You are currently browsing the monthly archive for August 2018.
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra family remembers legendary dramatic soprano Inge Borkh, who died at her home in Stuttgart on Sunday, August 26, 2018. She was 97.
To close the Orchestra’s sixty-fifth season, music director Fritz Reiner chose Strauss’s Elektra. “This was a monumental performance superbly cast, and scaled to the full grandeur of Inge Borkh’s magnificent singing in the title role,” wrote Claudia Cassidy in the Chicago Tribune. “I for one have heard nothing like the outpouring of that amazing voice since the days of Kirsten Flagstad. . . . This is a huge soprano, glistening in timbre, most beautiful when it mounts the high tessitura and welcomes the merciless orchestra of the still fabulous Strauss. She can ride the whirlwinds, or she can touch, surprisingly, the heart.”
Borkh appeared with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in Orchestra Hall and at the Ravinia Festival, as follows:
December 8 and 9, 1955, Orchestra Hall
BEETHOVEN Abscheulicher . . . Komm Hoffnung from Fidelio, Op. 72
STRAUSS Closing Scene from Salome, Op. 54
Fritz Reiner, conductor
Inge Borkh, soprano
April 12 and 13, 1956, Orchestra Hall
STRAUSS Elektra, Op. 58
Fritz Reiner, conductor
Elektra Inge Borkh, soprano
Chrysothemis Frances Yeend, soprano
Clytemnestra Martha Lipton, mezzo-soprano
Orestes Paul Schöffler, baritone
Aegisthus Julius Patzak, tenor
Chorus from the Lyric Theatre of Chicago
July 12, 1956, Ravinia Festival
WEBER Ozean, du Ungeheuer from Oberon
WAGNER Dich, theure Halle from Tannhäuser
WAGNER Du bist der Lenz from Die Walküre
Igor Markevitch, conductor
Inge Borkh, soprano
July 22, 1956, Ravinia Festival
MENOTTI To this we’ve come from The Consul
BEETHOVEN Ah! perfido, Op. 65
Georg Solti, conductor
Inge Borkh, soprano
November 1 and 2, 1956, Orchestra Hall
WAGNER Overture to Tannhäuser
WAGNER Dich, theure Halle from Tannhäuser
WAGNER Wahn! Wahn! Uberall Wahn! from Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
WAGNER Leb’ wohl, du kühnes, herrliches Kind! and Magic Fire Music from Die Walküre
WAGNER Traft ihr das Schiff from Der fliegende Holländer
WAGNER Wie aus der Ferne längst vergangner Zeiten from Der fliegende Holländer
WAGNER Ride of the Valkryies from Die Walküre
Fritz Reiner, conductor
Inge Borkh, soprano
Paul Schöffler, baritone
Borkh also committed excerpts from Strauss’s Elektra and Salome to disc shortly after her performances. With Reiner and the Orchestra, she recorded Salome on December 10, 1955, and Elektra on April 16, 1956, both in Orchestra Hall. For RCA, Richard Mohr was the producer and Lewis Layton the recording engineer.
Numerous tributes have appeared at The New York Times and Opera News, among other outlets.
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra family mourns the death of preeminent record producer James Mallinson. For London/Decca, he produced nearly two hundred recordings, including many with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under eighth music director Sir Georg Solti.
Mallinson also was instrumental in the launch of CSO Resound, producing most of the Orchestra’s early releases led by principal conductor Bernard Haitink, including Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony; Mahler’s First, Second, Third, and Sixth symphonies, Ravel’s Daphnis and Chloe and Poulenc’s Gloria; and Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben and Webern’s Im Sommerwind.
With Solti and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Mallinson produced a number of legendary recordings for London Records, including Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra; Berlioz’s The Damnation of Faust; Brahms’s symphonies and A German Requiem; Bruckner’s Fourth and Fifth symphonies; Del Tredici’s Final Alice; Mahler’s First, Second, Third, Fourth, and Ninth symphonies; Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, Schoenberg’s Moses und Aron; Tippett’s Fourth Symphony; and Verdi’s Four Sacred Pieces; among others.
