Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Riccardo Muti, Conductor
Bellini
Overture to Norma
Schubert
Symphony No. 8 in B Minor, D. 759 (Unfinished)
Allegro moderato
Andante con moto
INTERMISSION
Tchaikovsky
Symphony No. 4 in F Minor, Op. 36
Andante sostenuto
Andantino in modo di canzona
Scherzo: Pizzicato ostinato
Finale: Allegro con fuoco
Zell Family Foundation is the sponsor of the CSO’s U.S. Tour.
This concert is sponsored by Kenneth C. Griffin and Citadel | Citadel Securities.
Additional tour support provided by The Clinton Family Fund.
PROGRAM NOTES
VINCENZO BELLINI
Born: November 3, 1801; Catania, Italy
Died: September 23, 1835; Puteaux, near Paris, France
Overture to Norma
Composed: 1831
First performance: December 26, 1831, Teatro alla Scala, Milan, Italy
Instrumentation: Two flutes (second doubling piccolo), two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, percussion, harp, strings
Although Bellini’s Norma has long been identified with the celebrated sopranos who have conquered its formidable title role, beginning with Giuditta Pasta at the 1831 premiere, Bellini’s deeply expressive orchestral writing is one of the opera’s great strengths. Bellini was paid an unprecedented sum for the 1830 commission of Norma for Teatro alla scala in Milan, which suggests his preeminence in the operatic world at the time. Although the premiere was only a modest success, beginning with a run of performances in Bergamo the following summer, Norma grew to be revered more than any of the other crowd-pleasing Italian operas of the period, partly for the stately seriousness of its musical style and the elegance of Bellini’s expansive melodies. The overture to Norma, like many at the time, previews music from the opera (the “Guerra, guerra” chorus and Norma’s act 2 duet with Pollione, her former lover), but it surpasses them in the way it serves not as a casual curtain-raiser, but as a way of establishing mood and preparing the conflict of the love triangle that lies ahead. The refinement of Bellini’s writing comes as no surprise: He is said to have composed eight versions of Norma’s famous aria, “Casta diva,” and is even thought to have tossed his original overture before writing this one.
FRANZ SCHUBERT
Born: January 31, 1797; Himmelpfortgrund, northwest of Vienna, Austria
Died: November 19, 1828; Vienna
Symphony No. 8 in B Minor, D. 759 (Unfinished)
Composed: Manuscript dated October 30, 1822
First performance: December 17, 1865; Vienna
Instrumentation: Two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, three trombones, timpani, strings
We don’t know why Schubert never finished his B minor symphony. This has been one of music’s great unanswered questions for more than a hundred years, and, despite some intelligent speculation, we still come up empty-handed today. At least we know that he didn’t finish it. The facts are scarce and mysterious, which has only heightened the intrigue over the years. There was no mention of this symphony made during the composer’s lifetime. It lay buried, like hidden treasure, in Anselm Hüttenbrenner’s cluttered study until the 1860s—more than 30 years after Schubert’s death—when it was dusted off to take its place as No. 8 among Schubert’s known symphonies.
The full score, clearly written in Schubert’s own hand, is dated October 30, 1822, Vienna, and signed, with his characteristic flourish, “Franz Schubert.” The manuscript, headed “Symphony in B minor,” includes two movements: a wonderful, singing Allegro moderato and a heartbreaking Andante con moto—both so sublime that the Unfinished nickname is all the more frustrating. On the back of the final page of the Andante are nine measures of a scherzo, fully scored, followed by four blank pages. In the 1960s, Christa Landon discovered a missing leaf that ought to have come before the empty pages, containing measures 10 through 20 and then stopping abruptly, as if Schubert had been interrupted midthought. (A piano sketch of the symphony shows that Schubert had planned the entire scherzo and the beginning of a trio.)
Imagine the joy of uncovering one of music’s true masterworks. Even Eduard Hanslick, as demanding (and sometimes as nasty) as any critic in the 19th century, quickly turned to butter when he reviewed the first performance in 1865: “When, after the few introductory measures, clarinets and oboes in unison begin to sound their sweet song above the peaceful murmur of the violins, then each and every child recognizes the composer, and a half-suppressed outcry ‘Schubert’ buzzes through the hall. He has hardly entered, but it is as if one knows him by his step, by his manner of lifting the latch.”
