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The Chicago Symphony Orchestra family wishes the legendary American pianist Byron Janis a very happy ninety-fifth birthday!
Janis made his professional debut at the age of fifteen in 1943, performing Rachmaninov’s Second Piano Concerto with the NBC Symphony Orchestra, under the baton of Arturo Toscanini. The following year, he was chosen by Vladimir Horowitz as his first student, and at eighteen, he became the youngest artist signed to a contract by RCA Victor Records. On October 29, 1948, Janis made his Carnegie Hall debut, and Olin Downes in the New York Times wrote, “Not for a long time had this writer heard such a talent allied with the musicianship, the feeling, the intelligence and artistic balance shown by the twenty-year-old pianist, Byron Janis. . . . Whatever he touched he made significant and fascinating by the most legitimate and expressive means.”
On March 4, 1954, Janis made his debut with the Chicago Symphony in Orchestra Hall. “Mr. Janis played a performance of the Tchaikovsky concerto uncommonly beautiful for what it was, and uncommonly exciting for what it can be. . . . If you have it, you have it, and Mr. Janis does,” wrote Claudia Cassidy in the Chicago Tribune. “He has temperament and fire and he wants, perhaps more than anything in the world, to play the piano. You can always tell that by the sound. It comes out in the explosions of the double octaves, in the instinctive sensing of the crest of a phrase . . . his Tchaikovsky was big, beautiful and dynamic, yet with all its tensions it sensed the relaxed sweep of the grand style. . . . Reiner and the Orchestra gave superb collaboration, part Russian song, part Russian bear.”
For more than twenty years, Byron Janis was a regular visitor, as soloist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and as a recitalist in Orchestra Hall. A complete list of his appearances is below.
July 10, 1952, Ravinia Festival
BEETHOVEN Piano Concerto No. 3 in C Minor, Op. 37
Dimitri Mitropoulos, conductor
March 4 and 5, 1954, Orchestra Hall
TCHAIKOVSKY Piano Concerto in B-flat Minor, Op. 23
Fritz Reiner, conductor
July 27, 1956, Ravinia Festival
BERNSTEIN Symphony No. 2 (The Age of Anxiety)
Leonard Bernstein, conductor
December 6 and 7, 1956, Civic Opera House
RACHMANINOV Piano Concerto No. 1 in F-sharp Minor, Op. 1
STRAUSS Burlesque for Piano and Orchestra in D Minor
Fritz Reiner, conductor
August 2, 1957, Ravinia Festival
RACHMANINOV Piano Concerto No. 3 in D Minor, Op. 30
William Steinberg, conductor
August 3, 1957, Ravinia Festival
TCHAIKOVSKY Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat Minor, Op. 23
William Steinberg, conductor
January 20, 1958, Pabst Theatre, Milwaukee
BEETHOVEN Piano Concerto No. 3 in C Minor, Op. 37
Carlo Maria Giulini, conductor
July 17, 1958, Ravinia Festival
RACHMANINOV Piano Concerto No. 1 in F-sharp Minor, Op. 1
Walter Hendl, conductor
July 22, 1958, Ravinia Festival
BEETHOVEN Piano Concerto No. 3 in C Minor, Op. 37
Igor Markevitch, conductor
February 19 and 20, 1959, Orchestra Hall
SCHUMANN Piano Concerto in A Minor, Op. 54
Fritz Reiner, conductor
February 24, 1959, Orchestra Hall
LISZT Totentanz for Piano and Orchestra
Fritz Reiner, conductor
March 23, 1959, Pabst Theatre, Milwaukee
SCHUMANN Piano Concerto in A Minor, Op. 54
Fritz Reiner, conductor
July 9, 1959, Ravinia Festival
TCHAIKOVSKY Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat Minor, Op. 23
Walter Hendl, conductor
July 11, 1959, Ravinia Festival
RACHMANINOV Piano Concerto No. 3 in D Minor, Op. 30
Walter Hendl, conductor
February 4 and 5, 1960, Orchestra Hall
LISZT Piano Concerto No. 1 in E-flat Major
Fritz Reiner, conductor
February 9, 1960, Orchestra Hall
LISZT Concerto for Piano No. 2 in A Major
Fritz Reiner, conductor
July 5, 1960, Ravinia Festival
RACHMANINOV Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor, Op. 18
Walter Hendl, conductor
July 7, 1960, Ravinia Festival
SCHUMANN Piano Concerto in A Minor, Op. 54
Walter Hendl, conductor
July 20, 1961, Ravinia Festival
RACHMANINOV Piano Concerto No. 1 in F-sharp Minor, Op. 1
Joseph Rosenstock, conductor
July 22, 1961, Ravinia Festival
LISZT Piano Concerto No. 1 in E-flat Major
Joseph Rosenstock, conductor
January 4 and 5, 1962, Orchestra Hall
TCHAIKOVSKY Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat Minor, Op. 23
Leopold Stokowski, conductor
August 4, 1962, Ravinia Festival
LISZT Concerto for Piano No. 2 in A Major
RACHMANINOV Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 43
André Cluytens, conductor
November 1, 2, and 3, 1962, Orchestra Hall
November 4, 1962, Edgewater Beach Hotel (WGN Great Music from Chicago television broadcast)
November 5, 1962, Pabst Theatre, Milwaukee
PROKOFIEV Piano Concerto No. 3 in C Major, Op. 26
Hans Rosbaud, conductor
July 11, 1963, Ravinia Festival
RACHMANINOV Piano Concerto No. 3 in D Minor, Op. 30
Walter Hendl, conductor
July 16, 1963, Ravinia Festival
GRIEG Piano Concerto in A Minor, Op. 16
Seiji Ozawa, conductor
November 21 and 22, 1963, Orchestra Hall
RACHMANINOV Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor, Op. 18
Jean Martinon, conductor
December 31, 1964, January 1 and 2, 1965, Orchestra Hall
January 4, 1965, Pabst Theatre, Milwaukee
MOZART Piano Concerto No. 23 in A Major, K. 488
