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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.
Sergei Rachmaninov made his first appearances with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on December 3 and 4, 1909, conducting his Isle of the Dead and performing as soloist in his Second Piano Concerto with second music director Frederick Stock conducting. Over the next thirty-four years, the composer was a regular visitor to Orchestra Hall—as conductor, concerto soloist, and recitalist—and his appearances were consistently sold-out events.
On November 7 and 8, 1935, Rachmaninov presented his new Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini to Chicago audiences. “Last night a new star was added to music’s firmament,” wrote Glenn Dillard Gunn in the Chicago Herald and Examiner. “The composer was present to play the solo part and to stir the staid patrons of the symphony in shouts of excited approval, punctuated by fanfares from the orchestra, while the audience and the players stood in homage to the master.” The response was so great that, at Stock’s invitation, the composer repeated the last section of his new composition, “a thrilling page, a harsh and sardonic utterance, diabolically brilliant and, at moments, strangely wistful.”
“There are other faultless pianists,” added Eugene Stinson in the Chicago Daily News, “though none who plays with Mr. Rachmaninoff’s nobility of tone [and] icy luminosity of color. There is no pianist I can think of who, playing faultlessly and playing without ardor, yet plays at such a pitch of perfection as he.”
In the fall of 1940, during the first month of the fiftieth season, Stock had invited Rachmaninov to lead the Orchestra’s first performance of his choral symphony The Bells, but it was postponed to the following March, due to a pending revision of the score. Instead, the composer appeared as soloist in Beethoven’s First Piano Concerto and his Rhapsody, on October 22. “So pervasive was the festal mood,” commented Edward Barry in the Chicago Tribune, “that Mr. Stock actually grinned and even Mr. Rachmaninoff almost smiled. An audience that filled Orchestra Hall from top to bottom wore itself out with ovations . . . so smooth and delicate was his passage work [in Beethoven’s concerto, and] Mr. Rachmaninoff’s own Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini[‘s] big passages shone with the easy brilliance of sunlight.”
For his final appearances with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on February 11 and 12, 1943, Rachmaninov again presented Beethoven’s First Piano Concerto and his Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, under the baton of associate conductor Hans Lange. “Sergei Rachmaninoff evoked a series of ovations when he appeared with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at Orchestra Hall last night,” wrote Claudia Cassidy in the Chicago Tribune. “His entrance won standing tribute from orchestra and capacity audience, his Beethoven stirred a storm of grateful applause, and his own Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini ended the concert in a kind of avalanche of cumulative excitement.”
Beatrice Rana is soloist in Rachmaninov’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on February 9, 10, and 11, 2023. Lahav Shani conducts.
This article also appears here and and in the program book for the February 2023 performances.
Theodore Thomas (A. Cox photo)
Theodore Thomas, the Chicago Orchestra‘s founder and first music director, was born on October 11, 1835. To celebrate his 185th birthday, this week’s CSOradio program features a retrospective of works—led by former music directors Artur Rodzinski, Fritz Reiner, Sir Georg Solti, and Daniel Barenboim, along with guest conductor Morton Gould—that he introduced to audiences in the United States, both with the Chicago Orchestra and other ensembles. Frank Villella, director of the CSO’s Rosenthal Archives, co-hosts the broadcast.
BRAHMS Academic Festival Overture, Op. 80
Daniel Barenboim, conductor
Recorded by Erato in Orchestra Hall, September 1993
In 1879, the University of Breslau in Poland bestowed upon Johannes Brahms an honorary doctorate, and to show his appreciation, he composed the Academic Festival Overture the following summer. The composer himself led the first public performance at the university in January 1881, and later that year on November 29, Thomas led the U.S. premiere in New York.
Daniel Barenboim, early in his tenure as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s ninth music director, recorded Brahms’s complete symphonies, along with the Tragic Overture, Variations on a Theme by Haydn, and the Academic Festival Overture, all for Erato Records.
WAGNER Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan and Isolde
Artur Rodzinski, conductor
Recorded by RCA in Orchestra Hall, December 1947
In the nineteenth century, Thomas was Richard Wagner’s greatest advocate in the United States, both before and after he founded the Chicago Orchestra. During his fourteen seasons as music director, he programmed Wagner’s music on nearly half of his concerts, both in Chicago and with the Orchestra on tour. Thomas gave the U.S. premiere of the Prelude from Tristan and Isolde in New York on February 10, 1866, less than a year after the opera’s first complete performances in Munich; and he also gave the first U.S. performance of the Prelude paired with the Liebestod in Boston on December 6, 1871. Thomas programmed these two works together fifteen times on subscription concerts during his tenure as music director.
Artur Rodzinski was the Orchestra’s fourth music director for only one season (1947–48). One of his great successes was a concert performance of Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde in November 1947, featuring soprano Kirsten Flagstad in her first operatic appearance in the United States since the end of World War II. The legendary Chicago Tribune critic Claudia Cassidy called the performance “the dawn of a new operatic day in Chicago.” A month later, Rodzinski and the Orchestra recorded the Prelude and Liebestod for RCA.
