\u201cJOHN WILLIAMS RETURNS!\u201d
\nNovember 8, 9 & 10, 2013, Chicago, IL
\nThe Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by JOHN WILLIAMS
\nGil Shaham, violin<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
CONCERT PROGRAM (November 8 & 9) CONCERT PROGRAM (November 10)<\/strong><\/p>\n INTERVIEWS<\/strong><\/p>\n JWFAN REVIEWS<\/strong><\/p>\n NOVEMBER 8 & 9, 2013 I attended two concerts; the Friday and Saturday performances (11\/8-9).\u00a0 Both had the same program and encores.\u00a0 I had booked this trip to Chicago entirely on the desire to see the Violin Concerto<\/em> conducted by John Williams.\u00a0 The chance to see one of his concert works does not come up frequently.\u00a0 I was able to catch his Essay for Strings<\/em> last year so it’s nice to see some of these pieces sneak their way onto a billing with his movie scores.<\/p>\n For the Friday concert I was seated on the lower level, left side, looking at the stage with a perfect view of Shaham.\u00a0 On Saturday I was on the second tier, second row back, also on the violin side.\u00a0 Great seats both nights offering nice perspectives of the orchestra, conductor and soloist.<\/p>\n They opened with the standard suite from Close Encounters of the Third Kind<\/em>.\u00a0 I’ve seen Williams conduct this before, and many performances of this tend to rush through some of those dramatic crescendi and thematic transitions.\u00a0 This time, Williams took those moments with great care and love, with just the right amount of ritardando, rubato, and expressiveness.\u00a0 I always felt that this suite, almost more than any other of the Maestro’s, demanded these free musical articulations.<\/p>\n Next was the concerto.\u00a0 I enjoyed this performance more than the recorded version with Shaham.\u00a0 I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a soloist play with such emotion showing on their face while they play.\u00a0 Most soloists seem polite, stern, serious, concentrated, etc.\u00a0 Shaham ran a gamut; warmth, joy, thrill, despair.\u00a0 Even when he wasn’t playing he was watching Williams with a smile on his face, surveying the orchestra, or listening intently to the music.\u00a0 He was extremely present throughout the whole of the performance.<\/p>\n On Friday, between the first and second movements he seemed to have a bit a difficulty either tuning the instrument or keeping it in tune.\u00a0 He was fiddling (excuse the pun) with the pegs and tuners, running his bow over the strings and making chromatic noise, for a noticeably lengthy amount of time to the point where he turned to the audience and said “The second movement is much more beautiful” which got a nice laugh.\u00a0 The very last set of chords in the finale was a bit off too.\u00a0 It has a very syncopated feel anyway, but you could tell they weren’t quite together.\u00a0 I have to say, without the intention of sounding nitpicky, and I know that this crowd is not conditioned for a standard orchestral concert, but everyone clapped between every movement, which annoyed me.\u00a0 Thankfully this didn’t seem to phase Williams or Shaham.\u00a0 I’m sure they expected it, or prepared themselves for it.<\/p>\n For Saturday, the performance was phenomenal and the one that I have frozen in my brain.\u00a0 Flawless from beginning to end.\u00a0 All the kinks were worked out.\u00a0 This concerto is rather sneaky in the sense that it seems modern, which it is, but that it also has a surprising amount of melodic material, especially the second and third movements.\u00a0 That second theme in the last movement is probably my favorite in the entire work.\u00a0 It was neat to see the music played out on Shaham’s finger tips.\u00a0 I’m intimately familiar with the concerto so it was a nice treat to see it brought to life both aurally and physically.\u00a0 The difficulty of the work was evident as his fingers raced around the neck of the violin.\u00a0 I was glad that this garnered a huge reception once concluded.\u00a0 It wasn’t just a friendly and reserved reaction; it seemed genuine and respectful.<\/p>\n After intermission they started with Flight to Neverland<\/em> set to film.\u00a0 This was synched up to certain beat points with the film that contained various flying scenes in cinema.\u00a0 It was pretty standard.