Willem van Otterloo, conductor
July 26, 1966, Ravinia Festival
RACHMANINOV Piano Concerto No. 1 in F-sharp Minor, Op. 1
RACHMANINOV Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor, Op. 18
Seiji Ozawa, conductor
July 28, 1966, Ravinia Festival
RACHMANINOV Piano Concerto No. 3 in D Minor, Op. 30
RACHMANINOV Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 43
Seiji Ozawa, conductor
April 20 and 21, 1967, Orchestra Hall
PROKOFIEV Piano Concerto No. 1 in D-flat Major, Op. 10
STRAUSS Burlesque for Piano and Orchestra in D Minor
Irwin Hoffman, conductor
June 27, 1967, Ravinia Festival
PROKOFIEV Piano Concerto No. 3 in C Major, Op. 26
Seiji Ozawa, conductor
June 29, 1967, Ravinia Festival
GERSHWIN Concerto in F for Piano and Orchestra
Seiji Ozawa, conductor
June 29, 1968, Ravinia Festival
BEETHOVEN Piano Concerto No. 3 in C Minor, Op. 37
Seiji Ozawa, conductor
July 6, 1971, Ravinia Festival
STRAUSS Burlesque for Piano and Orchestra in D Minor
LISZT Piano Concerto No. 1 in E-flat Major
Lawrence Foster, conductor
June 29, 1973, Ravinia Festival
PROKOFIEV Piano Concerto No. 3 in C Major, Op. 26
James Levine, conductor
August 15, 1974, Ravinia Festival
SAINT-SAËNS Piano Concerto No. 5 in F Major, Op. 103 (Egyptian)
David Zinman, conductor
Janis also made several recordings with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, as follows:
LISZT Totentanz for Piano and Orchestra
Fritz Reiner, conductor
Recorded in Orchestra Hall on February 23, 1959, for RCA
RACHMANINOV Piano Concerto No. 1 in F-sharp Minor, Op. 1
Fritz Reiner, conductor
Recorded in Orchestra Hall on March 2, 1957, for RCA
SCHUMANN Piano Concerto in A Minor, Op. 54
Fritz Reiner, conductor
Recorded in Orchestra Hall on February 21, 1959, for RCA
STRAUSS Burlesque for Piano and Orchestra in D Minor
Fritz Reiner, conductor
Recorded in Orchestra Hall on March 4, 1957, for RCA
Under the auspices of Allied Arts, Janis has appeared as piano recitalist on several occasions, as follows:
March 25, 1956
March 15, 1958
April 9, 1961
April 29, 1962
January 16, 1966
January 29, 1967
December 1, 1968
May 5, 1974
December 16, 1975
February 8, 1976
Happy, happy birthday!
This article also appears here.
In the early part of its history, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra was in the pit for an astonishing number of opera performances, first with singers from the Metropolitan Opera on tour at the Auditorium Theatre (from 1891 through 1899) and again with Ravinia Park Opera in Highland Park (from 1912 until 1931). This included fifty performances of Pietro Mascagni‘s Cavalleria rusticana featuring some of the greatest singers of the era in the role of Santuzza.
Jane Abercrombie
Wisconsin native Jane Abercrombie (1878–1961, three performances in 1912) was a member of the Lyceum and Aborn opera companies and the prima donna of the first season of Ravinia Park Opera. Over the course of a month in the summer of 1912, she sang the leading soprano roles in multiple performances of La bohème, Cavalleria rusticana, Les contes d’Hoffman, Faust, Lucia di Lammermoor, Madama Butterfly, Martha, Rigoletto, Thaïs, Tosca, and La traviata.
Marguerite Bériza
Marguerite Bériza (1880–1970, four performances between 1916 and 1917) trained at the Paris Conservatory and made her professional debut at the Opéra-Comique in Paris in 1900 as a mezzo-soprano, performing mostly comprimario roles. She created the role of Geoffroy in the world premiere of Rabaud’s La fille de Roland in 1904, and two years later, she was Kate Pinkerton in the French premiere of Madama Butterfly; she also sang the role of Suzuki in later performances. In 1910, Bériza created the role of Pénélope in the world premiere of Terrasse’s Le mariage de Télémaque. By 1912, she was performing soprano roles, and she made her U.S. debut with the Boston Opera Company in 1914 as Musetta (with Maggie Teyte as Mimì) in La bohème. In 1915, Bériza made her Broadway debut in Atteridge’s Maid in America and her Chicago Grand Opera Company debut, singing the title role in Février’s Monna Vanna.
Emma Calvé
French soprano Emma Calvé (1858–1942, five performances between 1894 and 1899) was a student of Mathilde Marchesi and made her debut as Marguerite in Gounod’s Faust at the Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels in 1881. Following debuts at the Opéra-Comique in Paris and La Scala in Milan, she was selected by Mascagni to create the role of Suzel in the composer’s L’amico Fritz on October 31, 1891, at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome. Calvé first performed at Covent Garden the following year before making her debut with the Metropolitan Opera on November 29, 1893, as Santuzza. “Calvé is a dramatic soprano of the first rank. It is long since New York opera goers have had the pleasure of seeing and hearing an artist of such splendid emotional force,” wrote William James Henderson in The New York Times. “She is at all times eloquent and powerfully influenced; and she knows how to put emotional meaning into her singing, never hesitating to sacrifice mere sensuous beauty of tone to true dramatic significance. Her success was immediate, pronounced, and thoroughly deserved.” She was later hailed for her interpretation of Bizet’s Carmen and performed the role over 150 times with the Metropolitan.