ELGAR Variations on an Original Theme, Op. 36 (Enigma)
Sir Georg Solti, conductor
Recorded by London in Medinah Temple, May 1974
Thomas gave the U.S. premiere of Sir Edward Elgar’s Enigma Variations with the Chicago Orchestra on January 3, 1902, and it was such a crowd-pleaser that he programmed it a second time later that season. A few years later in April 1907, second music director Frederick Stock invited the composer himself to lead several of his works, including In the South, the first Pomp and Circumstance March, and the Enigma Variations. The Chicago Tribune reported that, “The men of the Orchestra gave him their closest attention and heartiest sympathy yesterday, and the result was a performance of the three compositions which was technically and tonally of highest worth. Sir Edward himself seemed genuinely pleased and his assertion after the concert that the ‘work of the Orchestra surpassed all his fondest expectations’ evidently was the expression of his true feeling.”
Sir Georg Solti, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s eighth music director, recorded the Enigma Variations on May 15, 1974, at Medinah Temple for London Records.
STRAUSS Ein Heldenleben, Op. 40
Fritz Reiner, conductor
Recorded by RCA in Orchestra Hall, March 1954
During the summer of 1883, Thomas visited Europe and according to his Memoirs—edited by his widow, Rose Fay Thomas—the conductor, “had met, in Munich, a young and almost unknown composer, one Richard Strauss, who has recently finished writing a symphony. Thomas secured the first movement of the work, and was so much impressed with it that he requested young Strauss to let him have the other movements, promising to bring out the whole work in a concert of the Philharmonic Society.” Thomas kept that promise and in New York in December 1884, he led the world premiere of the Second Symphony in F minor—the first music of Richard Strauss to be performed in the United States. Strauss would later send new scores, and Thomas introduced several works to the United States with the Orchestra, including Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks, Also sprach Zarathustra, Don Quixote, along with Ein Heldenleben, first performed in Chicago on March 9, 1900.
Near the end of his first season as sixth music director, Fritz Reiner made his first recordings with the Orchestra for RCA. In Orchestra Hall on March 6, 1954, they recorded Strauss’s Dance of the Seven Veils from Salome and Ein Heldenleben, with violin solos performed by then-concertmaster John Weicher. Reiner’s CSO recordings of music by Strauss have never been out of print, and in 2013, Sony re-issued Reiner’s complete CSO catalog on RCA, a boxed set of sixty-three CDs.
TCHAIKOVSKY Final Waltz and Apotheosis from The Nutcracker, Op. 71
Morton Gould, conductor
Recorded by RCA in Orchestra Hall, January 1966
Thomas gave the U.S. premiere of a suite from Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker on October 22, 1892, on the first concert of the Orchestra’s second season. The program note described Tchaikovsky as the “composer, who, in his fifth symphony, has led us into the highest realms of art and stirred our very soul,” and the note described the selections from the ballet as “miniature pictures painted with infinite grace and care,” showing the composer, “in one of his playful and trifling moods.”
Morton Gould, a frequent guest conductor on Popular concerts in the 1960s, recorded selections from Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker at Orchestra Hall on January 31, 1966, for RCA. A six-disc set of Gould’s complete recordings with the Orchestra was released by Sony in February 2016.
On July 21, 2020, we commemorate the centennial of legendary Russian-born American violinist Isaac Stern.
Stern first appeared with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on January 11 and 12, 1940, in Orchestra Hall. Second music director Frederick Stock conducted an all-Sibelius program, and nineteen-year-old Stern was soloist in the Violin Concerto.
According to the Chicago Daily News, “Dr. Frederick Stock had been invited to conduct the Sibelius concert with the Helsingfors Orchestra [arranged when Stock visited Sibelius in Finland the previous summer] as a special feature of the Olympic Games.* But Finland has had to abandon peacetime pursuits and now Isaac [Stern] can thank the Russian regime for both his American citizenship and the chance to play the Sibelius D minor concerto with one of the world’s great orchestras.”
“True to the topsy-turvy condition of the world we live in, while the Finns are playing havoc with the Russians, at home a Russian-born violinist, young Isaac Stern, was the sensation of Mr. Stock’s memorable Sibelius concert at Orchestra Hall last night,” wrote Claudia Cassidy in the Journal of Commerce. “[Stern] has a commanding and comprehensive technique, a bold and beautiful tone never blatant and he has an urgent intensity of projection that seems to start in his firmly planted heels and flow like fire into the hands that make his music. . . . Stock’s accompaniment was brilliant in the perceptive richness that makes so many soloists prefer him to any other conductor.”