With Daniel Barenboim and the Orchestra, Mallinson also produced several recordings for Erato Records, including Corigliano’s Symphony no. 1, Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde, and tone poems by Richard Strauss (Don Juan, Don Quixote, Ein Heldenleben, and Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks).
In 1980, Mallinson became the recipient of the first Grammy Award for Producer of the Year, Classical, and he won a total of sixteen awards in a variety of categories, including Best Classical Album and Best Opera Recording. Mallinson’s most recent Grammy win was for producing the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Haitink’s recording of Shostakovich’s Fourth Symphony, which won for Best Orchestral Performance.
Lady Solti shared her thoughts. “I was so very sad to hear of James’ passing. What a fantastic amount of iconic recordings he masterminded that were such a very important part of not only the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s legacy but also Solti’s own personal catalog. I especially remember him working so hard to get the breathing right in Tippett’s extraordinary Fourth Symphony and the balances in Schoenberg’s Moses und Aron, and the wonderful Brahms symphonies. James was a man of great skill and diplomacy, always so calm and self-effacing, one of the great unsung heroes.”
Retired WFMT engineering producer and Rosenthal Archives preservation engineer Mitchell G. Heller remembered his longtime colleague and friend. “I was privileged to know and work with James Mallinson for over four decades. He was a sensitive and skilled recording artist. His work with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra especially captured and preserved the unique quality of the orchestra in every album he produced. He will be missed.”
On August 25, 2018, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra joins the music world in celebrating the centennial of composer, conductor, pianist, author, and lecturer Leonard Bernstein, who was, according to John von Rhein, “one of the most phenomenally gifted and successful Renaissance men of music in American history.”
Shortly after his remarkable debut—replacing an ailing Bruno Walter—with the New York Philharmonic on November 14, 1943, Bernstein first appeared with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on July 4, 1944. The “much discussed young conductor . . . drew 4,100 people to Ravinia last night,” wrote Claudia Cassidy in the Chicago Tribune. “It was Mr. Bernstein’s concert. . . . The eye and the ear inevitably gravitated to the slight young figure on the podium, a dark young man with a sensitive, sensuous face a little like David Lichine’s, hands that gyrate so convulsively they scarcely could hold a baton if they tried, and eyes that somehow manage to be agonized, supplicant, and truculent without losing their place in the score. A fascinating fellow, this Bernstein, dynamic, emotional, yet under complete control.”
Bernstein appeared with the Orchestra on several occasions in Orchestra Hall, at the Ravinia Festival, and in Milwaukee and New York City, as follows:
July 4, 1944, Ravinia Festival
BEETHOVEN Overture to Egmont, Op. 84
BEETHOVEN Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 61
Joseph Szigeti, violin
SIBELIUS Symphony No. 1 in E Minor, Op. 39
July 6, 1944, Ravinia Festival
TCHAIKOVSKY Romeo and Juliet
RAVEL Piano Concerto in G Major
Leonard Bernstein, piano
Herman Felber, Jr., conductor
TCHAIKOVSKY Symphony No. 4 in F Minor, Op. 36
July 8, 1944, Ravinia Festival
BARTÓK Rhapsody No. 1 for Violin and Orchestra
Joseph Szigeti, violin
MOZART Serenade in G Major, K. 525 (Eine kleine Nachtmusik)
MOZART Violin Concerto No. 4 in D Major, K. 218
Joseph Szigeti, violin
STRAUSS Don Juan, Op. 20
STRAVINSKY Suite from The Firebird
July 9, 1944, Ravinia Festival
BERNSTEIN Symphony No. 1 (Jeremiah)
Jennie Tourel, mezzo-soprano
COPLAND Suite from Our Town
ROSSINI “Non più mesta” from La Cenerentola
Jennie Tourel, mezzo-soprano
ROSSINI Overture to La gazza ladra
