Cellist Yo Yo Ma’s role as creative consultant of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra has in the last two months showed his prowess in late-Romantic, modern and contemporary chamber music as well as a landmark Romantic concerto.
Thursday night at Orchestra Hall brought him in another famous concerto, from the Classical period, and it had the most remarkable collaboration of all.
Guest conductor was Ton Koopman, a pioneer of historically informed performance. Ma recorded with him more than a decade ago, since which time Koopman began appearing on CSO subscription concerts, at the head of about 30 players. He does not seem to have prompted the glumness, even resistance, shown by the orchestra to other early music specialists.
Perhaps that’s because enthusiasm and fantasy goes along with Koopman’s scholarliness. But, as likely, it’s owing to the flexibility he displayed in moving from the cool crispness of his opening Haydn “Le Matin” Symphony (No. 6) to the warm roundedness of Ma’s Haydn D-Major Cello Concerto.
Ma reined in his tone, giving a courtly reading high in charm, without roughness, drive or sharp attack. The first movement, marked Allegro moderato, was moderate indeed, establishing an atmosphere of gentle self-effacement. Sometimes a sense of the fragile became too much, making one yearn for the robustness that came only in the closing pages. But the conception was all of a piece, even if Ma played with vibrato and allowed romantic indulgences such as a trill that began almost inaudibly and the orchestra was more bracingly strict.
Coolness returned in the first CSO performance of Mozart’s Symphony No. 20, heard in a light unforced account that, like the Haydn Symphony, had accomplished playing from strings and winds but was not made to sound brilliant or overly cultivated. The music unfolded with well-scrubbed plainness, and that gave enjoyment enough.
Conductors say each piece they present has its own sound. Then they homogenize it with a sound of their own. Koopman, on the other hand, conveyed distinctive qualities whether the scores were Austrian, Italian or French.
Listeners in neighboring seats remarked on how much quieter than usual the audience was, and in this the unfamiliar – music as well as performance style – surely played a part. Pietro Antonio Locatelli’s glowingly sonorous “Introduttione teatrale” (Op. 4, No. 4) received a first CSO performance, and the forward-looking”Chaos”from Jean-Fery Rebel’s “The Elements” reappeared for the first time in a decade.
The program will be repeated at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Young Armenian cellist Narek Hakhnazaryan will replace Ma on Saturday.
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