Emma Eames
American soprano Emma Eames (1865–1952, one performance in 1891) studied with Clara Munger in Boston and Mathilde Marchesi in Paris before making her professional debut on March 13, 1889, in Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette at the Palais Garnier. Eames made her debut with the Metropolitan Opera on tour in Chicago on November 9, 1891, as Elsa in Lohengrin; her performance of Santuzza with the Met on December 4 also marked the company’s first performance of the opera. She also regularly performed at Covent Garden, in Madrid, and with the Monte Carlo Opera in Monaco. Eames was noted for her interpretations of the leading soprano roles in Aida, Un ballo in maschera, Cavalleria rusticana, Don Giovanni, Faust, Lohengrin, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Le nozze di Figaro, Otello, Tosca, Il trovatore, Die Walküre, Werther, and Die Zauberflöte.
Florence Easton
A student of Agnes Larkcom at London’s Royal Academy of Music and Elliott Haslam in Paris, English soprano Florence Easton (1882–1955, five performances between 1919 and 1924) made her professional debut as the Shepherd in Tannhäuser with the Moody-Manners company in Newcastle upon Tyne, and she later was a member of the Berlin Royal and Hamburg opera companies. She made her U.S. debut with the Chicago Grand Opera Company in 1915 as Brünnhilde in Wagner’s Siegfried; of her performance, Eric DeLamarter in the Chicago Tribune wrote, “with the superb tone, the enunciation, and the style . . . Fresh and most satisfying as to timbre in the scene of the awakening, the voice fell on the ear like a benediction after the three-hour fusillade of declamation,” With the Metropolitan Opera, Easton made her debut as Santuzza on December 7, 1917, and she was chosen by Puccini to create the role of Lauretta—who sings “O mio babbino caro”—in his Gianni Schicchi on December 14, 1918, also at the Metropolitan.
Lois Ewell
Lois Ewell (1885–?, two performances in 1913) was born in Memphis, Tennessee. Before turning her sights to opera, she enjoyed a successful career on Broadway, performing leading roles in Victor Herbert’s Dream City and The Magic Night (a burlesque of Wagner’s Lohengrin), George M. Cohan’s Forty-five Minutes from Broadway, and Lehár’s The Merry Widow. In addition to Santuzza during her single summer with Ravinia Park Opera, Ewell also performed the lead soprano roles in Aida, Lohengrin, Madama Butterfly, Pagliacci, Thaïs (she “does this sort of part very well, according to the Chicago Tribune. “She has abundant temperament for the plentiful theatrical trickery of the part.”), and Il trovatore. She later was a company member with the Century Opera Company in New York, where she performed the title roles in Aida and Tosca.
Bettina Freeman
Bettina Freeman (1889–?, four performances in 1915) was born and raised in Boston, and she made her professional debut as Siébel in Gounod’s Faust with the Boston Opera Company. After moving to New York, she joined the Quinlan Opera Company and later the San Carlo Opera Company. At Ravinia Park in 1915, she also sang the title roles in Aida, Madama Butterfly, Thaïs, Tosca, and Il trovatore. Regarding her performance as Tosca that summer, Musical America reported, “Miss Freeman’s singing of the aria, ‘Vissi d’arte,” and in the duet of the last act was highly artistic. The aria, which called forth outbursts of applause, was delivered with dramatic fervor and style.”
Alice Gentle
Alice Gentle (1885–1958, six performances between 1919 and 1926) began her career performing in the chorus at Oscar Hammerstein’s Manhattan Opera Company beginning in 1908. She frequently said that, “Mr. Hammerstein ‘discovered’ her and was ‘both my artistic father and my mascot'” (according to her New York Times obituary), and he began casting her in secondary roles during her second season with the company. At the Metropolitan, she made several appearances during the 1918-19 season, most notably as Frugola in the world premiere of Puccini’s Il tabarro. Later a film actress, Gentle appeared in The Song of the Flame, Golden Dawn, and A Scene from Carmen.
Claudia Muzio
Italian soprano Claudia Muzio (1889–1936, three performances in 1918) studied in Turin with Annetta Casaloni and in Milan with Elettra Callery-Viviani. She made her professional debut in Manon on January 15, 1910, in Arezzo, and debuts at La Scala, the Paris Opera, and Covent Garden quickly followed. Muzio first sang in the United States at the Metropolitan Opera on December 4, 1916, in Tosca, alongside Enrico Caruso as Cavaradossi. During her one summer with the Ravinia Park Opera, she also performed the lead soprano roles in Aida, L’amore dei tre re, La bohème, Faust, Madama Butterfly, Manon, Pagliacci, Il segreto di Susanna, Tosca, and Il trovatore. On October 15, 1932, she performed the title role in Tosca to inaugurate San Francisco’s War Memorial Opera House (the first act was broadcast and can be heard here).
Frances Peralta (left) and Florence Easton
Born in England, Frances Peralta (1883–1933, one performance each in 1921 and 1922) and her family moved to California when she was a child. She received her early training in San Francisco and later performed with the Boston and Saint Louis opera companies, in New York’s Globe Theatre, and with the Chicago Opera Association. Peralta made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera on December 25, 1920, as Elena in Mefistofele and over the next ten years, she was a regular company member, performing the leading soprano roles in Aida, Andrea Chénier, Cavalleria rusticana, Così fan tutte, Don Carlo, La forza del destino, La gioconda, Guillaume Tell, Tannhäuser, Tosca, and Il trovatore, among others.