January 11 and 12, 1940
November 27 and 28, 1941, Orchestra Hall
MENDELSSOHN Violin Concerto in E Minor, Op. 64
Hans Lange, conductor
November 9, 1943, Orchestra Hall
PAGANINI Allegro maestoso from Violin Concerto No. 1 in D Major, Op. 6
Hans Lange, conductor
November 11 and 12, 1943, Orchestra Hall
SZYMANOWSKI Concerto in One Movement, Op. 61
RAVEL Tzigane
Hans Lange, conductor
July 15, 1948, Ravinia Festival
MENDELSSOHN Violin Concerto in E Minor, Op. 64
Fritz Busch, conductor
July 18, 1948, Ravinia Festival
BRAHMS Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 77
Fritz Busch, conductor
December 14, 1948, Orchestra Hall
MOZART Violin Concerto No. 3 in G Major, K. 216
PROKOFIEV Violin Concerto No. 1 in D Major, Op. 19
Tauno Hannikainen, conductor
March 31 and April 1, 1955, Orchestra Hall
December 16 and 17, 1948, Orchestra Hall
BEETHOVEN Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 61
Eugene Ormandy, conductor
December 12, 1950, Orchestra Hall
LALO Symphonie espagnole in D Minor, Op. 21
Rafael Kubelík, conductor
December 14 and 15, 1950, Orchestra Hall
December 18, 1950, Pabst Theater, Milwaukee
MENDELSSOHN Violin Concerto in E Minor, Op. 64
Rafael Kubelík, conductor
July 26, 1952, Ravinia Festival
BEETHOVEN Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 61
Otto Klemperer, conductor
July 31, 1952, Ravinia Festival
MENDELSSOHN Violin Concerto in E Minor, Op. 64
Otto Klemperer, conductor
March 19 and 20, 1953, Orchestra Hall
BRAHMS Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 77
Rafael Kubelík, conductor
March 24, 1953, Orchestra Hall
VIEUXTEMPS Violin Concerto No. 4 in D Minor, Op. 31
Rafael Kubelík, conductor
March 31 and April 1, 1955, Orchestra Hall
BEETHOVEN Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 61
Fritz Reiner, conductor
April 12, 1955, Orchestra Hall
TCHAIKOVSKY Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 35
Fritz Reiner, conductor
August 5, 1955, Ravinia Festival
BRAHMS Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 77
Enrique Jordá, conductor
July 2, 1959, Ravinia Festival
August 6, 1955, Ravinia Festival
BRAHMS Concerto for Violin and Cello in A Minor, Op. 102 (Double)
Leonard Rose, cello
Enrique Jordá, conductor
November 22 and 23, 1956, Orchestra Hall
PROKOFIEV Violin Concerto No. 1 in D Major, Op. 19
Fritz Reiner, conductor
November 27, 1956, Orchestra Hall
WIENIAWSKI Violin Concerto No. 2 in D Minor, Op. 22
Fritz Reiner, conductor
July 13, 1957, Ravinia Festival
BEETHOVEN Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 61
Pierre Monteux, conductor
July 14, 1957, Ravinia Festival
MENDELSSOHN Violin Concerto in E Minor, Op. 64
Pierre Monteux, conductor
October 28, 1958, Orchestra Hall
BRUCH Violin Concerto No. 1 in G Minor, Op. 26
Fritz Reiner, conductor
October 30 and 31, 1958, Orchestra Hall
PROKOFIEV Violin Concerto No. 2 in G Minor, Op. 63
Fritz Reiner, conductor
June 30, 1959, Ravinia Festival
BRAHMS Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 77
Pierre Monteux, conductor
July 2, 1959, Ravinia Festival
MENDELSSOHN Violin Concerto in E Minor, Op. 64
Pierre Monteux, conductor
Isaac Stern (William T. Haroutounian photo)
March 31 and April 1, 1960, Orchestra Hall
BEETHOVEN Romance for Violin in F Major, Op. 50
MOZART Violin Concerto No. 3 in G Major, K. 216
Fritz Reiner, conductor
April 13 and 14, 1961, Orchestra Hall
BARTÓK Violin Concerto No. 2
Fritz Reiner, conductor
August 1, 1961, Ravinia Festival
BEETHOVEN Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 61
Izler Solomon, conductor
August 3, 1961, Ravinia Festival
BARTÓK Violin Concerto No. 1
VIOTTI Violin Concerto No. 22 in A Minor
Izler Solomon, conductor
March 1, 2 and 3, 1962, Orchestra Hall
MOZART Violin Concerto No. 1 in B-flat Major, K. 207
BARTÓK Rhapsody No. 1
Jean Martinon, conductor
January 24, 25 and 26, 1963, Orchestra Hall
BRAHMS Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 77
Josef Krips, conductor
June 29, 1965, Ravinia Festival
SIBELIUS Violin Concerto in D Minor, Op. 47
Seiji Ozawa, conductor
Claudio Abbado, Martha Gilmer, Yo-Yo Ma, and Isaac Stern onstage at Orchestra Hall during recording sessions for Brahms’s Double Concerto in November 1986 (Jim Steere photo)
July 1, 1965, Ravinia Festival
BRUCH Violin Concerto No. 1 in G Minor, Op. 26
Seiji Ozawa, conductor
July 3, 1965, Ravinia Festival
BRAHMS Concerto for Violin and Cello in A Minor, Op. 102 (Double)
BEETHOVEN Concerto for Violin, Cello, and Piano in C Major, Op. 56 (Triple)
