THIRD COAST REVIEW: Grant Park Orchestra and Chorus Offers Stephenson, Beethoven, and a Beautiful Requiem by Maurice Duruflé
Louis Harris, July 14, 2024
On yet another lovely evening, the Grant Park Orchestra and Chorus gave an equally lovely performance on Friday at Jay Pritzker Pavilion. Leading the orchestra and chorus was Giancarlo Guerrero in a program that started with a world premiere of You Have Reached the City Limit by Chicago composer James Stephenson. It ended with the beautiful Requiem by 20th century French composer Maurice Duruflé.
In between was Terrence Wilson filling in at the last minute to perform one of Ludwig van Beethoven’s greatest hits, Piano Concerto no 5 in E-flat Major, Emperor. Beethoven specialist Stewart Goodyear was originally scheduled to perform, but a family emergency forced him to cancel. Wilson’s performance was admirable and enjoyable, but not the best I’ve ever heard.
It was also a night with more than the usual disturbances from sirens, helicopters, motorcycles, and other city noises. Being a Chicago native who has enjoyed many concerts at the Grant Park Music Festival, Stephenson considered this noisy ambience as he wrote You Have Reached the City Limit, which the festival commissioned. He was present on Friday to introduce this fabulous cornucopia of the sounds of Chicago.
In the piece, Stephenson tells the story of a couple who go on the town and explore Chicago’s blues scenes during various epochs, starting with the 1920s era, à la Jelly Roll Morton, and the 1940s and '50s, à la Muddy Waters. It then moves on to more modern Chicago musical sounds.
The couple was represented by concertmaster Jeremy Black, who was lights out on violin, and trumpeter David Gordon, who played both muted and unmuted responses. Pianist Patrick Gordon played the blues, switching back and forth between a grand and upright piano.
With a baton in his right hand and arms swinging over his head, Guerrero demonstrated a robust conducting style, and the orchestra delivered. The overall effect of You Have Reached the City Limit was stunning.
Up next was the Emperor Concerto. Thrust into the spotlight with just a few days’ notice, Terrence Wilson gave an enjoyable performance with a very businesslike approach. This work does not have a lot of bombast, so Wilson did not have many opportunities to display fireworks. What is required is gravitas, and that he delivered quite well.
The opening chords, arpeggios, and trills revealed Wilson to be a pianist with a steady touch and lots of finesse. Unfortunately, as the performance progressed, there were several missed notes and a couple of runs that were off. On the whole, he was very good. With a little more time to prepare, he would have been great.
Guerrero made everything in the orchestra blend, although there were a couple of times when horn solos did not come through clearly. Wilson and the orchestra interacted well, such as in the opening Allegro, when the violins and cellos echoed Wilson playing octave arpeggios. The slow second movement, Adagio un poco mosso, gave Wilson and the Orchestra lots of tender moments together. Although the Rondo: Allegro finale delivered the sendoff in a way that only Beethoven can, the mistakes began to add up.
After intermission, the Grant Park Chorus entered the stage for Maurice Duruflé’s Requiem, a work about which Guerrero is passionate. An organist and teacher, Duruflé only published 14 compositions, and Guerrero pointed out that this is his only large-scale orchestral work. Guerrero considers it the most beautiful pieces of music ever written, and he showed intense familiarity by conducting without score, without podium, and without baton. He threw his whole body into this performance, and the orchestra and chorus gave him the tools to make it a real beauty.
Guerrero noted that, as Requiems go, this one is fairly optimistic and happy, which came out from the opening “Introit,” where the voices sounded peaceful, and the orchestra provided a gentle backup. The “Kyrie” was a bit more intense. The chorus, under the direction of Christopher Bell, sounded tight, with clear enunciation.
Duruflé did not include vocal solos in the score, but he did include solos for the instruments. Anne Bach on English horn gave a nice backup to the basses and baritones singing “Domine Jesu Christe.” Cellist Walter Haman led the rest of the cellos and violas to back up the Altos singing “Pie Jesu.”
This performance was a marvelous aural montage that offered many moments of total ecstasy. The one that stood out the most was during the “Sanctus,” when the whole orchestra and choir came in together for an amazing sunrise.
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