A confident Nicholas Kraemer takes the stage

Nicholas Kraemer will turn 80 in a year, but the notion of retirement has not crossed the English conductor’s mind. Indeed, he believes he is doing the best work of his career, which began with playing harpsichord and then leading ensembles like the English Chamber Orchestra from the keyboard in the 1970s.

“I feel much more confident and sure about the way I do things,” Kraemer said from his home in Crouch End in north London. “I know what I’m going to say, and I know how I want it to sound. As you get older, you do get wiser. Because you become more experienced, you know what works and what doesn’t work. That’s where I’ve gotten to after 60 years in the business. So, it’s pretty exciting.”

Although he is best known in Chicago as the principal guest conductor of Music of the Baroque, he has also been a semi-regular presence on the podium of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, leading that orchestra three times since his first engagement in 2007. Between his appearances with those groups and the Civic Orchestra of Chicago in the past, he has gained a fondness for the city. He is big fan of Chicago’s famed architecture — old and new — and enjoys getting around on bicycle when he visits. “It feels like a second home to me,” he said. “It’s an amazingly vibrant city.”

 “I know what I’m going to say, and I know how I want it to sound. As you get older, you do get wiser. Because you become more experienced, you know what works and what doesn’t work. That’s where I’ve gotten to after 60 years in the business. So, it’s pretty exciting.”

Kraemer’s next guest-conducting appearances with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus will come Oct. 17-19 when the early-music specialist leads a program that features vocal and instrumental music by George Frideric Handel. Best known for his oratorio, Messiah, the composer was one of the giants of the Baroque era, which lasted approximately from 1600 to 1750. The rest of the program will be devoted to later works by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven.

This program was originally supposed to take place in 2020, and like hundreds of other concerts across the country, it had to be postponed because of the COVID-19 shutdown. “I was really grateful and excited that they decided to revive this one even if it is four years later,” the conductor said. “I had a few things that went by the wayside, but actually two of them took place this year, so I’m still playing catch up.”

Kraemer has held multiple posts during his career, including artistic director of the Irish Chamber Orchestra and London Bach Orchestra, associate conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and principal guest conductor of such ensembles as the Orchester Musikkollegium Winterthur in Switzerland. His only remaining such permanent role is his post with the Music of the Baroque, which he has held since 2002. “It’s so great to be associated with it and for so long,” he said. “It introduced to me to Chicago.”

If not exactly a formal role, he does have a new association with the Czech Philharmonic that began in January and is expected to continue for five years. “That will take me to 84, which I’m pretty excited about. They are an amazing orchestra. It won’t be a named position, but it will be regular meetings with them to do early music because they never really have before.” He also continues to work regularly with the English Chamber Orchestra, and in March, he led the BBC Philharmonic and Manchester Chamber Choir in J.S. Bach’s St. John Passion.

The emphasis on Handel has remained, but Kraemer’s CSO program has somewhat changed from what was first scheduled in 2020. The one holdover soloist from the original lineup is Amanda Forsythe, a respected soprano who has made baroque repertoire a principal emphasis. Joining her will be three singers making their CSO debuts: countertenor Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen, tenor Josh Lovell and bass-baritone Michael Sumuel. “We talked for quite a few months about the soloists,” Kraemer said of his discussions with the CSO’s artistic team, “finding out who was free and finding out whom they liked to work with and whom I liked to work with.”

While the program ends with Mozart’s popular Mass in C major (Coronation) (1779), it is preceded by much less widely known work by an equally famous composer — Beethoven’s Elegiac Song (Elegischer Gesang), Op. 118. The 1814 elegy is dedicated to the composer’s friend and supporter, Baron Johann Pasqualati, in memory of his wife, who died at 24 in childbirth three years earlier. This four-minute work, with text from a poem by Friedrich Haug, was composed for four voices and string quartet (two violins, viola and cello), with the CSO using a portion of its chorus for the voices and simply amplifying the number of players on each instrumental part.

“I cannot tell you what a relief it was,” he said of his first concerts with the CSO, “that I was able to bring this intimate way of playing, that I was able to get them to do that.”

“It’s just the most extraordinary piece,” Kraemer said. “It’s like a slow movement of a late [Beethoven] string quartet. It’s Op. 118. So, it lies just before the last quartets, and it’s very much chamber music. The fact we’re doing it with string orchestra makes no difference. It won’t be quite as intimate, but the CSO wanted to include all the strings [except the doublebasses], which is absolutely fine by me.”

The first half of the program will be devoted to works by Handel. The lineup mixes instrumental works with vocal excerpts from an opera, Agrippina, and three oratorios by Handel — Joseph, Theodora and Alexander’s Feast. The two instrumental selections are the Suite No. 2 from Handel’s famed Water Music, which the composer wrote for a 1717 outing on the River Thames by King George I and his entourage, and the Introduction to Act 3 and Entrance of the Queen of Sheba from the oratorio, Solomon, which was featured in the opening ceremonies of the 2012 London Olympics. All but Water Music are first-time performances for the CSO.

“There will be people in the audience who know who Handel is and who will have heard a lot of Handel, but they may not have heard any of these arias or duets. They’re not the most popular. The one from Alexander’s Feast isn’t even part of the main body of Alexander’s Feast. It’s in the appendix, but I absolutely love it.”

Although the CSO musicians will be performing on modern instruments, Kraemer will attempt to bring a historically informed approach to the performances. This means in part a lighter, more transparent sound, something he has been able to achieve in past appearances with the orchestra.

“I cannot tell you what a relief it was,” he said of his first concerts with the CSO, “that I was able to bring this intimate way of playing, that I was able to get them to do that.” In what he called the “bad old days,” symphony orchestras did not change their playing style to fit baroque music, and the result was performances that were heavy and slow.  “There was none of that with the CSO,” he said. “I was just thrilled after my first rehearsal with them.”

At the same time, he will attempt to approach theses work in a fresh way, as if he had never conducted them before, something he does even with compositions like Messiah that he has led multiple times. “I know that has become a cliché now,” he said, “but if you actually do it like that, you can make quite an impression and make it exciting, moving and thrilling.”