Salonen conducts The CSO and Apkalna review- a stunning concert in Chicago

Thursday, Jan. 30, 2025 in Chicago. Chicago Symphony Orchestra Esa-Pekka Salonen, Conductor Iveta Apkalna, Organ R. Strauss, Don Juan Salonen, Sinfonia concertante for Organ and Orchestra Bartók, Concerto for Orchestra (©Todd Rosenberg 2025)
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 On January 30, 2025, in a concert to be reprised January 31stFebruary 1st and February 4th, at Symphony Center, Chicago, Finnish guest conductor/composer Esa-Pekka Salonen led The Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Latvian guest pianist/organist Iveta Apkalna in a concert whose centerpiece was a wondrous piece Salonen himself composed in part for Apkalna. Both Salonen’s Sinfonia and Apkalna’s performance were first CSO performances; bookending the Sinfonia and the organist’s encore were Richard Strauss’ tone poem, Don Juan, and Béla Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra.

  Don Juan, Op. 20, 1888, may well be Strauss’s most frequently played orchestral work; though it was composed at the tender age of 24, it was a rousing success from its introduction in 1889. From the commencement of the “heroic” introduction, with its sweeping flourish, Salonen directs the Orchestra in the creation of an exhilarating, vivid palette of vibrant sound. The 4 horns in unison shimmer with energy; in contrast, we hear lyrical love themes, one of which is extended and announced by the solo oboe. The entire 18-minute piece was inspiring in its delivery yet with Salonen maintaining complete control from ebullience to ultimate quietude.

Chicago Symphony Orchestra Esa-Pekka Salonen, Conductor Iveta Apkalna, Organ

The conductor’s 3-movement Sinfonia concertante for Organ and Orchestra, 2022, scored for solo organ, triple winds, full brass, timpani, 3 percussionists, harp and strings, is a 34 minute exquisite and authentically original work of enormous sonority and harmonics. Opening with a rising piccolo and fluttering organ accompanied by violas and basses, ensuing slowly before exploding into color, then devolving to a thoughtful coda. The second movement was a brilliant display by Orchestra and soloist of changeable textures, with an exploration of the organ’s range and depth. The final movement was filled with fantastic rich color and reference, both modern and mythical.

Iveta Apkalna is a joy to see and hear. Her muscular approach yet subtle fingering have won her numerous awards and recognition as one of the leading keyboard instrumentalists in the world, regularly called upon to inaugurate new concert organs. In encore, she presented what has been called her “signature” piece, Aivars Kalējs “Toccata on the Chorale Allein Gott in der Höh sei Her”, 1997, characterized by a lilting melody played on the pedals with “perpetually moving filigree arpeggios in the hands”. It’s a technical triumph, and roused the already delighted audience.

Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra, 1943, scored for triple flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, trumpets and trombones with four horns, 2 harps, strings, timpani, percussion and single instruments, is a 30-minute stunner, the composer’s most popular orchestral work. Each of the stand-alone sections, a central slow movement encased in 2 scherzos, themselves surrounded by 2 grand segments, shines with a brilliance of its own. The splendid finale of the last movement is heralded by great complexity and brings a vivid climax to a fine accounting by Orchestra and maestro. 

Thursday, Jan. 30, 2025 in Chicago, Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Esa-Pekka Salonen, Conductor Iveta Apkalna, Organ

Salonen, concluding his contract this year as music director of the San Francisco Symphony, has had a storied double career all over the world. He’s been quoted as saying he took up conducting “primarily to ensure that someone would conduct his own compositions”. In the U.S., he’s the first conductor laureate of the LA Philharmonic, after a 17-year stint ending in 2009 as 10th music director and that institution created the Esa-Pekka Salonen Commissions Fund as a way of honoring his commitment to contemporary classical music.

He’s worked on multi-disciplinary digital festivals and campaigns. His compositions, conducted globally by himself as well as others, “voice a distaste for ideological and dogmatic approaches to composition”, and his own personal conducting style is tactical, of the body, organic.

Esa-Pekka Salonen will be conducting the CSO and guest soloists in Bartók’s 1-act opera Bluebeard’s Castle and Beethoven’s Second Symphony at Orchestra Hall in Symphony Center, 220 S. Michigan Ave., this Thursday through Saturday, February 6-8, 2025. 

All photos by Todd Rosenberg

For information and tickets to all the superior programming of The Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association, go to www.cso.org

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