\u00a0 They brought all the lights down, so it was a bit hard to see the orchestra on Friday when I was down on the main floor.\u00a0 When I was up in the balcony on Saturday I had a better view of everything and had disregarded the film that time around.\u00a0 I was happy that a clip from “The Big Lebowski” received some laughs.\u00a0 The concert piece of these themes brought great energy and excitement.\u00a0 I’m sure this was a welcome change from the concerto for a lot of audience members.<\/p>\n The selections from Indiana Jones<\/em> included “Scherzo for Motorcycle and Orchestra”, “Marion’s Theme” and “The Adventures of Mutt”.\u00a0 All of these were spot on, but I was very much anticipating the concert version of “Marion’s Theme” the most.\u00a0 This was beautifully constructed in that it took one theme and extended it out for about 3 and a half minutes.\u00a0 It never felt repetitive or tedious.\u00a0 On Friday there was a woman to my right, up a couple of rows, sitting with her son.\u00a0 She may have been in her late 40s.\u00a0 She was just about on the verge of tears.\u00a0 You could almost feel the sense of lift this sweeping love theme gave the audience.<\/p>\n The selections from Lincoln<\/em> were “Elegy”, “Getting Out the Vote” and “With Malice Toward None”, the last of which was set to film of shots of the Lincoln memorial and scenes of the movie.\u00a0 The main trumpet line was performed by CSO principle Christopher Martin.\u00a0 He was literally in the spotlight.\u00a0 He had a hiccup on the higher notes that first night, but sounded perfect on Saturday.\u00a0 The string writing in these selections was graceful yet stunning.\u00a0 It’s typical Williams string writing over the last 15 years or so; very dense with much clarity.\u00a0 He spoke briefly beforehand to set up the three pieces<\/p>\n Adventures on Earth<\/em> was the cherry on top.\u00a0 When I think of the music from E.T., especially the last portion of the score, I think of how breathtaking it is, how utterly capable the music is of creating awe.\u00a0 Everyone was held spellbound.\u00a0 It’s impossible not to feel this.\u00a0 I dare you to try.\u00a0 I loved the performance, although I would have liked some of the middle section to be a bit slower like that heart wrenching part when the strings come in and play that gentle building passage.<\/p>\n The encores were Yoda’s Theme<\/em>, Star Wars<\/em> main theme (to film), and the Imperial March<\/em>.\u00a0 Williams played with the audience a bit more on Friday, coming out, leaving, coming back and then putting up his finger for “one more”.\u00a0 These are his usual antics and he did this for each additional encore.\u00a0 He had a bit more energy on Friday where he milked this for everything it was worth and the audience loved it.\u00a0 Wild applause when the words “Star War”s exploded on screen simultaneously with an eruption from the orchestra.<\/p>\n Williams conducted with a lot of energy, fluidity and ease; arms raised high and waiving broadly when required.\u00a0 He even hunkered down a bit during some of the quieter moments, especially during his concerto.\u00a0 He was engaged and lively.\u00a0 These are two performances I will not likely soon forget.\u00a0 It was completely worth the plane ticket and hotel stay if I had just seen the concerts, but Chicago is quite picturesque and the Autumn air gave it a magical quality as I walked around the many parks, river bends and cityscape, plus many other activities in the downtown area.\u00a0 I was there for 3 days and it was just enough to gather an experience of a lifetime and make a lasting impression.<\/p>\n Tim<\/p>\n <\/p>\n NOVEMBER 9, 2013 The Violin Concerto was beautiful<\/em>, Gil Shaham did an incredible job. Made me wish all over again that I had caught the Horn Concerto in 2003. His score selections sounded as good as ever, plus there were three Star Wars <\/em>encores — “Yoda’s Theme,” “The Main Title Suite” (with a film montage), and “The Imperial March” — which were a lot of fun and he did his usual cheeky back-and-forth off the stage between each one. JW looked great and in his element, though he only spoke a few times: before the Lincoln <\/em>suite (talked about his love for the CSO, asking them to do the score, and Illinois being the first state to ratify the 13th Amendment, plus a few comments about each movement) and “Adventures on Earth” (talked a little about the film, particularly how much he loved the kids’ performances.) Great audience too, everyone just adored him.