Rosa Raisa
Rosa Raisa (1893–1963, two performances in 1925) was born in Poland and in order to escape anti-Semitic persecution, she fled to Naples at the age of fourteen. There she studied at the Conservatorio di San Pietro a Majella with Barbara Marchisio and made her debut in Verdi’s Oberto in Parma on September 6, 1913. Marchisio soon introduced her to Cleofonte Campanini, conductor of the Chicago Grand Opera Company, and he engaged her to make her debut as Aida in Chicago on November 29, 1913. She enjoyed continued success in Rome, London, Rio de Janeiro, Montevideo, São Paulo, and Milan, where she created the title role in Puccini’s Turandot under Arturo Toscanini’s baton at La Scala on April 25, 1926. She sang the title role in Aida for the opening of the Civic Opera House in Chicago on November 4, 1929. In 1959, Raisa sat down with Studs Terkel, reflecting on her career and successes in Chicago; the interview can be heard here.
Elisabeth Rethberg
German-American soprano Elisabeth Rethberg (1894–1976, twelve performances between 1927 and 1931) studied at the Dresden Conservatory and made her professional debut as Arsena in Johann Strauss, Jr.’s Der Zigeunerbaron at the Dresden Court Opera in 1915. She made her U.S. debut at the Metropolitan Opera on November 22, 1922, in the title role in Verdi’s Aida. In The New York Times, Richard Aldrich praised “her high, clear, liquid tones of a singular brightness floating above Verdi’s orchestration with unforced ease.” Rethberg’s association with the company continued for twenty years, and she was featured on four Met opening nights. In 1928, Richard Strauss invited Rethberg to create the title role in his Die ägyptische Helena in Dresden.
Ivy Scott
Ivy Scott (1886–1947, one performance in 1914) was born in Java and made her stage debut at the age of five in Sydney Australia. She came to the U.S. in 1910 and appeared at Ravinia Park in the lead soprano roles in Aida, Madama Butterfly, and Il trovatore. On the radio, Scott was the original Mrs. Hudson in NBC’s Sherlock Holmes series, performed on The Goldbergs, and also hosted her own radio show. On Broadway, she appeared regularly between 1932 and 1946, in Music in the Air, Revenge with Music, Three Waltzes, Too Many Girls, Liberty Jones, Sunny River, and Song of Norway.
On February 6, 7, and 8, 2020, Anita Rachvelishvili sings the role of Santuzza in Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus. Riccardo Muti conducts. An abbreviated version of this article also appears in the program book for these performances.
Robert Rada at the CSO Alumni Association reunion, November 30, 2012 (Dan Rest photo)
The Chicago Symphony mourns the loss of Robert Rada, a member of the Orchestra’s trombone section from 1954 until 1957. He died in Hilton Head, South Carolina on February 17, 2019, at the age of 88.
Born on the south side of Chicago on August 14, 1930, Rada began playing the cornet in grade school, later adding the trombone in high school at the Farragut Career Academy. He performed with the Youth Orchestra of Greater Chicago and studied with Chicago Symphony Orchestra members David Anderson (trombone, 1929-1955) and Arnold Jacobs (principal tuba, 1944-1988). While attending the University of Chicago and Chicago Musical College, Rada was a member of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago from 1948 until 1950.
During the summer of 1950, Rada was a member of the Denver Symphony Orchestra, performing on several occasions under the baton of Igor Stravinsky. Later that same year through the fall of 1954, Rada attended the United States Military Academy as a member of the West Point Band. While at West Point, he studied with Neal DiBiase, principal trombone of the NBC Symphony Orchestra, and he also performed as an extra with the ensemble on two occasions under the baton of Arturo Toscanini. During his years at the academy, Rada met his soon-to-be wife Lindsley Burnham, and he also developed a strong interest in aviation.
In 1954, Rada was invited by Fritz Reiner to join the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, where he would serve through the 1956-57 season. His love of airplanes eventually led him to start his own aviation company, in which he sold corporate business jets. Rada occasionally subbed with the Philadelphia Orchestra and performed with the Kennett Symphony in Pennsylvania, and later he also was a member of the Hilton Head Orchestra. He was a longtime member of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Alumni Association.
When interviewed for the Rosenthal Archives’s oral history project in 1995, Rada reflected on his years in the Orchestra under Reiner: “He made phenomenal music and he did it in a demanding way. He may have ruled with fear, but he produced a quality of music that I have never experienced before or since.”
Rada is survived by his wife of nearly sixty-four years, Lindsley; his three children; David (Sally), Paul (Anna) and Gretchen Willingham (John); and six grandchildren, Pamela, Michael, Molly, Madison, Sawyer, and Payton. A memorial service will be given on March 9, 2019, at the TidePointe Clubhouse (arrangements through Island Funeral Home and Crematory). An obituary also is posted here.
In the spring of 1976, the major American political parties had not yet hosted their conventions to nominate candidates for president. But on May 11—the day after the first of three concerts at Carnegie Hall by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Sir Georg Solti—Donal Henahan of The New York Times had a suggestion:
“Solti’s Chicagoans Stimulate a Yen to Yell”
It is pretty well agreed now, among decibel collectors, that the audiences at Chicago Symphony concerts make more noise than anybody. If you happen to pass Carnegie Hall tomorrow or Friday night and notice that sturdy old monument rocking slightly on its foundations, do not worry: It is only the Chicago orchestra’s fans going happily mad over a performance conducted by Sir Georg Solti. (Don’t run out to buy tickets, by the way; Chicago Symphony concerts are invariably sold out as soon as they are announced.)
The sheer fervor, somewhat resembling religious fanaticism, that characterizes the New York ovations for Chicago/Solti, is a phenomenon worth some sociologist’s study. Of course, the Chicago Symphony is one of the world’s great orchestras, and Sir Georg is undeniably one of the world’s most exciting conductors. The cheering is, therefore, aimed at real quality.
