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DECEMBER 2007 | |
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Thursday, December 13, 8:00 Fidelity Investments Thursdays Friday, December 14, 1:30 Saturday, December 15, 8:00 Tuesday, December 18, 7:30 United Airlines Tuesdays Chicago Symphony Orchestra Mark Elder conductor Stephen Hough piano Janácek Jealousy Rachmaninov Piano Concerto No. 4 Kancheli …à la Duduki Janácek Taras Bulba Maestro Elder’s second program is filled with overwhelming drama, conflict, and emotion. Janáček originally wrote Jealousy as the overture to his chilling opera Jenůfa. His Taras Bulba is an intense, hair-raising rhapsody based on Gogol’s epic novel. Kancheli’s …à la Duduki eerily evokes a Georgian wind instrument featuring a brass quintet with orchestra. Rachmaninov’s last piano concerto is a work that, in the words of pianist Stephen Hough, is “one of the great 20th-century scores—deeply reflective of that era in a unique way.” I’ve played the Rachmaninov Fourth for about 20 years now, and I’ve worked with Mark Elder many times before and, actually, we’ve done this piece together. He is an extraordinary musical partner, one of the most intelligent, supportive, and simply well-prepared conductors I’ve performed with. This piece evokes the sense of alienation of the interwar years. As such, and as we look back at the 20th century now as something past, the Fourth is one of the most important expressions of one of the most prevalent moods of the epoch. Unease, restlessness, dislocation, yearning for a past but lacking the strength or courage to admit it—the grandfather looking at his grandson, wanting to understand his interests and tastes, trying to do so, but failing. It’s a glimpse of the composer’s soul as a representative of the men or women of a disturbing age. —Stephen Hough |
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