<\/p>\n NOVEMBER 10, 2013 AMAZING show on Sunday!\u00a0 I saw him with the CSO in 2007, which was much more of a “Greatest Hits” program, I thought, as opposed to the selection of comparatively “deep” tracks he played today.\u00a0 There were a higher proportion of classic crowd-pleasers in ’07, but I didn’t enjoy this one any less.\u00a0 I was in the upper balcony, and with my trusty pair of binoculars, I had the best seat in the house, with clear views of everyone but the trumpets and some of the percussion, who were camped out behind the screen.\u00a0 (Can’t the CSO afford a retractable screen?\u00a0 There’s an awfully long donor list in the program…)\u00a0 I’d say the standout section of the ensemble was the trombones, who lit up all the up-tempo selections with bold and melodic lines.\u00a0 I’m an orchestral layperson if ever there were one, so time after time I would sweep my viewfinder from one end of the brass to the other, seeking the source of that righteous racket, and it was almost always the trombones.\u00a0 Big kudos as well to the flute and piccolo players, who popped in and out precisely at the appointed times to dress up or punctuate the big melodies with long or short runs, as well as nailing key solos in the slower material.\u00a0 And of course, the hardest-rocking man on stage, the timpani player, brought every crescendo <\/em>section over the top.<\/p>\n The program followed what was posted exactly, with the addition of a salute to Hollywood leading ladies set to the theme from Laura<\/em>, which Gil Shaham stuck around to play as a “personal favor” to the Maestro before the intermission.\u00a0 The encores were the same as reported above, too.\u00a0 The Cowboys<\/em> overture was a thrilling and energetic opener; I’ve never heard the full overture live\u2014certainly never under Williams’ baton\u2014and it’s really a gorgeous, cohesive piece of music, one of those film suites that seems to tell a story in and of itself.\u00a0 The same is even truer of Close Encounters<\/em>, and speaking as one who’s immune to the charms of the film, I loved seeing what amounted to a highlight reel of the movie’s few memorable scenes on the projector screen, accompanied by a blessedly short summary of the score’s menacing suspense material and a full rendering of its transcendent climax.\u00a0 (I don’t use that word loosely, but the ending of that suite really embodies it for me.)\u00a0 Jaws <\/em>was pleasant, as always, though I’m too young for this to be one of my favorites.\u00a0 (That was, I think, the only outright repeat from 2007 in the main program, and, now as then, I couldn’t find the demarcation point between “Out to Sea” and “The Shark Cage Fugue.”)\u00a0 I find it curious that, in two concerts, Williams has included selections from this score without touching the concert suite of the main theme (not that I miss it; these pieces are more enjoyable).<\/p>\n Shaham’s section was next, and I actually found this section less engaging than the rest, partly because it consisted mostly of non-Williams compositions, and partly because Shaham\u2014a formidable player who really seems to enjoy himself\u2014was a bit poorly amplified.\u00a0 Still, it was a pleasant surprise to hear Williams’ orchestral arrangement of “Por Una Cabeza” from Scent of a Woman<\/em>, which is a treasure I’d only recently unearthed, and the Fiddler<\/em> medley, which was masterfully arranged, with melodies bouncing all over the orchestra.\u00a0 (I wonder how long it’s been since JW conducted that one.\u00a0 I can’t imagine it’s been at the top of his concert playlists since…well, probably before he gave concerts.)\u00a0 Schindler’s List <\/em>was moving, of course, and quite powerful live (another one I’d never experienced that way).\u00a0 Several concertgoers in my section of the house were moved to a spontaneous standing ovation at the end.\u00a0 This is as good a time as any to note that on every single selection, the CSO was tighter than shrink-wrap.\u00a0 Close your eyes, and they might as well have been blaring the CD versions of any of these selections (with a few pleasant exceptions below).