Leonard Rose, cello
Seiji Ozawa, piano and conductor
March 31, April 1, and 2, 1966, Orchestra Hall
DVOŘÁK Violin Concerto in A Minor, Op. 53
Seiji Ozawa, conductor
January 19, 20 and 21, 1967, Orchestra Hall
HINDEMITH Violin Concerto
Jean Martinon, conductor
February 13 and 14, 1969, Orchestra Hall
MOZART Rondo in C Major, K. 373
PROKOFIEV Violin Concerto No. 1 in D Major, Op. 19
Irwin Hoffman, conductor
October 2 and 3, 1969, Orchestra Hall
October 6, 1969, Pabst Theater, Milwaukee
BEETHOVEN Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 61
Carlo Maria Giulini, conductor
April 15, 16, and 17, 1971, Orchestra Hall
MENDELSSOHN Violin Concerto in E Minor, Op. 64
Georg Solti, conductor
November 22, 24, and 25, 1972, Orchestra Hall
December 9, 1972, Carnegie Hall
BARTÓK Violin Concerto No. 2
Sir Georg Solti, conductor
April 10, 11, and 12, 1975, Orchestra Hall
ROCHBERG Violin Concerto and Orchestra
Sir Georg Solti, conductor
July 31, 1976, Ravinia Festival
BRAHMS Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 77
Andrew Davis, conductor
March 2, 3, and 4, 1978, Orchestra Hall
March 6, 1978, Pabst Theater, Milwaukee
BRAHMS Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 77
Carlo Maria Giulini, conductor
March 28, 29, and 30, 1985, Orchestra Hall
BARTÓK Violin Concerto No. 2
Sir Georg Solti, conductor
November 5 and 7, 1986, Orchestra Hall
MOZART Sinfonia concertante for Violin and Viola in E-flat Major, K. 364 (performed by violin and cello)
Yo-Yo Ma, cello
Claudio Abbado, conductor
Isaac Stern and music director designate Daniel Barenboim following the Centennial Gala concert on October 6, 1990 (Jim Steere photo)
November 6 and 8, 1986, Orchestra Hall
BRAHMS Concerto for Violin and Cello in A Minor, Op. 102 (Double)
Yo-Yo Ma, cello
Claudio Abbado, conductor
Recorded in Orchestra Hall on November 7 and 8, 1986. For CBS Masterworks, Bud Graham was the control engineer, Tom MacCluskey was the editing engineer, and Tim Geelan was the post-production engineer.
October 6, 1990, Orchestra Hall (Centennial Gala)
MOZART Rondo in C Major, K. 373
Leonard Slatkin, conductor
May 23, 24, 25, and 28, 1991, Orchestra Hall
BEETHOVEN Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 61
Daniel Barenboim, conductor
September 16, 1992, Orchestra Hall
BRUCH Violin Concerto No. 1 in G Minor, Op. 26
Daniel Barenboim, conductor
October 1, 2, and 3, 1992, Orchestra Hall
BARTÓK Violin Concerto No. 1
Daniel Barenboim, conductor
Under the auspices of Allied Arts and Symphony Center Presents, Stern also appeared in recital and with ensembles on several occasions in Orchestra Hall, as follows:
Program book advertisement for the November 19, 1969, Allied Arts concert in Orchestra Hall
November 14, 1948
Alexander Zakin, piano
October 8, 1950
Alexander Zakin, piano
March 2, 1958
BEETHOVEN Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 61
National Symphony Orchestra
Howard Mitchell, conductor
June 1, 1963
Alexander Zakin, piano
April 5, 1964
Alexander Zakin, piano
November 27, 1966
Leonard Rose, cello
Eugene Istomin, piano
May 5, 1968
Leonard Rose, cello
Eugene Istomin, piano
April 27, 1969
Leonard Rose, cello
Eugene Istomin, piano
November 18, 1969
Members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Alexander Zakin, piano
May 17, 1970
Leonard Rose, cello
Eugene Istomin, piano
February 14, 1971
Alexander Zakin, piano
Program book advertisement for the November 19, 1969, Allied Arts concert in Orchestra Hall
November 4, 1979
David Golub, piano
March 26, 1990
DUTILLEUX L’arbre de songes
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra
David Zinman, conductor
December 9, 1990
Jaime Laredo, viola
Yo-Yo Ma, cello
Emanuel Ax, piano
April 18, 1993
Cho-Liang Lin, violin
Jaime Laredo, viola
Michael Tree, viola
Yo-Yo Ma, cello
Sharon Robinson, cello
December 8, 1996
Philip Setzer, violin
Lawrence Dutton, viola
Lynn Harrell, cello
Yefim Bronfman, piano
February 25, 1998
Jaime Laredo, viola
Yo-Yo Ma, cello
Emanuel Ax, piano
*On July 16, 1938, a year after the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War, it was announced that the 1940 Summer Olympics would not be held in Tokyo, as originally scheduled. The International Olympic Committee then awarded the games to Helsinki, the runner-up city in the original bidding process. However, following the outbreak of World War II on September 1, 1939, the Olympic Games were indefinitely suspended and did not resume until 1948.
