Philippe Jordan returns to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Philippe Jordan will return Nov 16-19, 2023 to guest-conduct the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in a program that culminates with Igor Stravinsky’s visceral, still-revolutionary 1913 ballet, The Rite of Spring. “Even for our time and our ears, it’s still a very modern piece,” he said.Night on the Bare Mountain.
Sometimes, conductors group contemporary with works with The Rite of Spring that were in some way influenced by it. But Jordan is taking a different tack, looking first at the kind of Russian folk music that inspired Stravinsky via Modest Mussorgsky’s A Night on Bald Mountain. But on this program, Jordan plans to present Mussorgsky’s 1867 original, titled St. John's Night on the Bare Mountain. “The first version by Mussorgsky is actually pretty extreme and pretty close to The Rite of Spring already,” he said.
The second work on the program is Karol Szymanowski’s Violin Concerto No. 2, written about 20 years after The Rite of Spring. It shares certain characteristics with the earlier work. “It’s about the same period and has these aspects as well — Eastern Slavonic folk music, Impressionism, Expressionism and modernism,” Jordan said. “It’s a nice kaleidoscope of this period of time.” Featured as soloist will be violinist Leonidas Kavakos, in the second of three engagements this season at Symphony Center.
CONCERTS on November 16/17/18/19, 2023