125 Moments: An Introduction

When you click on the first moment in this collection, you will see a boilerplate document issued by the State of Illinois — three yellowing sheets of paper (now over 125 years old), decorated with the state seal and tied with a red ribbon, that gave birth to the orchestra we now recognize as one of the world’s great cultural treasures. On the pages that follow, we invite you to share in many of the moments from the past 125 years when the Chicago Symphony Orchestra justified (and often surpassed) the passionate, idealistic dreams of its founder, Theodore Thomas — the household-name conductor who was determined to create America’s finest orchestra in Chicago — and those Chicagoans who put their clout, their money, and their passion for the arts behind him.

The life of a truly great orchestra — one that continues to expand its mission far and wide to reach new audiences, introduce new music, discover and explore, enlighten us and transform us — is more than a series of concerts, no matter how extraordinary those performances may be. This collection endeavors to give a sense of the richness and complexity of a great American orchestra born in an ambitious American city in the 19th century and firmly established as an international icon in the 21st. Each of the following 125 moments is a window onto the vast panorama of this orchestra’s accomplishments.

This is not meant to be a history (it is neither chronological nor exhaustive), but a collection of signal events, moments and memories — a story told mainly through photographs, newspaper clippings, record jackets, ticket stubs, pages from the Orchestra’s program books — treasures culled from our past by our longtime archivist, Frank Villella.

This orchestra has had three different names and two main homes — Louis Sullivan’s Auditorium Theatre, which was just two years old when the Orchestra opened its first season there in 1891, and Orchestra Hall, built in 1904 as its permanent residence — as well as a summerhouse at Ravinia Park and the Ravinia Festival. But it also is a well-traveled orchestra. And so this book takes us to Cincinnati, where the Orchestra played at the end of its first season; to Ontario, Canada, its first destination outside this country; to Carnegie Hall in 1898 and often thereafter; and eventually on to Europe—first under Georg Solti in 1971 — and then to Japan, Australia, Russia, South America, China and most recently Mexico, under its current music director, Riccardo Muti.

Throughout the decades, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra also has never lost touch with its hometown — the people and the spirit of the place that stood behind it from the start. From the World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893 — when Antonín Dvořák was the first in a long line of important composers to take the podium — this orchestra has played music throughout the city of Chicago — in the stockyards and at the Art Institute; in Daley Plaza and Holy Name Cathedral; in Pilsen and Maywood and Cicero; and, for Riccardo Muti’s first concert as music director, to overflowing, banner-waving crowds in Millennium Park.

Many of these pages do, in fact, highlight concerts, and some of them are historic — Arturo Toscanini’s only appearance with the Orchestra; the night the stage was shared by three music directors, past and present — Rafael Kubelík, Sir Georg Solti and Daniel Barenboim; a performance of Verdi’s Requiem under Riccardo Muti that was streamed live worldwide over the Internet. You will find people who joined the Orchestra often over the years — violinist Isaac Stern, who made his debut at the age of 19 and returned regularly for 52 years (performing under six music directors!) — and others who came just once — Barack Obama, a new U.S. senator at the time. You will encounter household names — Paderewski, Callas, Horowitz, Bernstein — and nearly forgotten musicians, such as principal horn Helen Kotas, the first rostered woman in the Orchestra.

This is the story of ten music directors (from Thomas to Muti), three principal guest conductors, one principal conductor — and a cellist named Yo-Yo Ma who made his debut here at the age of 24 and became the Orchestra’s first Judson and Joyce Green Creative Consultant 31 years later. You will read reports — and not always promising ones, at that — of new pieces of music that Chicago introduced to this country, or, in some cases, to the world, starting with Dvořák’s Violin Concerto, which received its U.S. premiere in the third week of the very first season, and continuing with works we now call classics. In 125 years, the Chicago Symphony has performed everything from “Bear Down, Chicago Bears” to grand opera: in its first month, it played in the pit for the touring Metropolitan Opera, and later, onstage, in some of the most fabled nights in its history — Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde with Kirsten Flagstad, Solti’s “farewell” performances of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Verdi’s Otello under Riccardo Muti.

Recordings have won a historic number of Grammy awards. The Orchestra has been showered with tickertape in a parade down LaSalle Street. It has performed at two world’s fairs (here and here), recorded two movie soundtracks (here and here), and played for a pope. Click on these pages and you will discover so much more: the story of Maurice Ravel’s lost shoes, Walter Liberace’s audition, Fritz Reiner’s “perfect” concert.

A great orchestra is oriented to the future rather than the past, and this is more than a collection of memories: it is a testament to an orchestra of vision and dreams. Amidst the moments drawn from our history are many that look forward — the first recording sessions in 1916; its first radio broadcast in 1925; a single concert on February 20, 1969, that introduced Orchestra Hall audiences to two musicians — Daniel Barenboim and Pierre Boulez — who would end up leading the Orchestra into the 21st century.

The last moment in this collection takes us back to the Orchestra’s very first concert. When Theodore Thomas stepped on the stage of the Auditorium Theatre on October 16, 1891, his greatest wish was that the orchestra he had assembled in Chicago would not only flourish, but also live on long after him. More than 125 years later, it is our privilege to survey a wealth of honors, accomplishments and triumphs that even Thomas himself scarcely can have imagined.

Chicago Symphony Orchestra: 125 Moments was created to celebrate the ensemble’s 125th season in 2015-16 and gathered significant events, illustrated with imagery and artifacts from the collections of the Rosenthal Archives.