PROGRAM

ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-FOURTH SEASON

Chicago Symphony Orchestra

Riccardo Muti Zell Music Director
Pierre Boulez Helen Regenstein Conductor Emeritus
Yo-Yo Ma Judson and Joyce Green Creative Consultant Global Sponsor of the CSO

Friday, November 7, 2014, at 8:00

Saturday, November 8, 2014, at 8:00

Cristian Măcelaru Conductor

Elena Urioste Violin
Brahms, orch. Dvořák
Hungarian Dance No. 17 in F-sharp Minor
Hungarian Dance No. 18 in D Major
Hungarian Dance No. 19 in B Minor
Hungarian Dance No. 20 in E Minor
Hungarian Dance No. 21 in E Minor
Bruch
Violin Concerto No. 1 in G Minor, Op. 26
Prelude: Allegro moderato—
Adagio
Finale: Allegro energico
ELENA URIOSTE

INTERMISSION

Dvořák
Symphony No. 9 in E Minor, Op. 95 (From the New World)
Adagio—Allegro molto
Largo
Molto vivace
Allegro con fuoco

Saturday’s concert is sponsored by the Abbott Fund.

This program is partially supported by grants from the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency, and the National Endowment for the Arts.
 COMMENTS by Phillip Huscher

Johannes Brahms
Born May 7, 1833, Hamburg, Germany.
Died April 3, 1897, Vienna, Austria.

Hungarian Dances, Nos. 17–21 (Orchestrated by Antonín Dvořák)

In 1869, after years of where he enjoyed leisurely hours listening
playing his Hungarian to Gypsy bands. He described them to Fritz
Dances at the piano for Simrock, the first man to publish them, as “per-
friends, Brahms decided haps the most practical [pieces] so impractical a
to have them published. man as I can supply.” When the dances proved
He had started playing even more popular than either he or Simrock
these pieces at parties and anticipated, he made further arrangements for
social gatherings as long solo piano. Eventually, the urge to make full
ago as the early 1850s, orchestral dances
remembering the of them proved
“Hungarian” style—the spirit and the sounds, irresistible, both to
the folklike melodies and the halting rhythms— Brahms himself,
that he had learned from Eduard Reményi, the who orchestrated
composer and violinist. For many years, Brahms three, and to other
didn’t even write these dances down. Then, in composers, including
1867, he put some on paper, in arrangements for Brahms’s new friend,
piano four-hands, as a way of capturing a fuller Antonín Dvořák.
orchestral sound. He also wrote a second set of The five that Dvořák
dances in 1880. picked are the last
The Hungarian Dances find Brahms at his of the twenty-one
most easygoing. They were, in a sense, his way that Brahms chose
Eduard Reményi (left) and
of escaping through music to his favorite cafes, to publish.  Brahms, 1853

COMPOSED MOST RECENT INSTRUMENTATION

1880, piano four-hands
ORCHESTRATED BY DVOŘÁK
1880
FIRST PERFORMANCE
date unknown
FIRST CSO PERFORMANCES
November 11 & 12, 1892, Auditorium
Theatre. Theodore Thomas conducting
July 16, 1936, Ravinia Festival. Willem
Van Hoogstraten conducting
CSO PERFORMANCES
October 9, 10 & 11, 1975, Orchestra
Hall. Erich Leinsdorf conducting
April 2, 3 & 4, 1981, Orchestra Hall.
Erich Leinsdorf conducting (nos. 17
& 21)
June 28, 2014, Morton Arboretum.
Cristian Măcelaru conducting
two flutes and piccolo, two oboes,
two clarinets, two bassoons, four
horns, two trumpets, three trombones,
percussion, harp, strings
APPROXIMATE
PERFORMANCE TIME
9 minutes
CSO RECORDING
1926. Frederick Stock conducting. CSO
(Chicago Symphony Orchestra: The First
100 Years)

