Review: Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Cristian Măcelaru, at Orchestra Hall through Feb. 22. ★★★★★

By Lawrence B. Johnson

Even in absentia, Pierre Boulez brings an incalculable contribution to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra as its conductor emeritus, artistic guru and good friend. What better example than two rarefied programs exploring Stravinsky’s musical world that Boulez fashioned and planned to conduct this weekend and next at Orchestra Hall. 

Alas, this year as last, the 88-year-old Frenchman, hailed by CSO music director Riccardo Muti as the greatest living musician, has been kept away by the infirmities of age and obliged to leave conducting duties to a trio of young maestros he selected: Cristian Măcelaru this weekend and the team of Marcelo Lehninger and Matthew Aucoin for concerts Feb. 27-March 1.

The first installment, heard Thursday night, is not only unlike any encounter you’ve ever had with Stravinsky, it also affords a clarifying view of an undervalued Debussy masterpiece and a fascinating glimpse of Ravel — under the spell of Schoenberg!

Moreover, the eight works included vocal as well as instrumental music and ranged in scale from large and small orchestras to chamber ensembles and even three essays for solo clarinet. Everything on the program was written in the single decade 1911-1920.

Each group of works was prefaced by a CSO-produced video of Boulez casually ruminating on the music, the composers and their relationships – a delight almost as rewarding as the splendid musical performances themselves.

The program opened with Debussy’s ballet “Jeux,” an exquisite little romance about a boy, two girls and a bouncing tennis ball. To this music of consummate gentleness and pastel delicacy, Măcelaru and the CSO brought unerring sensibility and unwavering poise. Boulez noted that “Jeux” had the historic misfortune of premiering in Paris exactly two weeks before Stravinsky’s “Le sacre du printemps” – and instantly vanished in the ensuing ruckus.

If Stravinsky and Ravel might not seem like obvious soul mates, they were nonetheless close colleagues, and when Stravinsky returned to Paris from Berlin after hearing the premiere of Schoenberg’s “Pierrot lunaire” in 1913, Ravel was captivated by his zealous report. Both composers immediately set about composing vocal pieces using Schoenberg’s novel instrumentation of flutes, clarinets, strings and piano – Stravinsky under the influence of first-hand experience, Ravel incited by the stimulus of Stravinsky’s account.

Thus one of the more charming episodes on this concert paired Ravel’s sensuous “Trois poèmes de Mallarmé” (given eloquent voice by mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke) with Stravinsky’s “Three Japanese Lyrics,” brilliant, harmonically venturesome aphorisms sung with precision by soprano Jennifer Zetlan. Cooke also offered an infectious performance of Stravinsky’s “Cat’s Cradle Songs,” four perspectives on those independent critters sung to the accompaniment of three clarinets.

Just one clarinetist, CSO assistant principal John Bruce Yeh playing multiple forms of the instrument, sufficed for Stravinsky’s Three Pieces. Yeh dispatched this mesmerizing series of virtuosic flights with more than conviction – with genuine élan, and without the safety net of a score.

Măcelaru closed out this illuminating program with two works by Stravinsky for chamber orchestra, the first a vibrantly colored romp through the Suite No. 1, a sort of international folk tour bannered with movement titles like “Napolitana” and “Española.”

The concert finale, a vivacious go at the “Pulcinella” Suite, inspired a smile-inducing déja-vu for this writer. In 1965, six years before his death, the octogenarian Stravinsky conducted the CSO and three vocalists in the complete “Pulcinella” ballet at Orchestra Hall. I was there, still a college student, to see this legendary man, by then bent and halting but sure-witted as ever as he presided over his send-up of Pergolesi and others. In Boulez’s video commentary, he likened Stravinsky’s “Pulcinella” gambit to a guy who finds an old trumpet in an antique shop and turns it into a lamp.

Much as the composer did nearly 50 years ago on the same stage, Măcelaru and a heads-up little band of CSO musicians let Stravinsky’s mischievous light shine once more.

Related Links:

• Performance location, dates and times: Details at CSO.org
• Preview of the Chicago Symphony’s complete 2013-14 season: Details at ChicagoOntheAisle.com 
• Chicago Symphony announces season plans for 2014-15: Read details at ChicagoOntheAisle.com