But the Dionysian frenzy that many observers have commented upon goes beyond ordinary enthusiasm into the category of the demonstration. Chicago players and Sir Georg himself have confessed that the intensity of these ovations in New York takes them aback. Thoughtful musicians cross their fingers, in fact. They have seen reputations rise and fall, for what seems too little reason either way, and know how capricious and irrational audiences can be.
The Chicago/Solti phenomenon has been compared to the cult that grew up around Toscanini and his NBC Symphony a generation ago, to the Stokowski fan clubs of his Philadelphia Orchestra years and to the von Karajan mystique in some sectors of the musical world today. Unsophisticated music listeners, with the help of judicious publicity agents, love to fasten upon an idol, to proclaim this or that artist “the greatest” and fall prostrate at mention of the holy name. Other and wiser folk simply like to cheer what they regard as the best. Cheering is an emotional purgative, a primal scream that often seems to do the screamer more good than the
The New York Times, May 11, 1976
Beyond the obvious fact of its lofty quality, there are several arguable rationalizations for the kind of hysteria regularly generated by the Chicago under Sir Georg. When the orchestra made its first Carnegie Hall appearances under him six years ago, many knowledgeable New Yorkers were simply flattened by what they heard. The Chicago Symphony—unlike the Cleveland under Szell, the Boston under Leinsdorf, the Philadelphia under Ormandy—had not been a regular visitor.
Fritz Reiner, who built the orchestra to its current level in the late 1950s, hated touring. He refused to do the kind of barnstorming to high prestige places that would have made the Chicago Symphony’s greatness apparent to more than the blessed few who heard it regularly in its own Orchestra Hall during Dr. Reiner’s ten‐year regime.
The fact, which Sir Georg readily admits, is that the Chicago Symphony as it stands (or sits) is largely the product of the Reiner years. The Solti genius has consisted in making splendid use of a ready‐made instrument. Not the least amazing thing about the Chicago’s current status as a symbol of excellence is that of all major American orchestras it is the oldest: Most of the players date back to the Reiner years before.
Another possible factor in the Chicago’s popularity is the high percentage of opera fans who frequent these concerts. One of Sir Georg’s first smash successes at Carnegie came in 1971 with a concert performance of Wagner’s Das Rheingold, and he subsequently offered four other operatic attractions. His sixth, on Friday night, will be The Flying Dutchman.
Sir Georg, you remember, had been artistic director of London’s Covent Garden opera house, and his renown as an opera conductor fattened considerably when he completed the first Ring cycle ever produced on commercially available recordings, for London Records. And, since opera enthusiasts on the whole are famous—or notorious, as you wish—for treating their heroes and heroines to hysterical ovations, Chicago/Solti has not suffered from being attractive to the opera set.
Another and probably more disputable conjecture: there existed in New York at the time of the Chicago/Solti arrival on the scene, a considerable number of people who yearned to hear concerts led by an unashamedly passionate “maestro,” preferably someone cast in the Toscanini mold. To some extent, Leonard Bernstein in his early years with the Philharmonic fulfilled the needs of this sizable and vocal constituency.
But when Pierre Boulez took charge of the Philharmonic these New Yorkers missed their former feeling of audience participation. They came to regard themselves as disenfranchised musical citizens. Mr. Boulez seemed to them more acoustical scientist than performer, and his analytical talents and objective approach to music were largely unappreciated. For this emotional breed of listener, the coming of Chicago/Solti offered a chance not merely to applaud but also—almost in the political sense of the word—to demonstrate. It was as if they were sending a message.
The yen to yell can come to be as important to certain audiences as the music itself. Opera fans, in particular, seem to regard their demonstrations of affection and approbation as part of the performance, and that can be obnoxious when carried too far. But any continuing audience, such as the one attracted by the Chicago/Solti concerts, is also acting out a communal claim to eliteness. It is proclaiming its own superior taste and knowledge, as well as showing the performers how much they are appreciated: We happy few who know what’s what, we proud melomaniacs, we who make (and can easily break) heroes, salute.
In any event, the Chicago Solti ovations are likely to go down among the legends of New York’s cultural life. And perhaps the explanation is simpler than suggested here. When the inevitable ranting and raving is heard at Carnegie Hall, it may merely be one sector of the musical electorate voting for its concept of what orchestral concerts should be. The Chicago Symphony for President, as it were. Well, we could do worse.
The 1976 U.S. presidential election was held on November 2, 1976. Georgia governor Jimmy Carter, the Democratic party candidate, ran against and defeated incumbent president Gerald Ford, the Republican candidate.
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Arturo Toscanini made his only appearance with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on April 24, 1941, at Orchestra Hall. For the occasion, the seventy-four-year-old conductor was invited to lead a special concert to conclude the fiftieth season and to benefit the musicians’ pension fund. Toscanini conducted Gluck’s Overture to Iphigénie en Aulide, Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony, Respighi’s Fountains of Rome, Berlioz’s orchestration of Weber’s Invitation to the Dance, and Wagner’s Siegfried Idyll and Overture to Tannhäuser.
“Toscanini [is] the most celebrated musician of our day,” reported Edward Barry in the Chicago Tribune. “It was as if a big exclamation point had been put at the end of a season which had already had more than its share of pleasurable astonishment. For the great conductor called on every resource of his imagination to make the music vivid and meaningful. And the Orchestra leaped to the execution of his ideas with a passion and a sureness that transcended technical considerations entirely and succeeded in laying the music itself before us in all its purity and beauty.”
