Chicago Symphony Orchestra 3/13/2008

Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Thursday 3/13/2008
Manfred Honeck, conductor
John Sharp, cello

Verdi—La forza del destino
Saint-Saens—Cello Concerto No. 1
R. Strauss—Ein Heldenleben

This was an interesting concert because there were moments of great profundity and great perfunctory. The program opened with a Verdi Overture, which was played effortlessly by the orchestra. A standout moment was a pianissimo section at the end, in which all of the strings were playing so quietly and with so little hair that their bows were barely moving at all. The sound effect was very cool.

The Saint-Saens Concerto was executed very cleanly by principal cellist John Sharp. His control of the instrument was to a fault, unfortunately, in that he seemed to privilege clarity over expression, which left the audience wondering who John Sharp was. The music also sounded silly, as it was a composition of desperate character being played by a totally square 50 year old guy who kept his head down the whole time. Also disappointing where the occasional and half-hearted “Harrell-istic” slides and gross uses of vibrato. They only contributed to a louder asking of the question, “Who is John Sharp?”

Luckily, the audiences ears were cleansed by an amazing performance of Richard Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben. The strings sounded phenomenal. Concertmaster Robert Chen’s solos were wonderful. Dale Clevenger played with the suave of the entire Rat Pack. The winds and brass, overall, were in rare form. This concert made up for the disappointment I felt when I heard the CSO play Alpine Symphony last February, which was kind of a mess. This performance of Ein Heldenleben reminded me of the performance the CSO gave of Petrushka a few weeks ago with Boulez—all of the disjointed sections came together in a cohesive way, which suggested that the whole orchestra was on the same page. It made for a very effective performance.