We now know Schubert perhaps best of all by that sweet song, and there are generations of schoolchildren who may never forget those unfortunate words—“this is the symphony that Schubert wrote and never finished”—that eager music teachers have added to the lovely cello melody that follows. The pathos and beauty of this entire stretch of music is extraordinary, but even more remarkable is the way Schubert sustains the spell throughout the movement and into the second. Schubert’s sketches show that he originally wanted to end his first movement in B major—which would have broken the mood—but he thought better of it, leaving us instead in the dark recesses of B minor.
The slow movement—and it is only relatively slow, for Schubert specifies Andante con moto (with motion)—is in the unexpected key of E major, where he would again uncover great riches in the Adagio of the C major string quintet. In this lovely movement, a few especially eloquent details stand out: the high-flying clarinet solo that gently sails over shifting chords and a wonderful moment of total stillness, disturbed only by the octave call of the horn, just before Schubert leads us back to the opening.
And it is here, with this perfect Andante, that we must stop. Schubert’s plans for the third-movement scherzo look promising—it begins with a strong theme, first played in octaves by the full orchestra. There is no telling what might have emerged had he polished this raw material into something as fine as the two movements we know so well.
PYOTR TCHAIKOVSKY
Born: May 7, 1840; Votkinsk, Russia
Died: November 18, 1893; Saint Petersburg, Russia
Symphony No. 4 in F Minor, Op. 36
Composed: May 1877–January 19, 1878
First performance: March 4, 1878; Moscow, Russia
Instrumentation: Two flutes and piccolo, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, triangle, cymbals, bass drum, strings
Tchaikovsky was at work on his Fourth Symphony when he received a letter from Antonina Milyukova claiming to be a former student of his and declaring that she was madly in love with him. Tchaikovsky had just read Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin, hoping to find an opera subject, and he saw fateful parallels between Antonina and Pushkin’s heroine, Tatiana. It is hard to say which letter provoked the stronger response from Tchaikovsky—the despairing letter Tatiana writes to the coldhearted Onegin, or the one he himself received from Antonina, threatening suicide. The first inspired one of the great scenes in opera; the latter precipitated a painful and disastrous marriage.
Tchaikovsky’s marriage lasted less than three months. On October 13, Tchaikovsky’s brother Anatoly took him to Switzerland, then on to Paris and Italy. Tchaikovsky asked that the unfinished manuscript of the Fourth Symphony be sent from Moscow, and he completed the scoring in January 1878. He finished Eugene Onegin the following month. That March, he sketched the violin concerto in just 11 days. When he returned to Russia in late April, his problems with Antonina were still unresolved—she first accepted and then rejected the divorce papers, and later extracted her final revenge by moving into the apartment above his—but the worst year of his life was over.
The temptation to read a program into Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony is as old as the work itself. Since his patron Nadezhda von Meck allowed Tchaikovsky to dedicate the symphony to her (without mentioning her name) and was contributing generously to support his career, she demanded to know what the work was about. Tchaikovsky’s response, often quoted, is a detailed account, filled with emotional thoughts and empty phrases—words written after the fact to satisfy an indispensable patron. When Tchaikovsky mentions fate, however, his words ring true; this was a subject that had haunted him since 1876, when he saw Carmen and was struck by the “death of the two principals who, through fate, fatum, ultimately reach the peak of their suffering and their inescapable end.”
Indeed, the icy blast from the horns that opens this symphony returns repeatedly in the first movement (and once in the finale), each time wiping out everything in its path. It’s like the celebrated fate motive from Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony—the one the composer himself compared to fate knocking at the door—except that it’s more of a disruption than a compositional device. Later, Tchaikovsky wrote to the composer Sergei Taneyev, a former student, “Of course, my symphony is programmatic, but this program is such that it cannot be formulated in words.”
Taneyev was perhaps the first to question the preponderance of what he called ballet music in the symphony. In fact, the lilting main theme of the opening movement (marked “in movimento di valse”) and the whole of the two inner movements—the slow pas de deux with its mournful oboe solo, and the brilliant and playful pizzicato scherzo—remind us that the best of Tchaikovsky’s ballet scores are symphonic in scope and tone. Tchaikovsky was angered by the comment and asked Taneyev if he considered ballet music “every cheerful tune that has a dance rhythm? If that’s the case,” he concluded, “you must also be unable to reconcile yourself to the majority of Beethoven’s symphonies in which you encounter such things at every turn.” The finale is more complex, emotionally and musically, swinging from the dark emotions of the first movement to a more festive mood. “If you cannot discover reasons for happiness in yourself,” Tchaikovsky wrote to Mme von Meck, “look at others. Get out among the people. Look what a good time they have simply surrendering themselves to joy.” There is one final intrusion of the fateful horns from the symphony’s opening, but this time the music quickly recovers, rousing itself to a defiantly triumphant and heroic Beethovenian ending, in intention if not in substance.