April 24, 1941
“But in many ways Respighi’s Fountains of Rome was the high point of the concert,” wrote Claudia Cassidy in the Journal of Commerce. “He has for it the full sensitivity, the quality of creative imagery, the almost clairvoyant tenderness that make it deeply communicative. The performance took on a murmurous magic possible only when conductor and orchestra have established full understanding.”
This article also appears here.
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On May 5, 2008, Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association president Deborah Rutter Card announced that Riccardo Muti would become the Orchestra’s tenth music director, beginning with the 2010–11 season.
Barbara Frittoli sings the final “Libera me” with Riccardo Muti leading the Orchestra and Chorus on January 16, 2009 (Todd Rosenberg photo)
Muti’s first appearances as music director designate were on January 15, 16, and 17, 2009, in Verdi’s Requiem. Soloists were Barbara Frittoli, Olga Borodina, Mario Zeffiri, and Ildar Abdrazakov, and the Chicago Symphony Chorus was prepared by chorus director Duain Wolfe.
“From the moment he walked out onto the stage of Orchestra Hall until the last notes of the Verdi sounded just over ninety minutes later, Muti showed us the summary of nearly every possible positive quality a great conductor can possess,” wrote Andrew Patner in the Chicago Sun-Times. “The CSO played on the edge of its collective seat throughout. . . . When has the CSO Chorus sounded like this? Not since founder Margaret Hillis at her peak. Some 170 voices singing as one, powered from the bottom ranges, standing and delivering on cue with equal parts passion and precision, and investing the softest passages with the greatest musicality.”
Regarding the subsequent release of the Requiem on CSO Resound, Robert Levine for classicstoday.com wrote, “Muti still brings Toscanini to mind more than any other conductor, but he is more pliable in this performance than that other great Italian maestro or his earlier self. The Chorus, like the Orchestra, moves from fortissimo to pianissimo on a dime; their singing is effortless, precise, and filled with attention to the text. The quieter, spiritual sections are remarkable for their aura of stillness and meditation and their outbursts thrill and terrify. It’s breathtaking.”
On February 13, 2011, the recording received Grammy awards for Best Classical Album and Best Choral Performance from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.
This article also appears here.
Program book cover for the August 22, 1942, performance at the Ravinia Festival
As Phillip Huscher includes in his program note, “Shostakovich composed most of his seventh symphony in Leningrad, his birthplace, during the siege of the city that ultimately took nearly a million lives—roughly one-third of its inhabitants—as a result of hunger, cold, and air raids.”
Less than a year later at the height of one of the worst periods of World War II, the symphony was given its world premiere in Kuibyshev (now Samara) on March 5, 1942, with Samuil Samosud conducting the Bolshoi Theatre Orchestra. Later that month on March 29, it was performed in Moscow with members of the Bolshoi orchestra and the All-Union Radio Orchestra. The now legendary premiere in Leningrad took place on August 9 under the baton of Karl Eliasberg.
In the United Kingdom, Sir Henry Wood led the London Philharmonic Orchestra in a broadcast performance on June 22 followed by a concert performance at the Royal Albert Hall on June 29. The United States broadcast premiere was given on July 19 in New York, with Arturo Toscanini leading the NBC Symphony Orchestra (the now-famous Time magazine cover story anticipated the broadcast). Serge Koussevitzky conducted the student orchestra of the Berkshire Music Centre in the first U.S. concert performance on August 14.
Shostakovich’s August 22 program book biography
And on August 22, 1942, less than six months after the world premiere, Frederick Stock led the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in Shostakovich’s Leningrad Symphony—“which has aroused more interest than any other symphonic work in decades”—in a special concert for the benefit of Russian war relief at the Ravinia Festival. A complete copy of the program book is here.
According to Edward Barry’s account in the Chicago Tribune, “All that we had heard in advance about the new work, even in the broadcast of July 19, failed to prepare us adequately for the full impact of it. Its scale is huge, and this does refer to its length (over an hour and a quarter) alone. It calls for a mammoth orchestra (99 players crowded the Ravinia stage last night). . . . These huge forces Shostakovich deploys with a boldness and a vigor and a boiling passion that are often electrifying. . . . To our generation the symphony’s faults are comparatively unimportant because of the smoking passion with which it treats of the events which are so strongly affecting our lives and enlisting our emotions. ‘My music is a weapon,’ says Shostakovich boldly, thus confounding those who would criticize the work because of a too close connection with immediate political and military events.”
Barry concludes, “Last night’s performance was an extraordinarily fine one, especially when one realizes that Dr. Stock had to master the bewildering score on short notice and communicate his findings to the orchestra in two rehearsals [for the New York premiere, Toscanini had six rehearsals].” The complete review is here.
Stock’s August 22 program book biography
Stock was determined to perform the work again—and soon—so he added it to the programming for the upcoming season at Orchestra Hall on October 27, 29, and 30. According to Cecil Smith, “No symphony in modern times—and perhaps no symphony in musical history—has ever been prepared for by such a barrage of publicity.”
Frederick Stock and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra opened the fifty-second season with subscription concerts on October 15 and 16 and a Popular concert on October 17, 1942. On Monday October 19 it was business as usual and Stock was in Orchestra Hall’s offices, “talking over plans for the season with Henry E. Voegeli, business manager of the orchestra and his coworker for forty-three seasons.” But tragically, Stock died of a heart attack the following day and, according to Claudia Cassidy, “The bottom dropped out of Chicago’s music life . . .”
Associate conductor Hans Lange immediately assumed conducting duties, leading the majority of concerts for the remainder of the 1942-43 season, including the three performances of Shostakovich’s Seventh in Chicago and one in Milwaukee. The program was as follows (and the program note for the Leningrad Symphony is here):
October 27, 29 & 30, 1942 (Orchestra Hall)
November 15, 1942 (Pabst Theatre, Milwaukee)
SMITH/Stock The Star-Spangled Banner
BRAHMS Tragic Overture, Op. 81
SHOSTAKOVICH Symphony No. 7
(On October 27, Stock’s orchestration for strings of the Andante from Bach’s Sonata for Violin no. 2 in A minor, BWV 1003 was performed in memory of the Orchestra’s second music director, following The Star-Spangled Banner, also in his arrangement.)
