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The Chicago Symphony Orchestra family joins the music world in mourning the loss of German-born Israeli-American pianist and teacher Menahem Pressler. He died in London on Saturday, May 6, 2023, at the age of ninety-nine.
Born in Magdeburg, Germany in 1923, Pressler emigrated to Israel after fleeing Nazi Germany in 1939. He won first prize at the Debussy International Piano Competition in San Francisco in 1946 and made his U.S. debut in Schumann’s Piano Concerto with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Eugene Ormandy at Carnegie Hall on December 9, 1947.
The Beaux Arts Trio—with Pressler, violinist Daniel Guilet, and cellist Bernard Greenhouse—made their debut on on July 13, 1955, at the Berkshire Music Festival in Massachusetts. The ensemble would flourish for more than fifty years—with Pressler at the helm as the trio’s only pianist—and was later called “the gold standard for trios throughout the world” by the Washington Post and “in a class by itself” by the New York Times. The ensemble gave its farewell performances in August and September 2008, at Tanglewood and Lucerne, respectively.
For more than sixty years, Pressler served on the faculty at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music. He received several honorary doctorates, six Grammy nominations, lifetime achievement awards from Gramophone magazine and the International Chamber Music Association, Chamber Music America’s Distinguished Service Award, the Gold Medal of Merit from the National Society of Arts and Letters, and the Music Teachers National Association Achievement Award.
In Chicago, twenty-six-year-old Pressler made his debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at the Ravinia Festival in July 1950, performing Rachmaninov’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini and Grieg’s Piano Concerto. Most recently—at the age of ninety-two—he appeared in recital at Orchestra Hall on January 24, 2016, performing works by Mozart, Schubert, Kurtag, Debussy, and Chopin.
A complete list of his performances with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra—as piano soloist and as a member of the Beaux Arts Trio—is below.
July 27, 1950, Ravinia Festival
RACHMANINOV Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini
William Steinberg, conductor
Menahem Pressler, piano
July 30, 1950, Ravinia Festival
GRIEG Piano Concerto in A Minor
William Steinberg, conductor
Menahem Pressler, piano
July 26, 1957, Ravinia Festival
BEETHOVEN Concerto for Piano, Violin, and Cello in C Major, Op. 56 (Triple)
Georg Solti, conductor
Beaux Arts Trio
Menahem Pressler, piano
Daniel Guilet, violin
Bernard Greenhouse, cello
June 8 and 9, 1972, Orchestra Hall
CHOPIN Piano Concerto No. 2 in F Minor, Op. 21
Aldo Ceccato, conductor
Menahem Pressler, piano
July 29, 1984, Ravinia Festival
BEETHOVEN Fantasy in C Minor for Piano, Chorus, and Orchestra, Op. 80 (Choral Fantasy)
Kurt Masur, conductor
Menahem Pressler, piano
Sally Schweikert, soprano
Elaine Rogala, soprano
Cynthia Anderson, mezzo-soprano
Thomas Dymit, tenor
Timothy O’Connor, tenor
Richard Cohn, baritone
Chicago Symphony Chorus
Margaret Hillis, director
July 11, 1997, Ravinia Festival
BEETHOVEN Piano Concerto No. 4 in G Major, Op. 58
Donald Runnicles, conductor
Menahem Pressler, piano
July 13, 2002, Ravinia Festival
MOZART Concerto for Three Pianos in F Major, K. 242
Peter Oundjian, conductor
Leon Fleisher, piano
Claude Frank, piano
Menahem Pressler, piano
July 7, 2007, Ravinia Festival
BEETHOVEN Concerto for Piano, Violin, and Cello in C Major, Op. 56 (Triple)
James Conlon, conductor
Beaux Arts Trio
Menahem Pressler, piano
Daniel Hope, violin
Antônio Meneses, cello
Numerous tributes have been published online, including the New York Times, Indiana University, the Times, and the Washington Post, among others.
This article also appears here.
Wishing a very happy eighty-fifth birthday to the remarkable Estonian composer Arvo Pärt!
