Sonya Lyons of Patron Services singles out three CSO concerto programs

Thibaudet & The Mermaid, CSO Classical (Feb. 11-13)

Jean-Yves Thibaudet has been one of my favorite pianists for years, and is often the first pianist I go to when looking for new recordings. Khachaturian’s Piano Concerto has been known to be one of his personal passion projects, especially after he campaigned for years to record it and just recently released what is now what I consider one of the best interpretations of the concerto!.The work masterfully balances extremely passionate and virtuosic passages with moments of intimate tenderness.

Also a lesser-known and infrequently performed piece, Zemlinsky’s The Mermaid is a work I am very excited to see live. When I first listened to this piece while doing research on this new season, I wondered how such a dynamic and exciting work could be so underplayed, until I did some reading and found out that it was thought to have been lost or destroyed until the 1980s. This program, conducted by Fabien Gabel, is truly a treat for fans of gorgeous works that make incredible use of the varied timbres of the orchestra, kaleidoscopic orchestral color and the most brilliant handling of dissonance. Personally, I cannot wait.

Bicket, Weiss & Bach, CSO Classical (March 4-6)

I find this program, to be conducted by Harry Bicket, so intriguing. It journeys from Mozart’s Serenata notturna to my two favorite Bach keyboard concerti, here featuring Orion Weiss, all before leaping ahead to a work by Arvo Pärt, followed by Prokofiev’s stylistically fascinating First Symphony. As a longtime harpsichordist, I usually listen to these Bach pieces performed on harpsichord, but I am really excited to see how different they will sound in this performance.

I recently saw the Mahler Chamber Orchestra play Prokofiev’s First Symphony right here at Symphony Center, and it is unlike any other major Prokofiev work I can think of. I love that this “tribute to Haydn” contains layers and moments that hint at the irony of composing a joyful and ”uncomplicated" work during a time of unbelievable national strife (1916-1917). What at first seems like a quite traditional work, featuring musical elements characteristic of pre-Romantic symphonies like abundant scales, arpeggios and Mozartian trills played by a Haydn-era orchestral set-up, hints at its tongue-in-cheek nature with small twists like briefly passing dissonances and playfully clashing harmonies. While this program might not received much buzz so far, I think it will be one of the most interesting weekends of the year.

Jordan, Hadelich & Tchaikovsky 4, CSO Classical (April 2-3)

Korngold’s Violin Concerto is another one of my favorite pieces, especially one of my favorites to hear live. Just from the first few moments, one can already tell it is one of the most loving, sentimental, romantic works in the standard repertoire. Korngold is well known for his fantastic film music, and his early Hollywood movie connections come out in this piece.

I am beyond excited to hear it live again, especially when a violinist as musically nuanced and technically skilled as Augustin Hadelich will be performing as the soloist. I haven’t had the privilege of seeing him perform live yet, but as a big fan of his recordings, it has always been a goal of mine.

A piece as gorgeous as Korngold’s Violin Concerto is hard to match, but if any piece could, it would be Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony. There really aren’t any Tchaikovsky symphonies I don’t enjoy, but the Fourth is absolutely one of my favorites. For me, this symphony marks a bit of a turning point in Tchaikovsky’s symphonies: the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth are all at times incredibly vulnerable and expressive, putting them in an entirely different league than his earlier symphonies. It has been a long time since I’ve seen it performed live, and I am really looking forward to seeing what it will sound like with an ensemble as incredible as the CSO and a conductor whose interpretations of Tchaikovsky’s symphonies are as divine as Philippe Jordan’s. 

Hrůša Conducts Shostakovich 7, CSO Classical (April 15-18)

Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony is very near to my heart. I’ve always loved it purely as a piece of music, but a few summers ago, I had the pleasure of reading M.T. Anderson’s Symphony for the City of the Dead: Dmitri Shostakovich and the Siege of Leningrad, a book I found incredibly moving; it helped me learn all about the long history of this piece’s composition and first performances.

This symphony is just a magnificent piece of music, but beyond that, its history is a true tale of the strength of the human spirit. Hearing and performing pieces like Shostakovich’s Seventh can serve as a reminder of how much music can do to bring us together and affirm our shared humanity through the unimaginable.

Brahms Requiem with Szeps-Znaider, CSO Classical (Oct. 29-31)

Brahms is one of my favorite composers, and I especially adore his choral works. Ein deutsches Requiem is easily one of my most loved great masterworks of all time, and I’ve only had the opportunity to see it live once. It is a painfully human work, famously focusing less on memorializing the dead and more on blessing the living. I have always found this piece deeply moving, from its grief-stricken second movement to the third-movement fugue, to the breathtaking moment in the final movement that finally moves to address the dead in the most direct way in the whole 70-plus minutes work.

I see this piece as a uniquely intimate view into Brahms’ compositional process and goals at this point in his career, as it was not a commissioned work. Brahms was able to select and manipulate the texts as he wished, unbound from the constraints of the traditional requiem mass text. This piece, though somewhat polarizing among critics at the time of its premiere, marked a turning point in Brahms’ career and solidified his status as a master composer for a reason.

Note: Curated and create-your-own subscriptions are available now; tickets for individual concerts go on sale Aug. 5.