December 3 and 4, 1909
Sergei Rachmaninov made his first appearances with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on December 3 and 4, 1909, conducting his Isle of the Dead and performing as soloist in his Second Piano Concerto with Frederick Stock conducting.
“Mr. Rachmaninov appeared in three different roles on yesterday’s program as a creative musician (a composer, as a conductor, and as a pianist), in all three capacities he displayed unusual preeminence and gifts of a transcendent order,” wrote the critic in the Chicago Examiner. “At the conductor’s desk, [he] is a striking personality [and] the members of the Orchestra responded readily to his minutest directions.” In the concerto, “Rachmaninov made no less an artistic impression. He is endowed with a comprehensive technique, his scale passages and chord playing are clean and rapid, his tone is rich and musical, and in his concerto he displayed remarkable gifts . . . after a half dozen recalls [he] responded with his celebrated C-sharp minor prelude.”
According to Phillip Huscher, “Although Chicago didn’t get to hear it, by then Rachmaninov had written a third piano concerto, tailor-made for his first North American tour in late 1909. Rachmaninov introduced the work in New York on November 28, with Walter Damrosch and the New York Symphony. He played it there again in January, with Gustav Mahler conducting the New York Philharmonic.”
For the first time with Stock and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, he performed his Third Piano Concerto on January 23 and 24, 1920. Despite a nasty Chicago storm, Orchestra Hall was packed for the Friday matinee. “The concert of yesterday afternoon was an event,” wrote Karleton Hackett in the Evening Post. “I do not care what the verdict of twenty years from now may be regarding this concerto, for I have just listened to a performance of it that stirred me deeply. . . . It was a work of a man who understands the capacity of the instrument and can write for it in the fresh, vigorous idiom of our day such music as brings out its peculiar power and charm. What is quite as much to the point, he himself can play the instrument with a mastery that makes every phrase a delight. Rachmaninov has supreme virtuosity. There is nothing he cannot do at the keyboard, from the most exquisite delicacy of ornamentation to the downright stroke of elemental power. . . . The music was so vigorous, expressing so spontaneously the emotion of our own time that it seemed as though it were being struck out in the white heat of the creative impulse of the moment.”
Chicago American, January 15, 1932
In January 1932, the composer was again in Chicago for three concerts with Stock and the Orchestra. After a performance of the second concerto on January 12, Herman Devries in the American reported, “It was not Chicago . . . it was not Orchestra Hall . . . it was not Rachmaninov . . . to me it seemed Olympus, and we were all gods. Thus does music glorify when it is itself glorious. It is not the first time that I have waxed passionately enthusiastic over the genius of Rachmaninov. After hearing Horowitz [in recital] on Sunday [January 10], we thought that the season’s thrills were nearly complete.”
Later that week on January 14 and 15, Rachmaninov was soloist in his third concerto. “The most exciting event in the history of Orchestra Hall occurred last night,” wrote Glenn Dillard Gunn in the Herald & Examiner. “With one impulse, the audience rose and shouted its approval. Many eyes were wet and many throats were hoarse before the demonstration ended. For once on their feet, the listeners remained to cheering after the Orchestra had trumpeted and thundered its fanfare and long after the composer-pianist had brought Dr. Stock to the footlights to share his honors. Never have I witnessed such a tribute . . . and never, it is my sincere conviction, has such response been so richly deserved.”
Chicago Sun, February 12, 1943
Rachmaninov’s final appearances with the Orchestra were on February 11 and 12, 1943, in Beethoven’s First Piano Concerto and his own Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, under the baton of associate conductor Hans Lange. “Sergei Rachmaninov evoked a series of ovations when he appeared with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at Orchestra Hall last night,” wrote Claudia Cassidy in the Chicago Tribune. “His entrance won standing tribute from orchestra and capacity audience, his Beethoven stirred a storm of grateful applause, and his own Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini ended the concert in a kind of avalanche of cumulative excitement.”
The following week, Rachmaninov traveled to Louisville and Knoxville for solo recitals on February 15 and 17, in what would be his final public performances. He died in Beverly Hills, California on March 28, 1943.
Portions of this article are included in the February 14-17, 2019, program book and also previously appeared here.
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.
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 1951
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
Leonard Bernstein in rehearsal with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in June 1988 (Jim Steere photo)
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.
