CHICAGO — The Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s Oct. 3 concert was not an all-women affair but pretty close to it — the latest evidence that perhaps equity and inclusion really are gaining a firm foothold in the classical music world. The line-up featured three female soloists as well as guest conductor Daniela Candillari, who was making her debut with the ensemble. In addition, the program included the orchestra’s first-ever performance of Thea Musgrave’s Piccolo Play. (The remaining three works were written by men.)
A couple of connecting threads ran through this CSO concert, which featured a reduced orchestra in varying configurations. The culminating work, Giovanni Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater, is a masterpiece of the Baroque era, and Musgrave considers her concerto to be a tribute to French Baroque composer François Couperin. She took the evocative names of the concerto’s seven movements from the titles of his 200 or so solo harpsichord works written 1713-30. At the same time, three of the works, including the Stabat Mater and the opener, Carlos Simon’s Fate Now Conquers, deal directly or indirectly with imposing themes like fate and death, with the lighter Piccolo Play, which has no grand message, providing the only respite.
Despite these links, the program didn’t quite jell, perhaps because the two halves felt so different, the musical language of Pergolesi (1710-1736) too stylistically disparate from the 20th- and 21st-century works on the first half. But that’s a minor complaint. This concert will probably not wind up being among the standouts of the season, but there were satisfying moments, especially the program’s unexpected anchor — the Stabat Mater, one of the most notable settings of a 13th-century prayer to the Virgin Mary that depicts her suffering during her son’s crucifixion. I say “unexpected” because the CSO typically does not perform much Baroque music and certainly not major works like this one, which runs some 40 minutes. Indeed, the ensemble last programmed the work in February 1984.
It seems clear that the Stabat Mater was chosen in part because of Candillari’s experience working with singers as principal conductor of the Opera Theatre of St. Louis since 2022. She was clearly at home accompanying the two soloists and bringing out the drama in this vocal work. While her biographies play up her skills in conducting new music, there is almost no mention of her work with early music, yet she clearly has an affinity for it. She brought a keen, historically informed sensibility to the piece, and the CSO musicians (strings and portative organ) appeared to enthusiastically buy into her approach as together they instilled this music with lightness, buoyancy, and drive. Candillari also has led the Requiem in C minor by Cherubini (1760-1842), which she’ll revisit in November with the Wuppertal (Germany) Symphony Orchestra.
The soloists — soprano Giulia Semenzato (making her CSO debut) and mezzo-soprano Jennifer Johnson Cano — were ideally matched, both bringing timbral nuance and expressive depth while conveying the achingly doleful quality of this work. They used minimal vibrato in keeping with the Baroque style and never tried to oversell the music or bring an inappropriate operatic tack. Especially impressive about Semenzato were her almost otherworldly crescendos or swells, while Cano brought an impressive directness and precise diction to her singing. They were featured in arias and seamlessly blended duets, which began in slow, sorrowful fashion and then unexpectedly and dramatically accelerated for an extended series of emphatic “Amens.” It all added up to a powerful, persuasive performance.
The first half opened with Simon’s Fate Now Conquers, one of those quick-hit contemporary openers that have become so popular on today’s orchestral programs. The 2019 piece was inspired by an 1815 entry in Beethoven’s journal, in which he notates a section of the Iliad, including the line: “But Fate now conquers; I am hers and yet not she shall share.” Simon also draws on the what he calls the “beautifully fluid harmonic structure” of the second movement of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony and begins the work with an emphatic, Beethovenian, two-note motif.
Simon, composer-in-residence at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., packs a lot into the five minutes of this fast, driving, and restless work, with its overlapping layers and sharply competing motifs. Except for a very short slow section in the middle, the work never relents. Candillari displayed her feel for contemporary music here, instilling it with the edginess and intensity that it demands.
Considering how popular Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings is, it was highly surprising that this performance, tucked between the program’s two 21st-century works, was the CSO’s first since 2010. There was perhaps room for a bit more urgency, but Candillari and the ensemble delivered an eloquent and compelling take on this unfailingly stirring music that has become a staple at memorials and funerals.
Rounding out the program was Piccolo Play, which was originally written in 1989 for piccolo and piano by Musgrave, a celebrated Scottish composer who turned 97 in May. To mark its 50th anniversary, the National Flute Association asked Musgrave to arrange the work with string accompaniment. Piccolo player Jennifer Gunn, who observed her 20th anniversary as a CSO member in June, served as soloist for the premiere of the enlarged version at the association’s 2022 conference, and she was back in the same role here.
Unlike some new works that try to break stylistic ground or deliver a socio-political message, this concerto is refreshingly modest in its intent. Just 14 minutes long, it is simply meant to showcase the piccolo and have a little fun along the way. And it does both in sparkling fashion. As noted, Musgrave took the short titles of the seven short movements from Couperin’s harpsichord works. Each aptly describes what we hear — the leaps and trills of the piccolo in “The Frog” or the warbling bursts as the piccolo tries to wake up the rest of the ensemble in “The Alarm Clock.”
While rumbling low strings provide a sense of mystery in “The Sorceress” and the final section, “The Turbulent One,” is just what its title suggests, the overall effect is predominantly one of lightness and whimsy. Even the sixth section, which is ominously titled “The Noise of War” and ends with what Musgrave describes in her notes as “distant echoes of the Dies irae,” does not focus on bombs and mayhem. Instead, it draws its inspiration from Manet’s portrait The Fifer and places the piccolo in the rallying role of the fife, with excerpts of marches and even bits from “The Star-Spangled Banner.” (Musgrave has lived in the United States since 1972.)
Gunn is one of this country’s top piccolo players, and she has been a strong advocate for the instrument as something more versatile and expressive than merely a producer of piercing high notes. Relaxed and in complete command here, she made a convincing case for the piccolo as a solo instrument, delivering a rich, pleasing tone across its full range, especially the middle and lower registers, where much of this music was situated. With an accompanying string ensemble of just 15 players, she never had to worry about being overshadowed or drowned out, and the performance took on the pleasingly intimate, collaborative feel of chamber music.
