Backstage at the CSO: Robert Chen on works by Beethoven and Vivaldi and leading his colleagues

Phillip Huscher talks with Concertmaster Robert Chen, the Louis C. Sudler Chair, about the November 13-15 concerts, in which he is both soloist and leader.

As concertmaster of this orchestra for more than 25 years, you have often played important solos with it, but do you recall how you felt when you conducted the Orchestra for the first time?
Nervous. I was very hesitant to “conduct” my colleagues, since I had only known them from the perspective of being their leader. What I realized is that music making is a group effort and the experience was actually quite empowering for all of us. I have Cristina Rocca (Vice President of Artistic Administration, The Richard and Mary L. Gray Chair) to thank for her persistence in not taking no for an answer. She must have asked me to do this type of program at least ten times before I said yes.

How do you balance attention to your solo line, which is virtuosic and demanding, with all the interpretive choices it takes to bring the score to life for the whole ensemble?
I lean on my colleagues. It’s a group of musicians very familiar and dear to me. I trust them to contribute to the endeavor.

You know Beethoven’s score for the String Quartet in F Minor, Op. 95, from playing it in quartet form. How different is Mahler’s arrangement?
It has basses added to reinforce the cello line. This and a full string section creates a much richer sonority in the score.

The Four Seasons has become one of music’s most popular works in the past few decades. What was your introduction to the piece?
When I was growing up in Taiwan, it was very widespread in popular culture. I remember bits and pieces of it being used for TV commercials, and of course, the requisite elevator music. The first time I played it was as part of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra with Gil Shaham as soloist on tour in Japan. The first time I performed it as soloist was with the Northbrook Symphony Orchestra here in Chicago. That’s actually the only time I’ve played the entire Four Seasons.

The violin you play was made just a few years before Vivaldi wrote The Four Seasons. Are you concerned about trying to get near to the sound one might have heard in Vivaldi’s own day?
I don’t know. I wasn’t there. While I enjoy historically informed performances, we are in a completely different era both instrumentally and acoustically. Orchestra Hall is a rather large space, and we have to take that into account when making interpretive decisions. The United States of America wasn’t even a country yet. I will experiment with different sounds, articulations and ornamentation in the spirit of
the 1700s.