2
Max Bruch
Born January 6, 1838, Cologne, Germany.
Died October 2, 1920, Friedenau, near Berlin, Germany.

Violin Concerto No. 1 in G Minor, Op. 26

Although he was born five
years after Johannes
Brahms, Max Bruch hit
his stride much sooner. At
eleven he was writing
chamber music; in 1852,
at the age of fourteen, he
tossed off his first sym-
phony. (Brahms was
forty-two when he
finished his, after nearly a quarter century of
intermittent work.) Bruch’s first violin concerto
was begun in 1864 and first performed, to
considerable acclaim, in 1868—before A German
Requiem put Brahms on the map (and more than a
decade before his own celebrated violin concerto).
The downside of early success is the waning
star. Several composers, some as great as Felix
Mendelssohn, are regularly accused of failing to
sustain their promise. This is a standard line in
the Bruch literature, too, along with that even
more worrisome one about a one-hit reputa-
tion. Neither assertion is entirely accurate—or
fair—although Bruch’s G minor concerto has
always been immensely popular (far more so than
his other two) and more frequently performed
than Kol nidrei for cello and orchestra, or the
Scottish Fantasy for violin and orchestra. The
irony of Bruch’s career—particularly in light of
the current admiration for art that is, above all,
accessible—is that by writing music to please the
audience of his day, Bruch lost the interest of
succeeding generations.
The G minor violin concerto, however, has
withstood time, and it makes a most persuasive
case for the composer. Soloists keep concertos
before the public, and violinists have always loved
to play this piece. Bruch studied violin for several
years, and he wrote for the instrument with
enormous affection and skill. When his pub-
lisher once suggested he try a work for cello and
orchestra, Bruch replied, “I have more important
things to do than write stupid cello concertos.”
Eugen d’Albert asked for a piano concerto in
1886; Bruch fired back: “Me, write a piano
concerto! That’s the limit!” (Bruch eventually
wrote beautifully for cello with orchestra, though
he never did compose a piano concerto.)
Bruch had difficulty writing this concerto,
his first major work. There was even a public
performance of a preliminary version, but Bruch
was dissatisfied. The celebrated violinist Joseph
Joachim offered important suggestions (he
would later play the same role in the creation of
Brahms’s concerto), and Bruch was smart enough
to take his advice. When the concerto was pre-
sented in its final form in 1868, Joachim was the
soloist (Bruch also dedicated the score to him).

COMPOSED July 15, 1950, Ravinia Festival. INSTRUMENTATION

1864–1867
FIRST PERFORMANCE
January 7, 1868; Bremen, Germany.
With Joseph Joachim as soloist
FIRST CSO PERFORMANCES
July 18, 1893, Music Hall at the World’s
Columbian Exposition. Maud Powell as
soloist, Theodore Thomas conducting
December 21 & 22, 1894, Auditorium
Theatre. César Thomson as soloist,
Theodore Thomas conducting
Gino Francescatti as soloist, Antal
Doráti conducting
MOST RECENT
CSO PERFORMANCES
October 8, 9 & 10, 2009, Orchestra
Hall. Joshua Bell as soloist, Yan Pascal
Tortelier conducting
June 28, 2014, Morton Arboretum.
Elena Urioste as soloist, Cristian
Măcelaru conducting
July 26, 2014, Ravinia Festival.
Joshua Bell as soloist, James
Conlon conducting
solo violin, two flutes, two oboes, two
clarinets, two bassoons, four horns,
two trumpets, timpani, strings
APPROXIMATE
PERFORMANCE TIME
24 minutes
CSO RECORDINGS
1980. Shlomo Mintz as soloist,
Claudio Abbado conducting.
Deutsche Grammophon
1986. Cho-Liang Lin as soloist,
Leonard Slatkin conducting.
Deutsche Grammophon

