Dvorak's symphonies highlight CSO season

With the announcement of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's 2008-09 season, the spotlight was on guest conductors, major events and tours, which we discussed last week.

But an orchestra's job is to make music, and now we'll take a glance at several of the important works that the CSO will offer next season

In this case, we'll discuss the last first: the three-week festival of music by the Czech composer Antonin Dvorak, (1841-1904) which will close out the season in June 2009.

Guest conductor Mark Elder will lead four of Dvorak's nine symphonies, (Nos. 7-9), plus the seldom-heard Third Symphony; along with a major choral work (the "Te Deum"), the Cello Concerto (with soloist Alisa Wellerstein), Romance for Violin and Orchestra (with Rachel Barton Pine) and the Violin Concerto (Janine Jansen).

Several of Dvorak's infrequently performed symphonic poems are also scheduled, including "In Nature's Realm" and "The Midday Witch." Of interest to chamber-music lovers, Dvorak's String Quartet No. 10 and so-called "American" String Quintet in E-flat Major also will be presented, featuring the musicians of the Emerson String Quartet.

Riccardo Muti, considered one of the leading candidates to succeed Daniel Barenboim as music director, will conduct Giuseppe Verdi's Requiem Mass during his subscription concerts Jan. 15-17. Four vocal soloists and the Chicago Symphony Chorus will take part.

The CSO chorus will be especially busy next season. In addition to the Dvorak and Verdi works, Duain Wolfe's chorus also will perform Hector Berlioz' "The Damnation of Faust" under the baton of Charles Dutoit on Oct. 30 and Nov. 1; and principal conductor Bernard Haitink will lead Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 2 ("Resurrection") for four performances during Thanksgiving week.

Haitink's schedule, in celebration of the Dutch maestro's 80th birthday, will include the CSO's tours to Europe in early September and to Asia in midwinter, plus seven weeks of subscription programs.

In addition to the Mahler Second, works Haitink will conduct at Symphony Center include Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4 with soloist Murray Perahia; Anton Bruckner's Seventh and Eighth Symphonies; Shostakovich's 15th Symphony, and Witold Lutoslawski's Symphony No. 3, the latter which had its world premiere here in 1983 under Sir Georg Solti.

CSO conductor emeritus Pierre Boulez will lead two weeks of concerts downtown plus a visit to New York's Carnegie Hall. Included will be music by American composers Charles Ives and Elliott Carter and French-American émigré Edgard Varese, along with a program featuring Leos Janacek's "Sinfonietta" and the complete music from Igor Stravinsky's ballet "Pulcinella."

Two other guest conductors on the CSO's possible "finalist" list are Finland's Esa-Pekka Salonen and Italy's Riccardo Chailly. Salonen, renowned as a composer as well as conductor, will lead the world premiere of a CSO-commissioned work (title for the piece to be determined) on Jan. 22-24, the concert also including Bela Bartok's "Music for Strings, Percussion and Celeste" and Claude Debussy's "La Mer."

Chailly's two-week visit in mid-October will have just one work on each program: Mahler's unfinished 10th Symphony in the revised Deryck Cooke performing version; and Bruckner's Symphony No. 5.

Those two works have historic significance for the CSO. Former music director Jean Martinon introduced Chicago audiences to the Mahler 10th in 1966 (in Cooke's first performing version), and the Bruckner Fifth was conducted by Solti at Holy Name Cathedral in the presence of Pope John Paul II during his 1979 visit to Chicago.