After the October 27 concert, Cassidy wrote, “That Hans Lange and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra gave a calm and competent performance of Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony at Orchestra Hall yesterday is undeniably, almost immeasurably, to their credit. Mr. Lange had less than a week—and a tragic week—to prepare the huge and sprawling score. . . . What counts in the score, and what should count in performance, is its blazing expression of the sound and fury of our own times, when invasion, death, defiance, and ultimate triumph are facts we understand and, a least vicariously, share.” The complete review is here.
And following the performance on October 29, Smith commented, “Dmitri Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony, perhaps the most successful musical best seller since Ravel’s Boléro, was repeated in magnificent style last evening. . . . [the composer] is very good at beginning musical ideas, extremely clumsy at continuing them, and virtually unable to stop them.”
Smith ended his review with, “Well, the symphony goes on the shelf for a while, after this afternoon’s repetition and a performance in Milwaukee on Nov. 15. I wonder what it will sound like after the war?”
Just before the opening of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s seventieth season, our sixth music director Fritz Reiner suffered a heart attack on October 7, 1960. He had been scheduled to conduct the first four weeks of concerts, but his recuperation forced the cancellation of his remaining appearances for the calendar year.
Antonino Votto was one of Maria Callas‘s integral collaborators, leading many of her important productions at La Scala in the 1950s. He also was conductor of several of her landmark recordings on EMI including Puccini’s La bohème, Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera, Bellini’s La sonnambula, and Ponchielli’s La Gioconda.
Replacement conductors included CSO associate conductor Walter Hendl, Robert Shaw (leading Beethoven’s Missa solemnis), Erich Leinsdorf (to conduct a special Saturday evening concert on October 15 featuring the U.S. debut of Sviatoslav Richter as soloist in Brahms’s Second Piano Concerto), and Antonino Votto (who would soon become Riccardo Muti‘s conducting teacher).
Votto was in Chicago to make his debut at Lyric Opera of Chicago and (according to their Performance + Cast Archive) he led the season opening performances of Verdi’s Don Carlo on October 14, 21, and 24. The cast included Giulietta Simionato, Margherita Roberti, Richard Tucker, Tito Gobbi, and Boris Christoff. Votto also conducted performances of Verdi’s Aida on October 17, 19, 22, and 28, with a cast that included Leontyne Price, Simionato, Carlo Bergonzi, and Robert Merrill.
Antonino Votto and Guiomar Novaes’s program book biographies
According to an October 16, 1960, CSO press release: “Antonino Votto will conduct the subscription concerts in the third week of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s current season. The concerts of Tuesday afternoon, October 25, and the subscription pair of Thursday-Friday, October 27-28, originally scheduled for music director Fritz Reiner, will be directed by the Italian conductor who is currently in Chicago for his first season with the Lyric Opera. A leading conductor of both opera and symphony concerts at La Scala in Milan, Maestro Votto’s appearance with the Orchestra has been made possible through the courteous cooperation of Miss Carol Fox, General Manager of the Lyric Opera.”
October 25, 1960 – revised program
October 25, 1960 – original program advertisement
Both programs were modified (see images right and below) to accommodate conductor and soloist. According to Claudia Cassidy in the Chicago Tribune regarding the first concert on October 25: “From the start of Haydn’s London Symphony thru the Mozart with Guiomar Novaes and Debussy’s Faun to the perfectly planned and executed climax of a stunning Pictures at an Exhibition this was a major concert on the sounder shores of style” (complete review is here). Also according to Cassidy, word traveled fast and the following two concerts on Thursday and Friday quickly sold out: “. . . Votto is a man to respect a score, an orchestra and a soloist. When you add that to knowing your business and you can work with other musicians on a high level remarkable things can happen. Such as orchestral equilibrium, a sense of proportion in displaying a soloist, a mounting excitement on the stage and in the audience. In other words, quite a concert” (complete review is here).
October 27 & 28, 1960 – revised program
October 27 & 28, 1960 – original program advertisement
According to a newspaper account, Reiner—from his hospital bed at Presbyterian/Saint Luke’s—was able to hear a portion of the Friday afternoon matinee via “telephone from a remote pickup thru a microphone in the concert hall to a loudspeaker in the manager’s office.” Reiner’s statement: “Please convey my warm compliments on the splendid performance of Mme. Novaes and Maestro Votto. I enjoyed very much the finesse and style of the orchestra, which has been inoculated in the years of our association.”
Votto was re-engaged at Lyric the following season for Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor on October 14, 16, and 18, 1961 (with Joan Sutherland, Bergonzi, and Tucker); Giordano’s Andrea Chenier on October 20, and 25, 28 (with Shakeh Vartenissian and Jon Vickers); and the company premiere of Boito’s Mefistofele on October 21, 23, and 27 (with Ilva Ligabue, Christa Ludwig, Christoff, and Bergonzi).