3
B 
ruch planned to call the concerto a
fantasy, which helps to explain the
disposition of the three movements.
The first is a prelude in title and mood, rather
than the weightiest movement of the work.
Even though the violinist works as hard as in
any of the great virtuoso concertos, and the
dialogue between solo and orchestra is heated
Antonín Dvořák
Born September 8, 1841, Nelahozeves, Bohemia (now Czech Republic).
Died May 1, 1904, Prague, Czechoslovakia.
Symphony No. 9 in E Minor, Op. 95 (From the New World)
Let’s start with
Mrs. Jeannette Thurber,
the wife of a New York
millionaire wholesale
grocer and a
self-appointed cultural
maven, who abandoned
her English-language
opera company (after
putting a serious dent in
her husband’s fortune) to foster an American
school of composition. Mrs. Thurber contacted
Antonín Dvořák in June 1891 with her proposal.
She wanted the famous Czech composer to move
to America; become the director of the National
Conservatory of Music, where he would teach
composition and instrumentation (for an annual
salary of $15,000); serve as a figurehead for her
new cause; and, in his spare time, write a number
of new works, including an opera based on
Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha. Oddly
enough, Dvořák agreed.
As soon as the SS Saale completed the Atlantic
crossing the composer had dreaded, Dvořák
found himself an instant celebrity; he, in turn,
became a keen observer of American life. When
he wasn’t teaching—or conducting the conserva-
tory choir and orchestra—Dvořák explored New
York. By day, he walked in Central Park to talk
to the pigeons and dropped by Lower East Side
cafes, where other Central Europeans liked to
hang out. At night he visited assorted watering
holes. (One night he drank the distinguished
4
and extensive, the tone is anticipatory. When,
without a pause, we reach the slow movement,
we find the heart of the concerto: a rich, wonder-
fully lyrical expanse of music that shows Bruch
at his best and offers melodies tailor-made for
the violin. The finale begins in quiet suspense,
broken by the entrance of the violin with a
hearty dance tune and more fireworks. 
critic James Huneker under the table.) He loved
to check out the ocean liners along the wharves
and clock the trains as their locomotives roared
into the city’s stations. And, with Mrs. Thurber
on his arm, he even attended Buffalo Bill’s Wild
West Show.
But how much of America’s musical tradition
he absorbed is another question altogether.
The question, in fact, was raised with the first
major work Dvořák wrote in America, his Ninth
Symphony, which came to be known as From the
New World.
D 
vořák began sketching his E minor
symphony only three months after he
arrived at the dock in Hoboken. (He
was always meticulous about dating his manu-
scripts, both at the beginning and at the end of a
piece, and the pages of the symphony tell us that
he worked from January 10 until May 24, 1893.)
And while he was writing his Ninth Symphony,
he remarked, “The influence of America can be
felt by anyone who has a ‘nose.’ ” We can excuse
Dvořák’s strangely mixed metaphors, but we
can’t be so lenient with the musical implications.
This is where the picture begins to blur. There’s
no question that Dvořák was seriously interested
in music of Native Americans and African
Americans. We know that he often invited
Harry T. Burleigh, a gifted young black singer,
to perform spirituals for him. But during his first
year in the New World, Dvořák made a num-
ber of comments that virtually guaranteed the
 acclamation listeners know as “Goin’ Home,” the gorgeous
of his new english-horn melody of the second movement,
symphony and it is still often said to be a spiritual. It may,
as a genuine in fact, have been influenced by spirituals—we
musical know that Dvořák ultimately picked the english
evocation of horn because it reminded him of Burleigh’s
America and voice—but the tune is Dvořák’s and the words
started lots of were later added by one of his students, who
high-handed adapted the music as a spiritual.
talk about The rest can be reduced to hot air. Dvořák, with
the use of the best of intentions, spoke in glowing terms
spirituals and about the spiritual—“tender, passionate, mel-
Indian songs ancholy, solemn . . . ideal material for a national
in a sym- melodic style”—but he had used similar words
Jeannette Thurber, founder of the
National Conservatory of Music,
phony. When, earlier to describe Scottish and Irish folk songs
New York just before the during his visits to Britain. And, although he
first perfor- was evidently impressed by the American Indian
mance in December 1893, Dvořák tacked on songs he first heard in Spillville, Iowa, during the
that title, From the New World, he continued summer of 1893 (after he had finished the Ninth
the controversy. Symphony, incidentally), he easily confused this
It’s difficult to determine the extent of the music with that of African Americans and said as
American influence on Dvořák, but it’s fairly much in an interview with The New York Herald.
easy to lay to rest a couple of myths. The con- Eventually, Dvořák modified his stance a
fusion centers mainly on Dvořák’s use of the bit. In 1900, he wrote to a conductor who had
pentatonic scale and one especially attractive programmed the New World Symphony: “Leave
tune. The first item can be quickly dismissed. The out the nonsense about my having made use of
pentatonic scale (a five-note scale without half American melodies. I have only composed in the
steps, best visualized as the black notes on the spirit of such American national melodies.” He
keyboard) colors many of Dvořák’s themes here later referred to all his works written in America
and was thought to duplicate the sound of Native as “genuine Bohemian music,” and said that the
American melodies, but it also is indigenous title of his Ninth Symphony was only meant
to folk music worldwide and popped up fre- to signify “impressions and greetings from the
quently in Dvořák’s music before he ever crossed New World”—a musical postcard to the folks
the Atlantic. The big tune is the one many back home.

