress’s visit to the Esterhazy palace where Haydn conducted this symphony in her honor, although it was composed earlier and not for the royal occasion.
The dizzying high writing for horns and trumpets is as spectacular as anything in the concertos on the program. While the opening flourish was stylishly dished off by the CSO musicians, the brass playing wasn’t always consistently airtight in the ensuing high challenges.
Muti led a worthy performance in his well-tempered Haydn manner, though tempos tended to be on the slow side, and one felt every repeat in the pokey first movement. The Adagio was more successful, also spacious yet imbued with dynamic nuance, lyric grace and Biedermeier charm. The finale brought some welcome vivacity with an extra bit of timpani on the final chord.
The evening concluded with Schubert’s Symphony No. 4.
Muti’s CSO cycle of Schubert symphonies a decade ago was one of the highlights of his 13-year tenure as music director (2010-23). Yet, as with many an octogenarian conductor, Muti’s tempos have gotten broader in Schubert as well—at times to lugubrious effect as with his widely criticized performances of Schubert’s Fourth and Ninth Symphonies with the Vienna Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall this spring.
Muti led Thursday’s Schubert “Tragic” in his patented Viennese style, one centered on Classical restraint more than impassioned Romantic intensity. Yet, even with that, this performance of the Fourth Symphony had its lumbering moments, with little vivace in the opening movement’s Allegro. There was some surprisingly unkempt ensemble at times as well, a rarity from the usually fastidious maestro.
Yet this mixed outing still had its rewards with some lovely playing in the Andante and an apt nervous energy in the finale, albeit with a loss of focus in the closing bars.
The program will be repeated 1:30 p.m. Friday and 7:30 p.m. Saturday. cso.org
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