Votto returned to Italy and in November 1962, twenty-one-year-old Riccardo Muti met him during his first year as a student at the Milan Conservatory. Muti remembers: “And then there was Votto, whom I recall so vividly. He was solemn and incredibly strict, and had worked with [Arturo] Toscanini during his years at La Scala. . . . Within a few days, however, I realized that Votto had taken a liking to me, to the point of giving me—as if to prefer me over less talented students, or ones he didn’t like as much—some pieces to conduct for the performances the following year. Not only did I take a class with him, but I also attended some of his rehearsals at La Scala. . . . I was particularly struck when he did Falstaff: he didn’t have the score! Now, it’s one thing to conduct from memory, but to try that with Falstaff is one of those things that just leaves you flabbergasted and makes you think that maybe, with such experts around, you’d best find another job. I asked him something along those lines, and he replied: ‘If you had worked with Him, you would do the same.’ ‘Him,’ of course, meant Toscanini, with whom such work was an intense, special months-long undertaking; after that, going on memory became spontaneous, the natural result of having complete mastery of the score. . . .
“Votto’s approach was based on conductorial efficiency, music for music’s sake, no frills, no bells and whistles, going straight to the heart of opera, only essential gestures, nothing more than was absolutely necessary. In his classes he’d often repeat, ‘Don’t annoy the orchestra.’ To the uninitiated that phrase might seem absurd or misleading, calling into question the orchestra conductor’s usefulness. In reality he just wanted to advise us that, once the orchestra was on an orderly, rhythmic path (the obvious outcome of long rehearsing), the maestro mustn’t disturb that natural gait, and must therefore avoid rash gestures while on the podium, steering clear of any temptation to become a court jester; basically, he mustn’t alter what the nature of the piece itself had established. And such a position was a clear, complete reflection of Arturo Toscanini’s.”
Their friendship continued well beyond the conservatory, and when Muti married Maria Cristina Mazzavillani on June 1, 1969, in Ravenna, Votto was best man (“while Sviatoslav Richter became our ad hoc photographer and took some of the best photos”).
Excerpts from Riccardo Muti, An Autobiography: First the Music, Then the Words.
We just received copies of an excellent new two-CD set from Decca Classics (one of their many releases and re-releases commemorating Solti’s centennial). It’s called Solti: The Legacy, 1937–1997 and includes studio, live, and rehearsal recordings—the majority of them released for the very first time—covering a sixty-year span.
A few highlights:
• A twenty-four-year-old Georg Solti playing the glockenspiel in Mozart’s The Magic Flute with Arturo Toscanini conducting baritone Willi Domgraf-Fassbaender and the Vienna Philharmonic at the Salzburg Festival in 1937.
• Renata Tebaldi and Richard Tucker performing the duet “Vicino a te” from Giordano’s Andrea Chenier, performed at Lyric Opera of Chicago
on November 10, 1956, during Solti’s debut season there.
• Two selections from Solti’s 75th birthday concert with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at Orchestra Hall on October 9, 1987: Mozart’s Concerto for Two Pianos in E-flat major, K. 365 with Murray Perahia and Solti (conducting from the keyboard); and Kiri Te Kanawa and Plácido Domingo performing the duet “Già nella notte densa” from Verdi’s Otello.
Check it out!
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“In the summer of 1936, I visted the Salzburg Festival for the first time and managed to attend, unofficially, a few rehearsals and performances. Bruno Walter and several other famous musicians were taking part, but the main attraction was [Arturo] Toscanini, who was conducting Fidelio, Falstaff, Die Meistersinger, and some orchestral concerts. The experience was exhilarating—a new world of high quality opened up for me—and the following summer I made up my mind to go back. At my insistent request, the director of the Budapest Opera gave me a letter of recommendation, so that I might get into some rehearsals. I arrived in Salzburg one evening in July 1937, and the next morning I went to the Festspielhaus to present my letter to Baron [Heinrich von] Puthon, a retired Austrian general who was the festival’s general manager. After a long wait, I was introduced to the baron, who read the letter and asked me, ‘Can you play The Magic Flute?’”
Solti replied, “yes,” and was invited to attend the afternoon stage rehearsal. When he arrived in the pit, he sat at the piano, noticed that the singers were onstage and ready, and started playing, giving cues with one hand.
“Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a little man enter from the right side of the stage. My heart stopped. It was Toscanini. . . . Without stopping me, he began to conduct—very small, simple, but clear indications of tempo and dynamics. I followed him as if my life depended on it. After an hour or so, he called a break, turned to me, and said softly, ‘Bene.’ I do not think any complment I have ever received has given me as much joy as that one from Toscanini.”
At Toscanini’s insistence, Solti became one of his assistants and also played glockenspiel for the Magic Flute performances. At the end of the summer, Solti was engaged as a répétiteur for the following season, to assist Toscanini and coach four operas. However, Toscanini would never return to Austria.
“News of my having worked with Toscanini—and of my having been reengaged by him—was picked up by the Budapest press, and I began to be noticed as a musician. I pestered the Budapest Opera’s administrators to let me conduct something, and I imagine they realized that if they didn’t give me a chance, I would probably try to go elsewhere. Finally, a performance was arranged for me: The Marriage of Figaro, on March 11, 1938. So far as I know, it was the first time that an unconverted Jew conducted a complete opera in that house since Hungary had become an independent country.
“. . . walking into the orchestra pit to conduct an opera for the first time in my life was a frightening experience, especially as I had not been allowed a single rehearsal. But after the overture, I felt absolutely comfortable and at home. . . . At the beginning of the third act [one of the singers] made all sorts of mistakes, singing incoherently, and seemed to have completely lost his confidence. . . . When I went backstage after the performance had ended, I learned what had happened. Just as he had been about to go on stage, [he] had been handed a copy of an extra edition of an evening newspaper and had learned that German troops were crossing the border into Austria and marching toward Vienna; the historical event that is now referred to as the Anschluss . . . As it turned out, my conducting debut at the Budapest Opera was also my last performance of an opera there. I was only twenty-five years old, but I felt that all my hope had been dashed. That evening left a permanent scar on my heart.”
Text excerpted from Memoirs by Sir Georg Solti.
from the archives 