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On May 23, 2023, we commemorate the centennial of legendary Spanish pianist Alicia de Larrocha (1923–2009). Over the course of four decades, she was a frequent soloist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in Orchestra Hall, the Ravinia Festival, in Carnegie Hall, and in Milwaukee. As a recitalist, she regularly appeared under the auspices of Allied Arts and Symphony Center Presents between 1967 and 2001.
De Larrocha’s auspicious CSO and Carnegie Hall debuts occurred on November 8, 1966, when she performed one of her signature works, Falla’s Nights in the Gardens of Spain under the baton of seventh music director Jean Martinon. “Miss de Larrocha is a marvel. Her playing has perfect finish, complete authority, and rhythmic suppleness,” wrote Harold C. Schonberg in the New York Times. “As a Spaniard, she brings special authority to the Falla work, that curious and attractive hybrid of Spanish feeling and French technique. . . . She is a wonderful pianist and more: she is an artist.”
“The diminutive pianist from Barcelona may be the youngest seventy-six-year-old virtuoso before the public,” according to John von Rhein in the Chicago Tribune, following de Larrocha’s July 10, 1999, appearance with the Orchestra at the Ravinia Festival. “Her splendidly even fingering, rounded tone, pearly legato runs, and springy rhythmic articulations made her an ideal interpreter for Mozart’s sunny Piano Concerto no. 19 in F, K. 459. Everything was in the best of taste, nothing was overdone or excessively manicured, making this perfect midsummer Mozart.”
A complete list of Alicia de Larrocha’s appearances with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra is below.
November 8, 1966, Carnegie Hall
FALLA Nights in the Gardens of Spain
Jean Martinon, conductor
November 26, 1966, Orchestra Hall
MONTSALVATGE Concerto breve
Irwin Hoffman, conductor
October 3 and 4, 1968, Orchestra Hall
SCHUMANN Piano Concerto in A Minor, Op. 54
István Kertész, conductor
August 11, 1973, Ravinia Festival
MOZART Piano Concerto No. 27 in B-flat Major, K. 595
Lawrence Foster, conductor
April 29, 30, and May 1, 1976, Orchestra Hall
May 12, 1976, Carnegie Hall
MOZART Piano Concerto No. 27 in B-flat Major, K. 595
Sir Georg Solti, conductor
July 8, 1976, Ravinia Festival
RAVEL Piano Concerto in G Major
RAVEL Piano Concerto for the Left Hand in D Major
James Levine, conductor
August 10, 1978, Ravinia Festival
CHOPIN Piano Concerto No. 2 in F Minor, Op. 21
James Conlon, conductor
December 13, 14, 15, and 16, 1978, Orchestra Hall
December 18, 1978, Uihlein Hall, Milwaukee
MOZART Piano Concerto No. 25 in C Major, K. 503
Sir Georg Solti, conductor
July 10, 1981, Ravinia Festival
RAVEL Piano Concerto in G Major
James Levine, conductor
October 15, 16, 17, and 1981, Orchestra Hall
MOZART Piano Concerto No. 22 in E-flat Major, K. 482
FALLA Nights in the Gardens of Spain
Garcia Navarro, conductor
July 30, 1983, Ravinia Festival
BEETHOVEN Piano Concerto No. 1 in C Major, Op. 15
FALLA Nights in the Gardens of Spain
Jesús López-Cobos, conductor
August 10, 1985, Ravinia Festival
BEETHOVEN Piano Concerto No. 3 in C Minor, Op. 37
Michael Tilson Thomas, conductor
December 5, 6, and 7, 1985, Orchestra Hall
RAVEL Piano Concerto in G Major
Erich Leinsdorf, conductor
July 12, 1986, Ravinia Festival
SCHUMANN Piano Concerto in A Minor, Op. 54
James Levine, conductor
July 16, 1988, Ravinia Festival
MOZART Piano Concerto No. 9 in E-flat Major, K. 271 (Jeunehomme)
Dennis Russell Davies, conductor
August 10, 1989, Ravinia Festival
BEETHOVEN Piano Concerto No. 1 in C Major, Op. 15
BEETHOVEN Piano Concerto No. 2 B-flat Major, Op. 19
BEETHOVEN Piano Concerto No. 3, C Minor, Opus 37
Edo de Waart, conductor
August 12, 1989, Ravinia Festival
BEETHOVEN Piano Concerto No. 4 in G Major, Op. 58
BEETHOVEN Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat Major, Op. 73 (Emperor)
Edo de Waart, conductor
October 12, 13, and 14, 1989, Orchestra Hall
MOZART Piano Concerto No. 21 in C Major, K. 467
FALLA Nights in the Gardens of Spain
David Zinman, conductor
July 28, 1990, Ravinia Festival
MOZART Piano Concerto No. 25 in C Major, K. 503
Gianluigi Gelmetti, conductor
August 2, 1991, Ravinia Festival
MOZART Piano Concerto No. 24 in C Minor, K. 491
Marek Janowski, conductor
July 18, 1992, Ravinia Festival
SCHUMANN Piano Concerto in A Minor, Op. 54
James Conlon, conductor
