Labadie almost there with CSO -- Benedetto Lupo, good to go

Here is my Saturday May 30 Chicago Sun-Times and suntimes.com review of the Thursday May 28, 2009, Chicago Symphony Orchestra concert with guest conductor Bernard Labadie and pianist Benedetto Lupo.

Labadie gets on same page with CSO for Mozart, Haydn

Beloved works played with affection, insight -- eventually

BY ANDREW PATNER

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Repeats Saturday evening May 30 at 8 p.m. and Sunday afternoon May 31 at 3 p.m.

The happy rise of dedicated early music groups and their leaders has widely expanded the audience for historically-informed performance and forgotten or neglected repertoire from before the classical era.

But the years it takes to build such a group and the singular concentration required don't always leave specialist conductors with the skills to step before a major symphony orchestra and get immediate and effective results from the large and modern ensemble.

Sir Roger Norrington and Sir John Eliot Gardner are two of the bigger podium names who, so used to listening to the sounds of their own voices speaking to their acolytes, have failed when appearing as guests here to make either their ideas or the Chicago Symphony Orchestra sound as good as they can and should.  Younger conductors from the "early" world such as Harry Bicket and Nicholas McGegan have shown themselves more flexible and better communicators.

This week at Orchestra Hall, Québec's Bernard Labadie, 46 (above, left), gets high quality results in an all-classical program but still seems to have trouble going from A to B to get things rolling.  Orchestra players can pick up even the slightest physical cues, but they aren't mind readers.  The founder-director of Les Violons du Roy and La Chapelle de Québec brought out the beauty of three Mozart works and one beloved Haydn symphony over the course of each piece, but the CSO players seemed to have to start each movement and pick its tempo on their own.

Once this odd handicap was forgiven, all four of Thursday night's works were played with affection, natural flexibility, and great insight.  At times in Mozart's late, great E-Flat Major Symphony No. 39, K. 543, the inner voices and musical arguments sounded as important as the broader rhythmic and harmonic developments.  But that's just as Mozart intended, so bravo!

Perhaps the biggest surprise about Haydn's "Surprise" Symphony No. 94 in G Major is that such a supposed war horse hasn't been played downtown since 1977 nor at Ravinia since 1953!  Labadie reminded us of why we love this work beyond just the second movement's famous fun.  Closest to the work of his own ensembles, the brief Chaconne dances from Mozart's 1780 opera Idomeneo displayed the greatest set of arresting musical contrasts over their eight minutes.

The Italian Benedetto Lupo (above, right) won the bronze medal at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition 20 years ago and has stayed below the radar since then.  He seems to have used the time wisely.  His playing in Mozart's B-Flat Major Piano Concerto No. 18, K. 456 was never less than beautiful.  Each choice was right and elegant without a whiff of pretension.  Labadie rightly followed Lupo's lead with the orchestra.  It would be a pleasure to hear him again