The Chicago Sinfonietta concluded its 19th season at Orchestra Hall Monday evening with two spectacular and unusual collaborations of the sort you rarely see, and which they do so well. The highlight of the evening was a performance of Holst’s The Planets with an accompanying video assembled with great care and attention by Adler astronomer and artist José Francisco Salgado. It was — dare I say it — a marriage made in heaven.
Unlike the CSO’s disappointing recent pairing of Pictures at an Exhibition with an interesting but unrelated collection of photographs of Chicago, Monday night’s production of The Planets produced a whole that was greater than the sum of its parts. The video connected in a deep way with the intellectual and emotional connotations most of us experience with this music. The result was a moving experience that went by all too quickly. I immediately wanted to experience it again. The Sinfonietta, the Chicago Children’s Choir, and the Adler staff all performed brilliantly.
In this day of atomic clocks and attention to milliseconds one could certainly complain that the synchronization of the music and the video was not always spot on. But it did not matter. This is a production that deserves a wider audience.
The evening began with Voodoo Violin Concerto No. 1 by performer-composer Daniel Bernard Roumain, who goes by the appellation “DBR”. This was not your parents’ violin concerto by any means. After creating a new indoor record for time to tune his instrument, DBR slipped almost without pause into his violin concerto, which surely challenged the structural integrity of his violin.
I always enjoy the unusual and interesting new sounds that contemporary composers frequently achieve with the symphony orchestra. Too often, at least in my experience, the sounds do not coalesce into a coherent whole that I am interested in hearing again. Not so with DBR and his electric violin. While the piece may not be everyone’s cup of tea, I thought it was fun, engaging and worth hearing again. And listening to the talk during intermission it was clear that the piece resonated with many in the audience, particularly the young people we all would like to see filling Orchestra Hall.
The performance suffered from the Sinfonietta’s perennial problem in Orchestra Hall of poor balance of amplified and unamplified sound. Does anyone with healthy hearing manage the sound technicians? The amplified violin too often overpowered the other instruments and occasionally produced sounds that were distorted and even painful.
It was a pleasure to see the members of the Sinfonietta who participated in the Voodoo ensemble, first-rate symphonic musicians all, really get “into” the piece. Almost all of them were moving with the music and it showed in the quality of the performance, including many really sparkling improvisations. This was a performance that deserved a better technical production but also deserves a wider audience.
The Sinfonietta’s quality of performance and quality of programming is a true delight. I look forward to the 20th anniversary season.
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Phil Engel is the retired president of the Chicago-based CNA Insurance
Companies, one of the leading insurance groups in the United States. A
member of numerous boards, his interests also include family, music,
theater, opera, travel, photography and personal computing.
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