Arvo Pärt (Press Service photo)
Following the first Chicago Symphony Orchestra performances of the composer’s Third Symphony in 1989, John von Rhein wrote in the Chicago Tribune, “We must be grateful to Neeme Järvi [to whom the work was dedicated] for introducing us to this fascinating and utterly individual composer, and for doing so in a performance of such power, accuracy, and dedication. . . . [Pärt’s] spare ritualistic austerity (deeply rooted in medieval modes and harmonies) [is] strongly beholden to the cadences of Machaut and other fourteenth and fifteenth-century music [and] speaks with a communicative fervor.”
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra has performed several works by Pärt in Orchestra Hall, at the Ravinia Festival, and at Wheaton College. A complete list of performances is below.
November 22, 24, 25, and 28, 1989, Orchestra Hall
PÄRT Symphony No. 3
Neeme Järvi, conductor
July 18, 1992, Ravinia Festival
PÄRT Symphony No. 2
James Conlon, conductor
April 15, 16, 17, 18, and 21, 1998, Orchestra Hall
PÄRT Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten
Donald Runnicles, conductor
May 6, 7, and 8, 2004, Orchestra Hall
PÄRT Fratres
Christoph von Dohnányi, conductor
Yuan-Qing Yu, violin
January 22, 23, and 24, 2009, Orchestra Hall
PÄRT Symphony No. 4 (Los Angeles)
Esa-Pekka Salonen, conductor
February 11, 12, 13, and 16, 2016, Orchestra Hall
PÄRT Orient & Occident
Gennady Rozhdestvensky, conductor
April 20, 22, and 23, 2017, Orchestra Hall
April 21, 2017, Edman Memorial Chapel, Wheaton College
PÄRT Fratres
Neeme Järvi, conductor
Robert Chen, violin
Happy, happy birthday!
The Theodore Thomas Orchestra (as we were then called) under the baton of music director Frederick Stock first performed Mahler’s Symphony no. 5 on March 22 and 23, 1907 (the program page and notes are here). Critical reception was, shall we say, mixed.
“Ugly symphony is well played . . . Mahler of Vienna writes bad music,” proclaimed reviewer Millar Ular of the Examiner the morning after the first performance. He goes on to write that rather than title the symphony “The Giant,” it might be better titled “The Octopus” due to its ugliness, “The Dachshund” due to its length, or “Chaos” due to its purported lack of form. As the Chicago Journal dramatically stated in a separate review, Mahler’s Fifth is “A long and tedious work” and “Mahler is a musical allopath, and those who remained to hear him out suffered from an overdose.” And even the public expressed their opinion, as “before it was done, fully half the audience had fled.” (Both of the reviews are here.)
In the words of Frederick Stock, “I do not believe that this symphony is the kind of music that will live,” with the reviewer concluding, “It is a symphony which, it is devoutly hoped, will never again be heard in Chicago . . . a verdict that is both cruel and true.” How wrong they both were, although it did take another generation for the music of Gustav Mahler to gain traction in the CSO’s programming. The symphony was not performed in full again until December 1950 under the baton of Rafael Kubelík during his first season as music director. (It does appear that Stock had a small change of heart; thirty years after the Chicago premiere of the full symphony, he conducted the Adagietto movement for strings and harp in December 1937.)
Mahler, well known for extensive stylistic direction in his compositions, received criticism from the Chicago Journal: “He is not so particular about what he says so long as he says it well.” Take this opinion from 1907 and consider the composer’s indications concerning the opening trumpet fanfare. At the bottom of the first trumpet part, Mahler designates Die Auftakt-Triolen dieses Themas müssen stets etwas flüchtig—quasi acc., nach Art der Militärfanfaren vorgetragen werden! (The pick-up triplets from this theme must be performed in a somewhat brief or fleeting manner in the style of a military fanfare!). Such a command is not unusual in Mahler’s music; however Ular in the Examiner remains critical, “Of originality, he has not the slightest trace. His themes are trivial, sometimes vulgar, always uninteresting and lacking utterly beauty of melodic curve.”