Phillip Huscher is program annotator for Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Founded by Theodore Thomas in 1891, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra is consistently hailed as one of the world’s great orchestras. In April 2024, Klaus Mäkelä was named the Orchestra’s 11th music director, and he will begin an initial five-year tenure as Zell Music Director with the 2027-28 Season. Riccardo Muti, the Orchestra’s distinguished 10th music director from 2010 until 2023, became Music Director Emeritus for Life at the beginning of the 2023-24 Season. Pianist Daniil Trifonov is CSO Artist-in-Residence for the 2024-25 Season.
The history of the ensemble began in 1889, when Thomas, the leading conductor in America and a recognized music pioneer, was invited by Chicago businessman Charles Norman Fay to establish a symphony orchestra. Thomas’ aim to build a permanent orchestra of the highest quality was realized at the first concerts in October 1891 in the Auditorium Theatre. Thomas served as music director until his death in January 1905, just three weeks after the dedication of Orchestra Hall, the Orchestra’s permanent home designed by Daniel Burnham. The CSO’s other distinguished music directors include Frederick Stock, Désiré Defauw, Artur Rodzinski, Rafael Kubelík, Fritz Reiner, Jean Martinon, Sir Georg Solti, Daniel Barenboim and Muti.
The musicians of the CSO command a vast repertoire and annually perform more than 150 concerts, most at Symphony Center in Chicago. The CSO also tours nationally and internationally. Since its first tour to Canada in 1892, the Orchestra has performed in 29 countries on five continents in 64 international tours. The Orchestra first performed at Ravinia Park in 1905, and in August 1936 the Orchestra helped to inaugurate the first season of the Ravinia Festival. It has been in residence nearly every summer since.
Patrons around the globe enjoy weekly radio broadcasts of CSO concerts and recordings via the WFMT Radio Network and at CSO.org/Radio. Since 1916, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus have amassed an extensive discography that has earned 65 Grammy Awards.
The CSO is part of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association, which includes the following entities: The Chicago Symphony Chorus, founded in 1957, is the country’s largest professional chorus. Founded during the 1919-20 season, the Civic Orchestra of Chicago is a training ensemble for emerging professionals with Ken-David Masur serving as its principal conductor. Symphony Center Presents features guest artists and ensembles across an expansive array of genres, including classical, jazz, world and contemporary. The Negaunee Music Institute offers community and educational programs that annually engage more than 200,000 people of diverse ages and backgrounds throughout the Chicagoland area.
Thousands of patrons, volunteers and donors—corporations, foundations, government agencies and individuals—support the CSOA every year. The CSO’s music director position is endowed in perpetuity by a generous gift from the Zell Family Foundation. The Negaunee Foundation provides generous support in perpetuity for the work of the Negaunee Music Institute.
RICCARDO MUTI
Born in Naples, Italy, Riccardo Muti is one of the preeminent conductors of our day. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s distinguished 10th music director from 2010 until 2023, Muti became Music Director Emeritus for Life beginning with the 2023-24 season.
His leadership has been distinguished by the strength of his artistic partnership with the Orchestra; his dedication to performing great works of the past and present, including 17 world premieres to date; the enthusiastic reception he and the CSO have received on national and international tours; and 12 recordings on the CSO Resound label, with three Grammy Awards among them. In addition, Muti’s contributions to the cultural life of Chicago—with performances throughout its many neighborhoods and at Orchestra Hall—have made a lasting impact on the city.
Before becoming the CSO’s music director, Muti had more than 40 years of experience at the helm of Maggio Musicale Fiorentino (1968-1980), the Philharmonia Orchestra (1972-1982), the Philadelphia Orchestra (1980-1992) and Teatro alla Scala (1986–2005).
Herbert von Karajan invited him to conduct at the Salzburg Festival in Austria in 1971. Muti has maintained a close relationship with the summer festival and its great orchestra, the Vienna Philharmonic, for over 50 years. He has received the distinguished Golden Ring and the Otto Nicolai Gold Medal from the Philharmonic for his outstanding artistic contributions to the orchestra. He has also received a silver medal from the Salzburg Mozarteum and the Golden Johann Strauss Award by the Johann Strauss Society of Vienna. He is an honorary member of Vienna’s Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, the Vienna Hofmusikkapelle, the Vienna Philharmonic and the Vienna State Opera. In 2021, he received the highest civilian honor from the Austrian government, the Great Golden Decoration of Honor.
