This week, the Chicago Symphony closes its season with a program that looks to its future while glancing at its past.
Representing the (near) future: Russian pianist Daniil Trifonov, who becomes the CSO’s artist-in-residence next season. He plays a piano concerto specially written for him by a composer important to the CSO’s recent history: Mason Bates, himself in residence here from 2010 to 2015. Conductor/pianist Lahav Shani directs — a throwback in its own way, given his artistic and physical resemblance to his mentor Daniel Barenboim, music director of the CSO from 1991 to 2006.
The Bates Piano Concerto makes its own time-bending references. The concerto’s no-frills title is unusual for the highly programmatic composer, as though to reassert classical conventions of yore. So does the music, cast in three movements: the first is loosely inspired by Renaissance polyphony, the second by Romantic piano concerti and the third by “contemporary jazz-minimalis(m).” (Jazz I don’t hear, but hip hop shows up fleetingly in that movement, Trifonov banging out a swaggering kick-drum and hi-hat groove out at the piano’s extrema.)
It’s easy to see why the concerto has been picked up worldwide since its 2022 premiere in Philadelphia. Hokey chordal motions aside, Bates’s piece is appealing and characteristically colorful. Its best parts, though, are subtle, and all too easily shouted down by the rest of the concerto. To wit: the piano’s very first melody reappears in the cadenza of the third movement, then again, transposed, against a motoric orchestra.
Bates’s writing reaches its apex in the middle movement, which seesaws between tranquil D major in the orchestra and anguished D minor for the solo pianist. Bates pivots between the two using the open fifth between D and A — the same interval that makes a misty enigma out of the beginning of Beethoven 9. In one of the concerto’s most striking moments, at one point the fifth whistles, like a chilly far-off wind, from the last-stand second violins and violas.
That movement stands out, too, for being the one most clearly inspired by its dedicatee. A towering interpreter of Rachmaninoff, Chopin and other Eastern European heavyweights, Trifonov played the role of tortured soloist to the hilt, all pathos and spread-eagle chords.
Elsewhere, the match between Trifonov and concerto is more technical. He tapped into the first movement’s breeziness with a quicksilver touch and into the third movement’s drive with terrifying intensity — both signatures of his. At points, Trifonov’s body jerked and bobbed like a marionette as though the music was playing him, rather than the converse.
Trifonov had still more intensity to spare in a diabolical encore of the third of Prokofiev’s five “Sarcasms” for solo piano. Even among world-class soloists, Trifonov stands apart for how dramatically his interpretations can swerve from performance to performance. He spiked Thursday’s account with more Expressionist fervor than his Deutsche Grammophon recordings of the same piece, as though interpreting the 1916 work through the lens of even later 20th century composers. It ends with one final, cheeky note in the piano’s lowest register. In his own humorous if idiosyncratic way, Trifonov plunked it out then stood, bowed, and all but fled the stage.
Shani conducted Thursday’s concert without a baton, as he has increasingly in recent years. However, if there was a work on the program for which he should have reached for one, Bates’s concerto was it. A crisper beat might have saved a couple slips between ensemble and soloist and better drawn out the third movement’s propulsive intricacy.
On the other hand, a supple, intuitive “Pathétique” on the second half mostly endorsed Shani’s batonless approach, though not completely. (See: the sputtering start to the third movement.) With his hands free, Shani could articulate, from torso to fingertips, what he wanted from phrases. Repeated passages were varied but never distractingly so, and never in a way that segmented the symphony’s broader sweep.
A few solo instrumental lines, easily overlooked, flashed by with unusual assertiveness: a lyrical bass trombone line in the second movement, a clarinet shimmy and seamless trumpet-to-oboe handoff in the third. (Speaking of the third movement, its fakeout end usually courts applause from audiences thinking the work has ended. Thursday must have hosted a knowledgeable crowd, with a couple scattered claps petering out quickly.)
The symphony closes as it opens, with the almost imperceptible rumble of double basses. The reverent silence which followed was broken only by Shani himself, the cadence of his voice uncannily channeling Barenboim’s: “Bravo, orchestra.”
Bravi, indeed. All that kept this from being a truly standout Tchaikovsky were conspicuous low brass flubs, most especially the trombone chorale near the end. Already the low brass has a tendency to throw ensemble blend to the wind during their features, and it was more of the same on Thursday — a vexing exception to an otherwise carefully balanced performance.
The symphony also prodded at the sore spots of the CSO horns, who had a much stronger showing than the trombones overall but seldom blended internally with one another. The responsibility of shaping up that inconsistent section falls to principal Mark Almond for the foreseeable future: he was granted tenure after the CSO’s tour earlier this year.
The strings, on the other hand, sounded notably incandescent on Thursday. The concert opener, Tzvi Avni’s “Prayer” for string orchestra (1961), let them shine further. “Prayer” eventually grapples with its god, breaking out the ensemble into a spiky fugue.
But before that, the violas sing the primary melody alone, their sound matte and remarkably unified on Thursday. Shani rightly directed applause towards them during the ovation — and, by extension, Teng Li, officially named principal of the section earlier that day.
No surprises here. Arriving from the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Li has led the CSO violas for virtually every high-profile engagement this season, including the CSO’s European tour earlier this year and Klaus Mäkelä’s christening concerts as music director designate. Her appointment ends a lengthy vacancy in that seat since 2017, when then-principal Charles Pikler retired. Before his own retirement last year, assistant principal Li-Kuo Chang admirably led the section while the CSO dragged its feet on a search.
They say good things come to those who wait. But did we have to wait this long?
“Tchaikovsky Pathétique & Trifonov,” repeats 7:30 p.m. June 22 and 3 p.m. June 23; tickets $45-$399; more information at cso.org.
