Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Performers
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Riccardo Muti, Conductor
Program
BELLINI Overture to Norma
VERDI "The Four Seasons" from I vespri siciliani
TCHAIKOVSKY Symphony No. 4
Encore:
GIUSEPPE MARTUCCI Notturno, Op. 70, No. 1
Event Duration
The printed program will last approximately two hours, including one 20-minute intermission.At a Glance
Although Bellini’s Norma has long been identified with the celebrated sopranos who have conquered its formidable title role, Bellini’s deeply expressive orchestral writing is one of the opera’s great strengths. The overture to Norma, like many at the time, previews music from the opera, but it surpasses them in the way it serves not as a casual curtain-raiser, but as a way of establishing mood and preparing the conflict of the love triangle that lies ahead.
Verdi wrote very few separate ballets—independent numbers that bring the action to a halt and serve as an unrelated entertainment within the opera. That was not part of the Italian tradition. Verdi’s first ballet was written in 1847 for Jerusalem, which was composed for the Opéra de Paris, where, following the beloved French custom, a third-act ballet was house policy. Eight years later, Verdi outdid himself with his next Paris commission, Les vêpres siciliennes (The Sicilian Vespers), composing a large and elaborate allegorical ballet on the subject of the four seasons.
The temptation to read a program into Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony is as old as the work itself, particularly since it was written during the most turbulent period of the composer’s life. The icy blast from the horns that opens this symphony returns repeatedly in the first movement (and once in the finale), each time wiping out everything in its path. The lilting main theme of the opening movement (marked “in movimento di valse”) and the whole of the two inner movements—the slow pas de deux with its mournful oboe solo, and the brilliant and playful pizzicato scherzo—remind us that the best of Tchaikovsky’s ballet scores are symphonic in scope and tone. The finale is more complex, swinging from the dark emotions of the first movement to a more festive mood.