Muti has received innumerable international honors. He is a Cavaliere di Gran Croce of the Italian Republic, Knight Commander of the British Empire, Commander of the French Legion of Honor, Knight of the Grand Cross First Class of the Order of Saint Gregory the Great and a recipient of the German Verdienstkreuz. Muti has also received Israel’s Wolf Prize for the Arts, Sweden’s Birgit Nilsson Prize, Spain’s Prince of Asturias Award, Ukraine’s State Award, Japan’s Praemium Imperiale and Order of the Rising Sun Gold and Silver Star, as well as the gold medal from Italy’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the “Presidente della Repubblica” award from the Italian government. Muti has also received more than 20 honorary degrees from universities worldwide.
Muti’s vast catalog of recordings, numbering in the hundreds, ranges from traditional symphonic and operatic repertoires to contemporary works. Passionate about teaching young musicians, Muti founded the Luigi Cherubini Youth Orchestra in 2004 and the Riccardo Muti Italian Opera Academy in 2015. Through Le vie dell’Amicizia (The Roads of Friendship), a project of the Ravenna Festival in Italy, he has conducted in the world’s most troubled areas in order to bring attention to civic and social issues.
The label RMMMUSIC is responsible for Riccardo Muti’s recordings.
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
The CSO’s music director position is endowed in perpetuity by a generous gift from the Zell Family Foundation.
The Nancy and Larry Fuller, Gilchrist Foundation and Louise H. Benton Wagner chairs currently are unoccupied.
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra string sections utilize revolving seating. Players behind the first desk (first two desks in the violins) change seats systematically every two weeks and are listed alphabetically. Section percussionists also are listed alphabetically.
Classical Conversations
Dr. Rufus Jones Jr. began his formal training as an orchestral conductor at the University of Texas at Austin. After graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in Music, Dr. Jones continued his formal training as a Clifford D. Clarke Graduate Fellow at the State University of New York in Binghamton, where he received a Master of Music in Instrumental Conducting. Dr. Jones completed his formal training at Texas Tech University, where he received a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Orchestral Conducting.
Dr. Jones has studied with internationally recognized conductors such as Louis Lane, Gustav Meier, Kirk Trevor, Donald Portnoy, Timothy Perry, Kenneth Kiesler and Gary Lewis.
Dr. Jones has conducted youth, university and professional orchestras throughout this country and abroad. He has been accepted to prestigious conducting programs such as the Tanglewood Music Festival (auditor), The Conductor’s Institute of South Carolina (fellow) and the Leiston Abbey Conducting Masterclass in Suffolk, England (fellow).
His professional career began in 1998 as assistant conductor of the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra, under the leadership of then music director Maestro Kirk Trevor. As a guest conductor, Dr. Jones has appeared with the Utah Symphony, Shreveport Symphony, Siena Chamber Orchestra, Detroit Youth Symphony, Omaha Area Youth Symphony, Binghamton Youth Symphony and the Greater Dallas Youth Orchestra, among others.
Prior to moving to South Florida, Dr. Jones was assistant professor of music at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. He served as director of orchestral activities. He also taught courses in music theory, music history and conducting.
His academic research has focused on African American classical musicians. His work has been published in an internationally recognized peer-reviewed journal and encyclopedia. Dr. Jones has written extensively on the music of William Grant Still. In 2009, his three-volume edition The Collected Folk Suites of William Grant Still was published and featured at the inaugural William Grant Still Tribute Conference in Natchez, Mississippi. The principal string players of the Mississippi Symphony Orchestra premiered the string quartets from his collection.
His latest project, Dean Dixon: Negro at Home, Maestro Abroad, is the first full-length biography of one of the greatest American conductors of the 20th century. It was released April 16, 2015. Alex Ross, music critic for The New Yorker, selected Dr. Jones’ book as one of “nine notable music books of 2015.” In 2018, the paperback edition was released. Dr. Jones is currently working on his second biography, which will chronicle the life of Joseph Henry Douglass (grandson of Frederick Douglass).
Dr. Jones is principal conductor with the Florida Youth Orchestra and serves on the Board of Directors of the International Conductors Guild.
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