Sending happy ninetieth birthday wishes to the legendary pianist Byron Janis!
Between 1952 and 1974, Janis appeared with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on numerous occasions at Orchestra Hall, in Milwaukee, and at the Ravinia Festival, under the batons of music directors Fritz Reiner and Jean Martinon; associate conductors Walter Hendl and Irwin Hoffman; Ravinia Festival music directors Seiji Ozawa and James Levine; and guest conductors Leonard Bernstein, André Cluytens, Igor Markevitch, Dimitri Mitropoulos, Hans Rosbaud, Joseph Rosenstock, William Steinberg, Leopold Stokowski, Willem Van Otterloo, and David Zinman.
Janis made his debut with the Orchestra at the Ravinia Festival on July 10, 1952, in Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto with Dimitri Mitropoulos conducting.
Two years later—a few weeks shy of his twenty-sixth birthday—he first performed in Orchestra Hall on March 4 and 5, 1954, in Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto with Fritz Reiner on the podium. “If you have it, you have it, and Mr. Janis does,” wrote Claudia Cassidy in the Chicago Tribune following his debut. “He has good fingers, a direct approach, and a good tone. He has temperament and fire and he wants, perhaps more than anything else 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, in the way a Russian song suddenly knows pain, which is not quite the same thing as being sad. Because of these things, because he is such a pianist, his Tchaikovsky was big, beautiful, and dynamic, yet with all its tensions it sensed the relaxed sweep of the grand style. Few things could be more stupid than to patronize such playing, which Reiner and the orchestra gave superb collaboration, part Russian song, part Russian bear. When I look forward to what that playing can be, I am speaking of it in Janis’s own terms. Give him time to strengthen those fingers, to deepen and polish that tone. But listen as he does it, for he is worth hearing now.”
He most recently appeared with the CSO in Orchestra Hall on April 20 and 21, 1967, in Prokofiev’s First Piano Concerto and Strauss’s Burleske with Irwin Hoffman conducting, and at the Ravinia Festival on August 15, 1974, in Saint-Saëns’s Fifth Piano Concerto under the baton of David Zinman.
Janis also made several recordings with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, as follows:
RACHMANINOV Piano Concerto No. 1 in F-sharp Minor, Op. 1
Fritz Reiner, conductor
Recorded March 2, 1957, in Orchestra Hall by RCA
Byron Janis’s complete RCA catalog—including his recordings with the CSO—recently was re-released in a box set.
STRAUSS Burleske for Piano and Orchestra
Fritz Reiner, conductor
Recorded March 4, 1957, in Orchestra Hall by RCA
SCHUMANN Piano Concerto in A Minor, Op. 54
Fritz Reiner, conductor
Recorded February 21, 1959, in Orchestra Hall by RCA
LISZT Totentanz for Piano and Orchestra
Fritz Reiner, conductor
Recorded February 23, 1959, in Orchestra Hall by RCA
PROKOFIEV Piano Concerto No. 1 in D-flat Major, Op. 10
Irwin Hoffman, conductor
Recorded by WFMT on April 20 and 21, 1967, in Orchestra Hall
Released in 1995 on From the Archives, vol. 10: Great Soloists
Happy, happy birthday!
Fritz Reiner (Oscar Chicago photo)
One of Fritz Reiner’s primary goals, early in his tenure as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s sixth music director, was to program major choral works. However, the repertory he wished to perform was, in his opinion, too demanding for the amateur and student groups usually engaged.
While visiting New York in February 1954, Reiner observed a rehearsal of the New York Concert Choir, under the direction of its founder, Margaret Hillis. He was so impressed that on his return to Chicago, Reiner convinced the board of trustees to hire Hillis and her ensemble for performances the following season of Barber’s recently composed Prayers of Kirkegaard and Orff’s Carmina burana, both new to the Orchestra’s repertoire. (For performances of Beethoven’s “less demanding” Ninth Symphony, the local Swedish Choral Club was engaged.)
Margaret Hillis
Hillis and the New York Concert Choir first traveled to Chicago in March 1955 for three performances of the works by Barber and Orff. Roger Dettmer, writing for the American, exclaimed, “it was Miss Hillis’s magnificent choir of sixty which matched most closely the Orchestra’s astonishing virtuosity by giving Dr. Reiner the fullest measure of choral artistry.” In the Daily News, Irving Sablosky added, “We’re not used to hearing choral singing of such refinement and nuance in symphony concerts. I hope we’ll hear more.”
Despite scheduling challenges, Reiner reengaged Hillis the following season for Mozart’s Mass in C minor and Bruckner’s Te Deum in January 1956. Dettmer wrote that the Orchestra and “Margaret Hillis’s magnificent [choir], easily the finest professional chorus in this country today, [performed] with uncommon brilliance, and maestro himself was in supremely spirited command.”
