Hahn returns to highlight CSO’s mixed season opener
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra opened the 2026-27 music season Thursday night with a German-Czech program led by Petr Popelka.
Yet most attention at Orchestra Hall this fall is focused on the following three weeks when music director designate Klaus Mäkelä returns for an especially meaty residency, spotlighting large-scale works by Mahler, Shostakovich and Walton.
It was a missed opportunity that the CSO failed to mark the 25th anniversary of the 9-11 tragedy in some musical way at this opening concert. Programming John Adams’ On the Transmigration of Souls, written in memory of the victims, would have provided an apt and timely gesture.
While the opening concert offered distinctly mixed rewards, the return of Hilary Hahn as soloist in Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto provided the evening’s clear highlight.
One of the most popular of CSO guest artists, the American violinist has been sidelined by a double-pinched nerve and herniated spinal disc for nearly three years. Hahn ended the local concert hiatus with a recital last spring, but Thursday night marked her first CSO stand since 2023.
Looking delighted to be back, the violinist appeared fully recovered from her persistent ailment, with Mendelssohn’s evergreen concerto proving an ideal vehicle for her silvery tone and seamless technique.
At times one wanted a bit more fire and tonal presence from Hahn’s refined violin. But this seemed as much an interpretive decision than anything else, with Hahn delivering a ruminative and searching account of the concerto rather than one centered on bravura.
Playing with restless body language and often swaying to the music, Hahn drew out phrases lovingly and brought a withdrawn delicacy to the second theme of the opening movement. If the cadenza was more inward than usual, she handled the virtuosic sections seamlessly.
The Andante was a songful, lightly bowed interlude, fractionally cool yet Hahn’s judicious vibrato lent a shimmery quality. The quicksilver finale emerged with more playful energy than whirlwind brilliance, though Hahn’s clarity and accuracy in the running passages were faultless.
Popelka was a collegial accompanist, keeping the orchestra down and acutely balanced, apart from once allowing the horns to swamp her.
Greeted with a cheering ovation at her entrance, the concerto performance was received with equally enthusiastic and prolonged applause. One of our finest Bach violinists, Hahn offered an encore of the Loure from the composer’s Partita No. 3 in E major, BWV1006. With refined tone and subtle bowing and dynamic shading, she explored a rarefied depth of expression in the music, undistracted by loud unmuffled coughs and a loudly dropped cell phone.
The evening led off with Schumann’s Manfred Overture. Directing the music in his unorthodox, lunging manner, Popelka drew a vital performance that underlined the Byronic theatrical drama. Some blowsy tuttis apart, Polka imbued malign weight to the opening chords, lyricism in the contrasting theme, and led a careful build to the quiet coda, which seemed like less of an anticlimax than usual.
This month marks Antonín Dvořák’s 185th birthday anniversary (September 8) but Czechia’s greatest composer needs no such occasion for a concert-hall visit. Kudos to the CSO for offering Dvořák’s Symphony No. 5, one of his less often-heard works to close the program.
Apart from the prolix and awkward first two symphonies, nearly all of Dvořák’s works in the genre offer substantial rewards, even if they’re not quite as surely crafted as his final three symphonic masterworks. The Fifth Symphony, in particular, is as chock full of characteristic melody and exuberance as the later Dvořák works.
Popelka, who debuted with the CSO in 2024 and returned last season, is one of those conductors for whom you never quite know what to expect.
Unfortunately, in his third CSO appearance, Polka led a loud, bludgeoning account of Dvořák’s Fifth Symphony that left most of the rustic charm and engaging qualities in the dust.
There were some worthy passing moments as in the lovely woodwind opening and the wind playing throughout. Yet whether he was making too hard a sell for this work or trying to reconcile the minor-key drama of the finale with the more pastoral qualities of the preceding movements, the results were disastrous.
Popelka directed an aggressive, charmless performance, with deafening tuttis that felt assaultive. If you like Dvořák to sound like Shostakovich, Popelka is the conductor for you.
It’s bizarre that a Czech conductor can lead such an inept performance of music by his greatest compatriot. Previous CSO performances by Neeme Järvi and Riccardo Muti made a much stronger case for the Fifth Symphony and showed what this music is all about.
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Three longtime CSO musicians have retired.
Daniel Gingrich, former associate principal horn and acting principal horn from 2013-19, retires after 51 years in the orchestra.
Also retiring are violinist Ronald Satkiewicz (47 seasons) and percussionist Patricia Dash (40 seasons).
Gingrich and Satkiewicz have been on sabbatical since 2025. Read more about the CSO retirees here.
The program will be repeated 1:30 p.m. Friday and 7:30 p.m. Saturday. cso.org
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Posted Sep 18, 2026 at 2:18 pm by Mason
It is truly regrettable that the Dvořák was conducted with a rushed tempo and excessive volume. (Honestly, I was worried this would happen even before the concert, given the conductor’s previous two appearances with the CSO…)