COMPOSED MOST RECENT APPROXIMATE

1893
FIRST PERFORMANCE
December 16, 1893; New York City
FIRST CSO PERFORMANCES
November 2 & 3, 1894, Auditorium
Theatre. Theodore Thomas conducting
July 23, 1936, Ravinia Festival. Isaac
Van Grove conducting
CSO PERFORMANCES PERFORMANCE TIME
June 7 & 19, 2009, Orchestra Hall. 41 minutes
Sir Mark Elder conducting
CSO RECORDINGS
June 28, 2014, Morton Arboretum.
1951. Rafael Kubelík conducting.
Cristian Măcelaru conducting
Mercury
July 10, 2014, Ravinia Festival. James
1957. Fritz Reiner conducting. RCA
Conlon conducting
1977. Carlo Maria Giulini conducting.
INSTRUMENTATION Deutsche Grammophon
two flutes and piccolo, two oboes
1981. James Levine conducting. RCA
and english horn, two clarinets, two
bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, 1983. Sir Georg Solti conducting.
three trombones, tuba, timpani, London
cymbals, triangle, strings

5
A 
nd so, it all comes down to the
music. To many concertgoers, this
symphony is so familiar and wel-
coming that it resists explanation. There are,
however, a few highlights worth noting.
The formal hallmarks of the piece are the use
of a motto theme—that vigorous horn call that
charges up and down the E minor triad—in all
four movements, and the reappearance of earlier
themes, like relatives at a family reunion, in the
finale. Neither idea is the least bit novel, but both
are beautifully handled.
The first movement begins in a melancholy
mood in which some listeners find conclusive
evidence of Dvořák’s homesickness, but that is
quickly shattered by the vaulting horn theme.
Later, a gentle tune may, as many insist, suggest
“Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” but there is no
evidence—in the music or elsewhere—to confirm
its use.
The first movement ends decisively in E minor,
and the great Largo theme begins in the rela-
tively inaccessible key of D-flat major. Dvořák
takes the scenic route, via a beautiful progression
of seven deep, broad chords that get us to D-flat
quickly and without incident. (We now know
that Dvořák originally sketched the famous
Largo melody in C but transposed it to D-flat
just so he could use this series of chords as a
© 2014 Chicago Symphony Orchestra
bridge.) Near the end, the motto theme barges
in, unexpected and full of terror, but the english
horn quickly reinstates calm, and the movement
ends pianissimo, with the double basses alone.
The scherzo begins with a thunderclap; how-
ever, this isn’t storm music, but, according to the
composer, music inspired by the feast and dance
of Pau-Puk Keewis in The Song of Hiawatha. It
seems that Dvořák got no farther than a few
preliminary sketches for the Hiawatha opera
Mrs. Thurber wanted and decided to put his
ideas to good use here.
The finale boasts a bold brass theme and two
other lovely pastoral melodies of its own, but
Dvořák grants visitation rights to the principal
themes of the previous three movements early
in the development section, and he is thus able
to build a thrilling climax by throwing them all
together near the end. Even that stately chord
progression from the Largo appears.
A brief postscript. Jeannette Thurber died
in Bronxville, New York, in 1946. In her last
years, Mrs. Thurber liked to take credit for
suggesting to Dvořák the idea for the New World
Symphony. 
Phillip Huscher is the program annotator for the Chicago
Symphony Orchestra.