Weekend Music Picks: The Anatomy Of A Decision
By Alexander Hough in Arts & Entertainment on Apr 15, 2010 4:20PM
This weekend my parents are visiting from Virginia. These are the people who didn't bat an eye when I told them I wanted to go to college to pursue a career in music - classical music, mind you - and although the performing days are behind me, my love of music has remained. I have them to thank, so I owe them a good cultural time this weekend. They're eager to have one, too, coming from Virginia and all. It's not that the state is some boorish backwater - despite what Virginia's deceptively insane governor and aggressively insane attorney general would lead you to believe - but, hey, it just ain't Chicago, you know?
So here are a few of our classical music options for the weekend, why you should (and shouldn't) attend, and what we ended up choosing.
Thomas Zehetmair will perform and conduct Friday night (Photo from UC Presents)
Straight outta Minnesota, the SPCO is one of the world's great chamber orchestras (a chamber orchestra is essentially just a smaller orchestra; the SPCO has 35 members, as opposed to the 80-odd usually kept by full-sized symphony orchestras). For their last program of the year with University of Chicago Presents, the SPCO will play a mix of classic masterpieces and 20th-century atonal works with Thomas Zehetmair conducting and soloing. Beethoven's Violin Concerto and Franz Schubert's "Unfinished" Symphony will bookend Anton Webern's Symphony, composed using the twelve-tone technique that usurped traditional rules of tonality, and Ernst Krenek's "Symphonic Elegy," which he composed in Webern's memory while teaching at Hamline University in Saint Paul.
Why to go:
With two works from classical Germanic masters and two accessibly short pieces from the rebellious Second Viennese School, it's the perfect concert for both omnivorous classical music lovers and curious novices.
Why not to go:
As we all know, North Side residents turn into pillars of salt upon traveling south of the Loop. Just kidding, we were just trying to bait you. Really, we couldn't think of a reason not to go.
Friday at 7:30 p.m., Mandel Hall, 1131 E. 57th, (773) 702-8068, $35, $5 students
Baritone Andrea Concetti will play Moses (Photo from COT's website)
Gioachino Rossini's popularity, immense during his lifetime, has only increased with age. Whether you know it or not, you're familiar with much of what he wrote. Don't believe us? How about this? And this? Which makes the Chicago Opera Theater's choice of Rossini's relatively obscure "Moses in Egypt" an interesting choice for the opening of their spring season. We assume you've never seen this one, not because we doubt your opera knowledge, but because it hasn't been performed in Chicago since 1863 (!).
Why to go:
Even over a week past Passover, these Pharaoh-defying feelings are still burning, like a bush that's on fire but doesn't get consumed. So relive the celebration, except with better music and no matzah.
Why not to go:
Ugh, just to avoid any discussion about why I haven't been to synagogue in years.
Saturday at 7:30 p.m., additional performances April 21, 23, and 25, Harris Theater, 205 E. Randolph, $20-$120, 50% off available for students
Mason Bates will perform on electronic drum pad and laptop with the CSO (Photo from Bates's MySpace page)
The CSO's weekend concerts will feature works by a pair of early-20th-century composers, Maurice Ravel and Manuel de Falla, who wrote music that was very different than the modern music being played by the SPCO. Rather than following the Germanic unmooring of music from traditional tonality - like the aforementioned Webern - composers like the Frenchman Ravel and the Spaniard Falla looked toward traditional sources, often folk songs, to write music for the new century, a divergence probably helped along by the catastrophic First World War. The CSO will perform a few dance-heavy works, Falla's Three Dances from "El amor brujo," composed after Falla's seven year stint in Paris, and Ravel's "Mother Goose" and "La Valse." Hubbard Street Dance Chicago will join the CSO for "Music from Underground Spaces" by Mason Bates, one of the 2010-2011 Mead Composers-in-Residence (actually the first time the orchestra will have performed his music).
Why to go:
We won't keep you in suspense: this is the concert we're seeing. Falla and Ravel are always fun, and we're excited to see how Bates's music, which draws from classical and electronica, jives with the otherwise traditional program. More importantly, my parents have never seen the CSO perform, and since the orchestra is one of best in the world, it was the obvious choice.
Why not to go:
Showing off the CSO to first time listeners, the orchestra ideally would play a score whose pages were soaked with the sweat of a late-19th-century German man so they could experience the robust, heart-wrenching, eardrum-pounding sound of the CSO in full. Also, conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen backed out at the last minute, although Oregon Symphony music director and Grant Park Orchestra conductor Carlos Kalmar will be a fine substitute.
Thursday at 8:00 p.m., additional performances Friday, Saturday, and Tuesday, Symphony Center, 220 S. Michigan, $18-$199, $10 students