March 01--Monday night at Orchestra Hall, Cliff Colnot presented his final concert as conductor of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, the nonpareil training ensemble of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
He will continue to work with the group through the current season, when his 22 years as its head will end, fewer than three years before the orchestra's centennial.
Spoken accolades joined a conductor-less encore aimed to show the high level of technical proficiency achieved under Colnot. But the formal program was testimony enough in its characteristic combination of becoming modesty and quiet strength.
The program demonstrated the orchestra's affinity for 20th century and contemporary music, two areas notably under-represented at concerts by the Civic's parent organization. Moreover, Colnot led Augusta Read Thomas' "EOS (Goddess of Dawn)" and Dmitri Shostakovich's Ninth Symphony without any prefatory chatter that assumes listeners are children requiring cajoling.
In fact, the bright, bouncily rhythmic sounds of Thomas' 2014 "EOS" made for 17 minutes of aural glitter. The CSO's former composer-in-residence subtitled her piece "a Ballet for Orchestra," providing a detailed mythological program. Yet that was merely part of the grandiosity that had Thomas verbally declaring the student ensemble "one of the best orchestras in the world."
Things are what they are. "EOS" is a colorfully orchestrated diversion for large forces that rarely play all at once but tickle, cheer and please in skeins. It does not set out to achieve expressive or memorable melodies. Nor does it evoke strong atmosphere or vivid stage pictures essential to dance. The Civic's Chicago premiere gave it an easygoing clarity, with brief solos sonorously dispatched.
Shostakovich's Ninth Symphony long ago seemed to call mainly for jollity. Then ironists got to work, attempting to impart a bitter, even stinging edge. Colnot played it mostly straight. String tone was mellow, brasses were occasionally brash. The pathos lying beneath the surface of the slow movement mostly stayed there. A minor fluff apart, key extended wind solos were secure in both tone and feeling.
After bass player Fernando de la Fuente recounted anecdotes illustrating Colnot's caring leadership, 33 strings affectionately played to him the final two movements from Igor Stravinsky's Concerto in D.
Alan Artner is a freelance critic.