July 17, 1994, Ravinia Festival
BEETHOVEN Piano Concerto No. 4 in G Major, Op. 58
Semyon Bychkov, conductor
July 22, 1995, Ravinia Festival
RAVEL Piano Concerto in G Major
Riccardo Chailly, conductor
February 29, March 1, 2, 3, and 5, 1996, Orchestra Hall
MOZART Piano Concerto No. 23 in A Major, K. 488
Daniele Gatti, conductor
August 2, 1996, Ravinia Festival
FALLA Nights in the Garden of Spain
Christoph Eschenbach, conductor
July 10, 1999, Ravinia Festival
MOZART Piano Concerto No. 19 in F Major, K. 459
Semyon Bychkov, conductor
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Wishing a very happy birthday to our founder and first music director, Theodore Thomas, on the occasion of his 186th birthday!
“The first of the great conductors active in America was the German-born Theodore Thomas, whose family came to New York from Hannover when he was ten years old. Thomas can thus legitimately be called an American product. . . . From the beginning, Thomas dedicated himself to the idea that good music was a necessity for the people, not a luxury. He also made up his mind that he was going to be the man to bring music to them.”
“[Thomas] had a genuine nobility and a musical adventurousness far beyond that of any conductor active in America at the time. Nobody could swerve him from his mission. . . . When [Adelina] Patti sang under his baton, she wanted things her way; she was the prima donna, she said. Thomas corrected her. ‘Excuse me, madam. Here I am the prima donna.'”
“The importance of Theodore Thomas in the American scheme of things cannot be overestimated. More than any single person he raised the standards of orchestral playing and repertoire. . . . The man was protean and possessed of a high order of discrimination. He had daring, imagination, and, above all, determination; a will that could not be bent, much less broken. It was he who, through his tours with the Theodore Thomas Orchestra, brought the sound of symphonic music for the first time to a large part of the United States. Pioneer, educator, organizer, scrapper, Theodore Thomas was in addition a brilliant and far-seeing conductor . . . and once he started, he never let down. . . . Thomas did keep on, and lived to see the emergence of a great musical culture in his country. A substantial part of it was all his work.”
—excerpts from The Great Conductors by Harold C. Schonberg, 1967.
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Sir Georg Solti and Birgit Nilsson studying the score for Strauss’s Salome (Terry’s photo)
Swedish soprano Birgit Nilsson sang the title role in Strauss’s Salome with Sir Georg Solti leading the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in concerts at Orchestra Hall on December 13 and 15, 1974, and on December 18 in Carnegie Hall. The cast also included Ruth Hesse as Herodias, Ragnar Ulfung as Herod, Norman Bailey as Jochanaan, and George Shirley as Narraboth.
“Superb is hardly the word for Miss Nilsson’s performance of the title role. Hers was a formidable triumph,” wrote Karen Monson in the Chicago Daily News. “She had superb help from Solti, who conducted the mightily convoluted score ingeniously . . . [maintaining] a miraculous balance between voices and instruments.”
December 13 and 15, 1974
“The key to the performance was the combination of the great Salome voice of the century with the great Salome conductor of our day and an orchestra that has been dedicated to Strauss’s cause for all its eighty-four years,” added Robert C. Marsh in the Chicago Sun-Times. Nilsson “gave a performance which, I believe, could not have been duplicated for its strength and depth of insight and vocal richness by any other living singer.”
Following the December 18 concert in Carnegie Hall, Harold C. Schoenberg in The New York Times concluded, “This was a Salome of thrilling impact, well deserving of the cheers that greeted the last note. Mr. Solti remains the conducting idol of New York.”
Nilsson would appear with the Orchestra once more, on a run-out concert to Michigan State University for the gala opening and dedication of the Wharton Center for Performing Arts on September 25, 1982. She performed excerpts from Wagner’s operas, including “Dich, teure Halle” from Tannhäuser and Isolde’s narrative from act 1 and the Liebestod from Tristan and Isolde. Reynald Giovaninetti conducted.
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from the archives 