The opening bars of the first trumpet part of Mahler’s Fifth
The command indicated in the trumpet part has led to a long tradition of trumpeters to play these triplets slightly rushed; the particular manner of this affectation is a constantly discussed topic in the brass community. How was a Germanic military fanfare at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century played? It is possible the CSO’s principal trumpet at these concerts, German-born Paul Handke (principal trumpet 1903–1912) may have known firsthand the specific tradition intended.
In this case, we can determine precisely what affectation the composer commanded. In 1904 Mahler made multiple piano rolls of his own music for the Welte-Mignon piano company. Contemporary recordings of these rolls provide not only the reproduction the notes but also the dynamics of the original, giving us a close look into the composer’s interpretation of his own music. In Mahler’s recording of the first movement of his Fifth Symphony, the opening triplets are indeed rushed in a German militaristic manner, which is how you will often hear modern trumpeters perform these first notes.
Mahler’s Fifth Symphony: originally considered “trivial, sometimes vulgar, always uninteresting.” But just like, as Phillip Huscher describes in his program note, the symphony’s “struggle to rise from C-sharp to D, and from minor to major, underlines the music’s quest to rise from tragedy to victory,” so has risen appreciation for this now pillar of the repertoire.
Guest blogger Charles Russell Roberts is a trumpet player and an intern in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s Rosenthal Archives.
This week, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra performs Mahler’s Fifth Symphony. Donald Runnicles conducts.
As we prepare for Riccardo Muti‘s interpretation of Verdi’s Macbeth, we’re reminded that the Chicago Symphony Orchestra has quite the performance history with the opera, both in whole and in part.
The CSO first performed music from Verdi’s Macbeth at the Ravinia Festival on July 21, 1977, under the baton of James Levine, the Festival’s music director. The first half of the program included selections from several Verdi operas (I vespri siciliani, Aida, La traviata, and Simon Boccanegra), but the second half was dedicated solely to Macbeth. Soprano Marisa Galvany (a last-minute replacement for an indisposed Martina Arroyo) and baritone Cornell MacNeil performed several selections, including the scena and duet from act 1, scene 2; “Pietà, rispetto, amore”; “Una macchia è qui tuttora”; and “Ove son io?”
Ravinia Festival, June 26, 1981
Opening the Ravinia Festival’s forty-sixth season, the CSO gave its first complete performance of Verdi’s Macbeth on June 26, 1981. James Levine conducted, and the complete cast was as follows:
Macbeth Sherrill Milnes, baritone
Banquo John Cheek, bass-baritone
Lady Macbeth Renata Scotto, soprano
Servant/Herald Rush Tully, bass-baritone
Macduff Giuliano Ciannella, tenor
Malcolm Timothy Jenkins, tenor
Lady-in-Waiting Gene Marie Callahan, soprano
Assassin/Warrior Duane Clenton Carter, baritone
Bloody Child Sharon Graham, mezzo-soprano
Crowned Child Michelle Harman-Gulick, soprano
Physician Terry Cook, bass
Chicago Symphony Chorus
Margaret Hillis, director
James Winfield, associate director
On one of our previous From the Archives CD collections, we released the scene that begins “Una macchia, è qui tuttora” from act 4 (with Scotto, Callahan, and Cook). The set—A Tribute to James Levine—was released in 2004 and was volume 18 in the series.
At Orchestra Hall, the Chicago Symphony Chorus (prepared by Margaret Hillis and guest chorus master Terry Edwards) performed numerous choruses from Verdi’s operas and the Requiem, including two from Macbeth: “Tre volte miagola” and “Patria oppressa!” on November 2, 3, and 4, 1989. Sir Georg Solti led the first two concerts, and Kenneth Jean led the November 4 performance.
With Solti conducting, the choruses were recorded by London Records. Michael Haas was the producer, James Lock was the engineer, and Deborah Rogers was the tape editor.
Also at the Ravinia Festival, bass-baritone James Morris performed “Studia il passo, o mio figlio!” on July 12, 1997, with Donald Runnicles conducting; on August 8, 1997, Christoph Eschenbach conducted the ballet music; and on August 3, 2002, Eschenbach again led the ballet music as well as “Pietà, rispetto, amore” with baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky.
from the archives 