SIBELIUS Symphony No. 1 in E Minor, Op. 39
July 31, 1945, Ravinia Festival
BRAHMS Academic Festival Overture in C Minor, Op. 80
BRAHMS Piano Concerto No. 1 in D Minor, Op. 15
Leon Fleisher, piano
SHOSTAKOVICH Symphony No. 5 in D Minor, Op. 47
August 2, 1945, Ravinia Festival
CASADESUS/Steinberg Concerto in D Major
BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 3 in E-flat Major, Op. 55 (Eroica)
August 4, 1945, Ravinia Festival
COPLAND El salón México
FRANCK Symphonic Variations for Piano and Orchestra
Leon Fleisher, piano
LISZT Piano Concerto No. 2 in A Major
Leon Fleisher, piano
MOZART Symphony No. 38 in D Major, K. 504 (Prague)
August 5, 1945, Ravinia Festival
BERNSTEIN Suite from Fancy Free
HAYDN Symphony No. 85 in B-flat Major (La reine)
SHOSTAKOVICH Symphony No. 5 in D Minor, Op. 47
January 18, 19, and 23, 1951, Orchestra Hall
January 22, 1951, Pabst Theater, Milwaukee
HAYDN Symphony No. 102 in B-flat Major
RAVEL Piano Concerto in G Major
Leonard Bernstein, piano and conductor
STRAVINSKY The Rite of Spring
January 25 and 26, 1951, Orchestra Hall
BACH Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 in D Major, BWV 1050
René Rateau, flute
John Weicher, violin
Leonard Bernstein, piano and conductor
MAHLER Symphony No 2 in C Minor (Resurrection)
Alyne Dumas Lee, soprano
Ruth Slater, mezzo-soprano
Chicago Musical College Chorus
Christian Choral Club
James Baar, director
July 26, 1956, Ravinia Festival
CASADESUS/Steinberg Andante lento molto from Concerto in D Major
BERNSTEIN Serenade
Vladimir Spivakovsky, violin
TCHAIKOVSKY Symphony No. 6 in B Minor, Op. 74 (Pathétique)
July 27, 1956, Ravinia Festival
BERNSTEIN Symphony No. 2 (The Age of Anxiety)
Byron Janis, piano
MOZART Symphony No. 29 in A Major, K. 201
SCHUMANN Symphony No. 2 in C Major, Op. 61
July 28, 1956, Ravinia Festival
BACH Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 in D Major, BWV 1050
Ernst Liegl, flute
John Weicher, violin
Leonard Bernstein, piano and conductor
BERNSTEIN Symphony No. 1 (Jeremiah)
Jennie Tourel, mezzo-soprano
MOZART “Zeffiretti lusinghiere” from Idomeneo, K. 366
Jennie Tourel, mezzo-soprano
MOZART “Ch’io mi scordi di te?”, K. 505
Jennie Tourel, mezzo-soprano
Leonard Bernstein, piano and conductor
STRAVINSKY Suite from The Firebird
June 16 and 17, 1988, Orchestra Hall
STRAUSS Death and Transfiguration, Op. 24
John Fiore, conductor
STRAUSS Don Juan, Op. 20
Kate Tamarkin, conductor
STRAUSS Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks, Op. 28
Leif Bjaland, conductor
SHOSTAKOVICH Symphony No. 1, Op. 10
Bjaland, Fiore, and Tamarkin appeared in conjunction with the 1988 American Conductors Program for which Bernstein was the artistic advisor. A joint project of the American Symphony Orchestra League and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the program was made possible through the generous support of the Ford Motor Company Fund.
June 21 and 22, 1988, Orchestra Hall
June 24, 1988, Avery Fisher Hall, New York
SHOSTAKOVICH Symphony No. 7, Op. 60 (Leningrad)
“I cannot recall a season finale of recent years, in fact, that sent the audience home on such a tidal wave of euphoria, and for so many of the right reasons,” wrote John von Rhein in the Chicago Tribune, following the first performance of the Leningrad Symphony on June 21. “Indeed, the conductor was constantly pushing the music beyond the rhetorical brink, then drawing back when things threatened to go over the top. Of course, he had the world’s greatest Shostakovich brass section at his ready command. The augmented brasses blared with magnificent menace, the violins sounded their unison recitatives with vehement intensity. And the woodwinds, with their always crisp and characterful playing, reminded us of the many poetic, soft sections that separate the bombastic outbursts.”
Both of Shostakovich’s symphonies were recorded live by Deutsche Grammophon and the subsequent release received the 1990 Grammy Award for Best Orchestral Performance.
Portions of this article previously appeared here.