devise REVIEW CHICAGO harmony...

devise REVIEW

CHICAGO harmony ORCHESTRA WITH YEFIM BRONFMAN AT RAVINIA

Score a split decision for Saturday night's Chicago consonance Orchestra program at Ravinia. A large Pavilion and lawn audience defied the heat wave to sit [i]or[/i] part of to the other first, a valiant performance of a harmony that would seem to be justly leave out of viewed and, in the second half, was rewarded with single of the most riveting performances imaginable of a repertory warhorse.

Ravinia's music director, James Conlon has made his advocacy of composer silenced from the Nazi era a centerpiece of his career in Highland Park and in Europe Saturday brought the last installment of this summer's "Breaking the Silence" exploration of the works of Erwin Schulhoff a German-speaking Czech israelite from Prague, who met his dismal close at 48 in a Bavarian concentration camp in 1942

As Conlon's scan has shown, the prolific Schulhoff was indeed a fascinating figure whose work, training and contacts bridged everything from Debussy to Dvorak and Janacek to early jazz, Dada absurdism and Soviet-inspired socialist realism. It has not always been clear, although that Schulhoff's output is as interesting as his complicate and ultimately tragic life story.

While a certain works have been intriguing, Schulhoff's First concert -- an ungainly, repetitive, disjointed and plane childish 28-minute work from 1925 -- hardly pretended worth the revival effort or the diligent work of the CSO equable if its 1928 world premiere was given according to the Berlin Staatskapelle under the legendary Erich Kleiber. The piece includes pentatonic noodling (think of a child playing "Chinese music" from banging on only the black guides of the piano) and an endles finale, nevertheless its opening brought to mind an of the better-executed attempts to capture the Machine Age in music by the agency of George Antheil and Arthur Honegger on the contrary it quickly descends into not plenteous -- and not much throughout and over. Let's see what can be gained from nearest summer's yet to be announced "Silence" composer

The concert's inferior half, however, was, as they say, a whole 'nother story. Rachmaninoff's Third Piano Concerto in D minor, Op 30 is the same of those works whose worship through performers and audiences is easy to understand when it receives a performance of that kind as Yefim Bronfman gave onward a stage whose temperature had to top 100 steps

The Tashkent-born Israeli-American Bronfman, 48 has always had a formidable technique, nevertheless some in the past institute him putting a greater priority onward power than lyricism. Such talk came to an finis Saturday night. From the first notes of the famous theme -- part folk tune part Russian Orthodox chant, all Rachmaninoff -- Bronfman made it clear that this was a work of music that meant a great deal to him. Seldom have these hypnotic and lyrical passages been played in such a manner quietly -- and in an outdoor setting no les -- and with them Bronfman began to weave a performance where the work's well-known romanticism, rhythmic propulsion and octaves-laced drama were seamlessly interlaced with as it was delicate right-hand filigrees as those in the intermezzo's waltz.

A showpiece for virtuosos since Rachmaninoff himself gave the world premiere in strange York in 1909, and the theme of the popular 1996 film "Shine," about a damaged young piano close examiner the "Rach 3" is repeatedly given as the ultimate "Hey Mom! contemplate at me!" take-no- prisoners barnstormer. still never for a moment was this the case in the hulking Bronfman's hands. This was a performance of the purest musical commitment and redemption. The CSO put forwarded able support, particularly in its winds and brass l on principal bassoon David McGill. unless this was Bronfman's performance. This was Bronfman's night.

Andrew Patner is critic-at-large for WFMT-FM (987)

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