Here is my Saturday November 13 Chicago Sun-Times and suntimes.com review of the Thursday November 11, 2010 Chicago Symphony Orchestra concert with guest conductor Antonio Pappano and pianist Jonathan Biss.
CSO bar is too high for guest artists
Pappano, Biss can’t live up to standard of excellence
The Mendelssohn is also repeated as the subject of Beyond the Score Sunday at 3 p.m.
In this month’s program book for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Daniel Armstrong, a bass player, answers the question, “Best part of being a member of the CSO?” His reply: “We work to be the best orchestra in the world. I'm among players who work to be the best players in the world. So I feel justified in seeking the same, and it’s a fascinating quest.”
Such an attitude helps to drive the CSO to its many accomplishments and keep it among those orchestras at the top. But it also reminds the listener of the difference between great and good, as illustrated by this week’s program, heard Thursday at Orchestra Hall, and led by guest conductor Antonio Pappano, with pianist Jonathan Biss. Both are highly intelligent, thoughtful, curious, and personable. They are obviously passionate about what they do. But at least at this point in their careers, they are not great artists, and their contributions are not up to the CSO’s standards.
The Italian-British-American Pappano, 50, who cut his teeth in part at Lyric Opera of Chicago and is music director of London’s Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, also has chosen an especially light and brief program: a minor, nine-minute Mozart symphony from the composer’s teenage years, with a lovely oboe solo by Michael Henoch; Beethoven’s B-flat Major Piano Concerto, Op. 19, known as No. 2 but actually his first of five; and the Mendelssohn A Major Fourth Symphony, Op. 90 (Italian), the subject of this week’s Beyond the Score programs.
It amounts to just about an hour of music that might have counted for more if more memorably played.
Pappano seemed to have nothing to add or bring out in any of these works, except speed in the Mozart, overly-stretched slowing down in the Beethoven, and arbitrary shifts of tempo in the Mendelssohn (a work whose tempos as marked by the composer are an integral part of this alternately chipper and biting piece). Sad to report, but unfortunate sounds came from the principal horn at key moments in this work.
Biss’s rapid rise has mystified many listeners. Technically able and an articulate writer and speaker about his repertoire and preparation, as a performer he rarely offers any sense of style or of a line created by the individual notes played. He has a tendency, too, to say much more with his body and expressions than with his fingers.
While his Beethoven was a step ahead from some of his earlier appearances here, Biss, 30, a Bloomington, Indiana, native, still has not made a case for being on the CSO’s guest roster ahead of many more interesting and convincing players. The glacial pace that he and Pappano chose for the slower movements only underlined his interpretive limits.
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