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Riccardo Muti and composer Philip Glass stand hand-in-hand with the CSO to receive a standing ovation following the performance of Glass' Symphony No. 11.
Todd Rosenberg Photography
In a letter included in this week’s program book, composer Philip Glass salutes the occasion of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s first performances of one of his symphonies.
I wish to send my thanks and well-wishes to you all for tonight’s performance of my Eleventh Symphony.
I consider Chicago one of my artistic homes, as I lived there during my formative years as a student at the University of Chicago. Over the intervening decades, six decades now, I would return to Chicago almost every year for opera productions, ballets or my own tours.
During my years in Chicago in the early 1950s, it was the time of the great Fritz Reiner. With 50 cents and a short train ride, I could hear the CSO play the standard repertoire at the highest level. I also heard much of what turned out to be the masterpieces of 20th-century music. This kind of exposure is crucial to a young musician’s formation. I learned more about symphonic music during that time than perhaps any other.
It might go unsaid, but I’m going to say it: The Chicago Symphony Orchestra is one of the finest orchestras in the world. It’s a great privilege for any composer to have their work performed by this world-class ensemble — doubly so with the delight of having Maestro Riccardo Muti conducting and Mitsuko Uchida performing Beethoven on the first half of the program.
While Chicago has been an artistic home of mine, and while many of my pieces have been performed there over the years, there was never a performance of a symphony — and never one by the CSO — until today.
Thank you,
Philip Glass