For the 1957–58 season, Reiner hoped to perform and record Verdi’s Requiem, and again he contacted Hillis. The New York Concert Choir averaged only sixty voices, and she informed Reiner they would need nearly double that in order to do justice to the Verdi. It would simply be too expensive.
This impasse gave Reiner an idea. He persuaded board president Eric Oldberg to hire Hillis to organize a chorus permanently affiliated with the Orchestra in Chicago. She initially agreed to advise on how to audition a director and choristers, but Reiner insisted there would be no chorus unless Hillis herself was the director. At the trustees meeting on September 20, 1957, Oldberg reported on successful negotiations and the plan to hire Hillis was approved.
Chicago Tribune, September 22, 1957
“As choral literature takes on increasing importance in the orchestral sphere, the Chicago Symphony is making its move to institutionalize the trend,” wrote Seymour Raven in the Chicago Tribune on September 22. “From Orchestra Hall comes word that the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Chorus is to be a new factor in the city’s musical life.”
Auditions began on October 5, and in less than two weeks the Sun-Times reported that they had “produced an exceptionally high rate of successful applicants. . . . Skill in sight-reading, interpretative ability, and voice quality were the main prerequisites for success. Voices with a tremolo or breathless quality were automatically rejected.” On October 13, the Daily News advertised that auditions were continuing: “Men’s voices are still urgently needed.”
Chicago Tribune, December 1, 1957
The Chicago Symphony Chorus, nearly one hundred voices strong, began rehearsals on October 28, and on November 30, the ensemble made an informal debut at a private concert for guarantors and sustaining members. On the first half of the concert, Reiner led Cailliet’s orchestration of Bach’s Little G minor fugue and Strauss’s Oboe Concerto (with principal Ray Still), and after intermission, Hillis took the podium, becoming the first woman to conduct the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. She led the Orchestra and Chorus in Thompson’s Alleluia and Billings’s Modern Music (both a cappella), the final section of Purcell’s Ode for Saint Cecilia’s Day, and the Servants’ Chorus from Donizetti’s Don Pasquale. Dettmer reported in the American that the debut was “more than promising . . . Miss Hillis’s choristers were fresh-voiced, musically sensitive, already balanced internally . . . she has accomplished much in the briefest time span.”
When popular guest conductor Bruno Walter informed the Orchestral Association that his March 1958 appearances would be his last in Chicago, Oldberg insisted that he should lead Mozart’s Requiem with the new chorus as his swansong. To prepare for both sets of concerts, Hillis and the Chorus began their work in earnest on Mozart’s and Verdi’s requiems, with Reiner regularly attending rehearsals.
Chicago Tribune, March 14, 1958
On March 13 and 14, 1958, the Chicago Symphony Chorus made its official debut in Mozart’s Requiem, under Walter’s baton with soloists Maria Stader, Maureen Forrester, David Lloyd, and Otto Edelmann. In the Chicago Tribune, Claudia Cassidy wrote: “The Chicago Symphony Orchestra is in high estate, with the kind of clairvoyance that gives a conductor what he wants in sound. . . . The evening’s card up the Mozartean sleeve was the new Chicago Symphony Orchestra Chorus of about 100 voices, expertly chosen and admirably trained by Margaret Hillis. It had balance and hints of brilliance, it was adroit in attack and it had moments of reassuringly imaginative song. The Confutatis in particular caught the haunted terror that was Mozart’s when the mysterious commission for the Requiem convinced him that the death knell he wrote was his own.”
Program page for Verdi’s Requiem, performed on April 3 and 4, 1958. It was repeated the following Tuesday, April 8.
Less than a month later, the Chorus appeared in Verdi’s Requiem with Reiner conducting and soloists Leonie Rysanek, Regina Resnik, David Lloyd, and Giorgio Tozzi. In the Sun-Times, Robert C. Marsh wrote that “Miss Hillis’s chorus proved its virtues earlier this season. Again its excellent enunciation, reliable intonation, and intelligent response were praiseworthy.”*
The following season, at Reiner’s invitation, Hillis conducted the Orchestra and Chorus in Honegger’s Christmas Cantata in December 1958. In the Daily News, Donal Henahan wrote, “Miss Hillis, who has been until now unknown except by name to most symphony subscribers, ruled her vast forces with a firm beat and a sure hand.” And the critic in the American noted, “With a clear (if inflexible) beat, Miss Hillis marshalled her forces, choral and orchestra, in a tight, sensitive, sweet-sounding statement of the music. . . . All in all, a glorious Christmas program.”
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus onstage in March 1959. Also pictured is chorus director Margaret Hillis, music director Fritz Reiner, and associate conductor Walter Hendl (Oscar Chicago photo).