<\/p>\n The Laura <\/em>starlet montage brought us to the intermission.\u00a0 I always love catching snatches of upcoming selections from rehearsing musicians before and between shows, and I heard a horn player limbering up for “Flight to Neverland” once the musicians started to return.\u00a0 That was the first selection of the second half, another I hadn’t heard live from the Maestro, and another knockout.\u00a0 This one featured the flying montage that I’ve read about before.\u00a0 As it began, I was begrudging the presence of the screen, because it always means lowered lights on the stage and less attention on the musicians.\u00a0 After a minute or so, though, I was won over by the sheer quality of the montage.\u00a0 Someone must have slaved over licensing, sequencing, and synchronizing the clips, which covered a wide swath of decades, studios, and genres.\u00a0 And kudos to Williams and the musicians, who\u2014aided by a scrolling metronome\/monitor in front of the conductor’s stand\u2014kept the music on track with only a few missed beats.<\/p>\n Next came the “Three Pieces from Indiana Jones<\/em>,” which opened with the “Scherzo for Motorcycle and Orchestra.”\u00a0 That’s a sentimental favorite for me, as it was one of the Williams “gateway drugs” on the Greatest Hits 1969-1999 <\/em>album that took adolescent me from “casual fan” to “casualty of fanaticism.”\u00a0 (I actually credit “Scherzo” with awakening me to the power of a well-crafted instrumental piece.\u00a0 It was that track that showed me there was more to John Williams, and film music, and orchestral music, than trumpets and theme songs.)\u00a0 This was the first of several pieces where the precision of the musicians really shone.\u00a0 Pizzicato strings gave way to horn bursts, which led back to bowed string lines and fleeting flute runs without a millisecond of overlap or delay.\u00a0 I also could swear I heard a slight modification to the ending of the piece, but there are already discrepancies between the OST, end credits, and concert versions, so it might just have been one of those that I was less familiar with.\u00a0 The middle piece was “Marion’s Theme,” in what I assume is the 2008 concert version, because it featured a beautiful and unfamiliar woodwind counter-melody here and there, plus some new transitional material.\u00a0 Bloody gorgeous.\u00a0 He closed the suite with “The Adventures of Mutt,” a piece I used to find derivative and boring, but which has grown on me a lot in five years.\u00a0 It sounded positively joyous, and it’s got to be one of the Maestro’s most fun recent compositions outside of the Tintin <\/em>score.\u00a0 I was surprised that this suite didn’t include the “Raiders <\/em>March,” apart from its quotations in “Mutt,” but I was just as happy to get to explore these three underplayed gems.\u00a0 (Still waiting for a recording of “Marion’s Theme,” aren’t we?)<\/p>\n A spoken intro from Williams led to the Lincoln <\/em>triptych, wherein “Elegy” and “With Malice Toward None” were a sandwich of gorgeous wallpaper. (Sorry, I acknowledge the quality there, but do not combine the Lincoln <\/em>soundtrack with driving or operating heavy machinery.\u00a0 Also, points lost for excluding “The People’s House,” which is the belle of that ball in my book.)\u00a0 “Getting Out the Vote,” though, which featured concertmaster Robert Chen, was fantastic.\u00a0 What remains a small-ensemble piece of pseudo-source music on the album was rejiggered and (I think) expanded here to let the whole orchestra in on the fun.\u00a0 By the finale, I was tapping my foot and grinning to a piece that had only ever mildly amused me before.\u00a0 This is the kind of arrangement that makes me think Williams could permanently retire tomorrow, and musicians of sufficient caliber would still be able to spend decades finding new and hidden delights in his existing compositions.<\/p>\n He closed out the main program with “Adventures on Earth,” a piece I’d only ever dreamed of hearing live someday, and good God, what a marvel.\u00a0 I never knew that those jubilant shrieks that open the concert suite come mainly from the violins.\u00a0 (The woodwinds have to be somewhere in there, too, but I wasn’t fast enough with my binoculars to tell for sure.)