Chicago Classical Review

It was one year ago this month that Jakub Hrůša led the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in a searing performance of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 11, a revelatory experience that topped CCR’s list of 2025’s finest performances.

The Czech conductor returned to town for the first of his two nonconsecutive CSO subscription weeks this season. While the repertoire was more conventional Thursday night—centered on two German cornerstones—the performances were largely just as committed and rewarding.

With the seemingly endless winter weather, it was serendipitous timing for Robert Schumann‘s “Spring” Symphony (No. 1), a season that can’t arrive quickly enough in Chicago.

At times one would have liked more of the genial qualities of Schumann’s engaging score to come across. Yet Hrůša led a bracing, vital performance, spirited in the outer movements, and flowing and gracious in the Larghetto, with the CSO woodwinds conveying the essential lyric charm.

Hrůša made his CSO debut in 2017 with Bedřich Smetana’s epic Má vlast. Thursday night he returned to music of his Czech compatriot with excerpts from Smetana’s most celebrated opera, The Bartered Bride. And compared to the bleak devastation at the end of Shostakovich’s Eleventh a year ago, one could hardly have imagined a greater contrast than Smetana’s joyous brilliance and high spirits.

The virtuosic Overture is no longer the repertory staple it was 75 years ago, and more’s the pity. A single early entrance apart, Hrůša led a fizzing performance with whirlwind violins in the vivacious main theme and rustic allure in the contrasting wind episodes, rounded off with a slam-bang coda.

The conductor likewise brought out the rhythmic vitality and bright hues of the lilting Polka and the mercurial Furiant with idiomatic Bohemian flavor. This de facto suite concluded with the “Dance of the Comedians,” thrown off with high-stepping exuberance and crackling bravura, Hrůša and the musicians wittily making the most of the multiple false endings. 

On the first half, Hrůša ceded the spotlight to the evening’s soloist, pianist Leif Ove Andsnes in Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3. 

Andsnes is one of those musicians whose art truly conceals art—a blend of intelligence, natural eloquence and complete technical command that is put entirely at the service of the music. His Carnegie Hall recital in January earned typical high praise and his 2023 Chicago recital still lingers in the memory.

Andsnes has recorded all of Beethoven’s keyboard concertos with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra— conducting from the keyboard, no less—and the Norwegian pianist’s innate sympathy was manifest in Thursday’s rendering of the C-minor work. (It’s too bad Andsnes, an artist of great integrity, was not the chosen soloist for the CSO’s cycle of complete Beethoven piano concertos next season.)

Andsnes firmly registered the minor-key drama of the opening movement while keeping the music in scale, never inflating it to Late Romantic dimensions. He phrased with a supple, singing line in contrasting episodes and his cadenza had both strength and an uncommon airy poetry.

Andsnes spun a refined, intimate solo line in the deep waters of the slow movement, plaintive and expressive without undue lingering. In the finale, Andsnes gracefully bridged the insistent energy of the main theme with the unforced cheer of the second—- the laughter of the rippling notes unmistakable— en route to a spirited and emphatic coda. 

Apart from bringing the orchestra in too soon at the end of the first cadenza, Hrůša proved an alert and collegial accompanist, lending taut and incisive support while giving Andsnes ample breathing space for solo passages. 

Repeated ovations brought Andsnes back out for an  elegant, intimate encore of Chopin’s Mazurka in C sharp minor, Op. 30, no. 4, a finely judged petit four  after the Beethoven main course. 

The program will be repeated 1:30 p.m. Friday and 7:30 p.m. Saturday. cso.org

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