Later that season in March 1959, Reiner led Prokofiev’s cantata Alexander Nevsky. “The climactic ‘Battle on the Ice’ was approached with expansive calm and deliberation. . . . A conductor who tries to pile climax after climax into this work can never achieve the hair-raising thrust that Reiner drew from Margaret Hillis’s Chicago Symphony Chorus at such a moment,” observed Henahan in the Daily News. The Chorus “produced a pleasing sound in all voices and a more homogeneous tone than at any time since Miss Hillis began her missionary work in Chicago.” On March 7, Reiner, the Orchestra, and Chorus committed their performance to disc for RCA, collaborating for the first time in recording sessions.
The Chorus’s first recording with the Orchestra: Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky, released by RCA in May 1960
Margaret Hillis directed the Chicago Symphony Chorus for thirty-seven years, preparing and leading concerts—in Orchestra Hall and at the Ravinia Festival, as well as on tour to Carnegie Hall, London’s Royal Albert Hall, and Salzburg’s Grosses Festspielhaus—and amassing an award-winning discography. Following her death in February 1998, the Rosenthal Archives received her collection of papers, photographs, over 1,000 scores bearing her markings, awards (including nine Grammy statuettes), recordings, and memorabilia. Representing an exceptional and pioneering career, the collection is regularly accessed by researchers, scholars, and musicians.
In June 1994, following an international search, music director Daniel Barenboim appointed Duain Wolfe to succeed Hillis. Currently in his twenty-fourth season, Wolfe continues in Hillis’s tradition, maintaining the Chorus’s extraordinarily high standards of excellence.
*Due to scheduling conflicts, Reiner was unable to get the soloists—primarily Zinka Milanov and Jussi Björling—he wanted to record Verdi’s Requiem in Chicago. He, along with Leontyne Price, Rosalind Elias, Björling (in his last commercial recording), and Giorgio Tozzi, recorded it in Vienna in June 1960 with the Vienna Singverein and Philharmonic for RCA.
This article also appears in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s March 2018 program book and here.
Title page for the first printed edition of Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra
Guest conductor George Szell led the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s first performances of Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra on December 2 and 3, 1948, almost exactly four years following the work’s premiere on December 1, 1944, with Serge Koussevitzky leading the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
In the Chicago Daily News, Clarence Joseph Bulliet called the work, “violent and awesome in its contrasts, sometimes as stormy as the most sensational of modern music. Then it calmed down to rival in delicacy the classicism of Haydn and Beethoven between which it was programmed at Orchestra Hall Thursday night.” (Haydn’s Oxford Symphony opened the concert, followed by the Bartók and Beethoven’s Emperor Piano Concerto, that featured the debut of Seymour Lipkin.) Felix Borowski, writing for the Chicago Sun, added, that Bartók’s Concerto was, “of more than ordinary worth . . . Modern, indeed it is, but there are ideas—often very beautiful ideas—in the course of it. The orchestration is rich and colorful, frequently with new and beguiling textures.”
Early in his tenure as sixth music director, Fritz Reiner first led the Orchestra in his friend and countryman’s work on October 13 and 15, 1955. “This wonderful score, a network of nerves spun and controlled by the most brilliant of nervous energies, was played as only great orchestras can play,” wrote Claudia Cassidy in the Chicago Tribune. “It is a superb work and a Reiner triumph.”
The following week, Reiner and the Orchestra committed their performance to disc on October 22; for RCA, Richard Mohr was the producer and Lewis Layton the recording engineer. In February 2016, Gramophone listed this release as one of the “finest recordings of Bartók’s music,” noting the “sheer fervour of Reiner’s direction . . . taut and agile . . . [his] precision and control is immediately apparent.”
The Orchestra has since recorded the work on five additional occasions, as follows:
During his year as principal conductor of the Ravinia Festival, Seiji Ozawa recorded the work in Orchestra Hall on June 30 and July 1, 1969, for Angel. Peter Andry was the executive producer, Richard C. Jones the producer, and Carson Taylor was the recording engineer. Eighth music director Sir Georg Solti conducted the Concerto for London on January 19 and 20, 1981, in Orchestra Hall. James Mallinson was the producer and James Lock the balance engineer.
James Levine, Ravinia’s second music director, led sessions in Orchestra Hall on June 28, 1989, for Deutsche Grammophon. Steven Paul was executive producer, Christopher Alder the recording producer, and Gregor Zielinsky was balance engineer. During the 1990 tour to the Soviet Union, Hungary, and Austria, Solti conducted the Orchestra in an all-Bartók program, video recorded at the Budapest Convention Centre on November 28, 1990, for London. Humphrey Burton directed the production, and Katya Krausova was producer, Eric Abraham the executive producer, and Michael Haas the audio producer.
Most recently, Pierre Boulez recorded the work in Orchestra Hall on November 30, 1992, for Deutsche Grammophon. Roger Wright was the executive producer, Karl-August Naegler the recording producer, Rainer Maillard the balance engineer, and Jobst Eberhardt and Reinhild Schmidt were recording engineers. The release won 1994 Grammy awards for Best Classical Album and Best Orchestral Performance.
from the archives 