\u00a0 Every note and beat was spot-on, and this moves me a long way toward naming the climactic moments of E.T. <\/em>as Williams’ absolute zenith in terms of sheer musical majesty and joy.\u00a0 (I felt the same way hearing Erich Kunzel lead the CSO in the shorter E.T.<\/em> suite at Ravinia some years back.)\u00a0 Incidentally, the Maestro made a point of specifying that the lack of film footage for this piece allowed the orchestra’s contribution to the film to really shine, particularly with an ensemble as world-class as the CSO.\u00a0 I couldn’t agree more (though, again, it would have been nice to lift the screen out of the way when it wasn’t being used so we could see the back players).<\/p>\n That was it for the main program, and honestly, I could have walked out right then and been more than satisfied.\u00a0 But all that flying hadn’t quite taken us to another galaxy yet, so a three-part, all-Star Wars<\/em> encore was in order.\u00a0 Williams led with “Yoda’s Theme,” which I never expected to hear live\u2014ever, ever, at all, ever\u2014and which brought a huge smile to my face, though I imagine a good chunk of the crowd might have been scratching its collective head.\u00a0 Gorgeous, buttery strings, especially the cellos, dominated this piece.\u00a0 Then came the last surprise of the night: the Star Wars <\/em>Main Title\/End Title suite (no surprise there), accompanied by a fantastic, new-to-me film montage that was, once again, brilliantly edited and synchronized to the music, even in the tiniest of details.\u00a0 (My favorite was a minor cymbal crash that perfectly punctuated a minor onscreen explosion or lightsaber ignition; I forget which.)\u00a0 This beat the tar out of the Lucas\/Spielberg montage that Williams was shopping around in 2007, a barely synchronized hodgepodge of famous shots from the original trilogy.\u00a0 This montage, by contrast, gave every major and secondary character a shot at the spotlight, touched on all six films, for better or worse, worked in some comedy, and found ways to reference everything in melodically appropriate places in the music from Episode IV.\u00a0 I had written off film montages as a distraction for those who can’t appreciate watching the orchestra; this one really proved me wrong.\u00a0 One more roof-shaking rendition of “The Imperial March,” and Williams was ready for his sleepy-time cape routine<\/a>.<\/p>\n This was an excellent companion piece to the 2007 concert, and while I might have traded a couple of the violin-centered pieces for a fuller exploration of Williams’ oeuvre, the crowd-pleasing Shaham section probably compensated for the omission of Superman<\/em>, Jurassic Park,<\/em> and the Raiders <\/em>March.\u00a0 What surprised me, though, was the neglect of Harry Potter<\/em>.\u00a0 “Hedwig’s Theme” is\u2014inarguably, I think\u2014the Maestro’s most popular and influential work of the new millennium, considering its impact on the rest of the Potter film-and-theme-park franchise.\u00a0 I would expect that to be a staple nearly as ubiquitous as Star Wars <\/em>by this point.\u00a0 But I suppose when you show up as often as Williams does in Chicago, you play whatever you’re in the mood for on a given weekend.\u00a0 Again, I can’t stress enough the professionalism and precision of the CSO.\u00a0 I’m accustomed to hearing lesser orchestras lack this or that in manpower or tempo when it comes to these familiar compositions, but these musicians acquitted themselves beautifully on every selection.\u00a0 Chicago is truly blessed to have an orchestra like the CSO with such close ties to JW.\u00a0 Rock on, Maestro!\u00a0 Keep composing and come back soon!<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n\n
\nINTERMISSION<\/li>\n
\n<\/em>(“Scherzo for Motorcycle and Orchestra”, “Marion’s Theme”, “The Adventures of Mutt”)
\n<\/em><\/li>\n
\n<\/em>(“Elegy”, “Getting Out the Vote”, “With Malice Toward None”)
\n<\/em><\/li>\n
\nENCORES<\/li>\n\n
\nINTERMISSION<\/li>\n
\n<\/em>(“Scherzo for Motorcycle and Orchestra”, “Marion’s Theme”, “The Adventures of Mutt”)
\n<\/em><\/li>\n
\n<\/em>(“Elegy”, “Getting Out the Vote”, “With Malice Toward None”)
\n<\/em><\/li>\n
\nENCORES<\/li>\n\n
\nConcert Review by ‘nightscape94’<\/strong> (original post<\/a>)<\/p>\n
\nConcert Report by ‘mrbellamy’<\/strong> (original post<\/a>)<\/p>\n
\nConcert review by ‘igger6’<\/strong> (original post<\/a>)<\/p>\n