Lang Lang, Barenboim close with a bang

CHICAGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

highly recommended

When: 8 tonight

Where: Symphony Center, 220 S. Michigan

Tickets: $16-$109

Call: (312) 294-3000

The audience came to Symphony Center Thursday night to hear theChicago Symphony Orchestra in a piano concerto and the BrucknerSymphony No. 4, hearty fare conducted by music director DanielBarenboim.

Little did they expect to be served a musical amuse-bouche aswell, in the form of a sprightly piano duet with Barenboim and LangLang, the evening's soloist and, at age 20, one of classical music'shottest stars.

After a sparkling reading of Mendelssohn's Piano Concerto No. 1,stagehands brought out an extra piano stool, and Barenboim joinedLang Lang in Schubert's "Marche militaire" No. 1. An encore from LangLang, a Chicago favorite since the 1999 Ravinia performance thatlaunched his international career, was more or less expected. But aduet with Barenboim, one of the world's finest pianists and a recentLang Lang mentor, was a delightful surprise.

The evening was a happy combination of such expected andunexpected pleasures.

Lang Lang replaced Maurizio Pollini, a great artist heard tooseldom in Chicago, who last week canceled his appearances in theBeeethoven Piano Concerto No. 4 due to back strain. A Men-delssohnconcerto with a youthful talent like Lang Lang is a world away from aBeethoven concerto with a distinguished veteran like Pollini. ButLang Lang, sometimes the victim of his unbridled, youthfulenthusiasms in the past, had showed new maturity and elegance ofapproach when he played the Mendelssohn concerto here in the fallwith the Cleveland Orchestra and music director Franz Welser-Most.Since then, he worked on the concerto intensively with Barenboimbefore recording it, along with Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1,with the CSO and Barenboim in February.

He and Barenboim shared a similar vision throughout the concerto,rapturously riding its impetuous opening movement but allowing itsmore lyrical moments to unfold with unaffected serenity. Lang Langripped through the concerto's virtuoso passages with a maximum ofoffhand ease and a minimum of flamboyant body language.

That same well-matched combination of headlong drive andthoughtfulness between Lang Lang and Barenboim turned their littleSchubert encore into something truly memorable. Like the best duo-piano teams, they seemed to breathe in unison, hesitating, as ifspontaneously, for a brief millisecond here, plunging with thesimilar intensity into a rushed passage there.

(Tonight is the last chance to hear Lang Lang. At 7:30 p.m.Tuesday, the CSO will repeat the second piece on Thursday's program,the Bruckner Symphony No. 4, but the evening's Men-delssohn work willbe the Violin Concerto with young violinist Ilya Gringolts assoloist.)

Thursday evening's surest bet, Bruckner's Symphony No. 4("Romantic"), came after intermission. The CSO is a mighty Brucknerorchestra, and Baren-boim has extended and deepened the traditionduring his dozen years as music director. But Thursday's performancehad an unusually sumptuous polish. The orchestra has just returnedfrom an Eastertime residency in Berlin with Barenboim with programsat the Berlin Philharmonie that included three Bruckner symphonies.They played Thursday night as if Bruckner's exultant, massedsonorities and long-lined, tensile architecture were in their verybones.

Bruckner has taken his rightful place in the standard orchestralrepertoire in recent decades, and the time is long past whenaudiences struggled to adjust to the majestic pacing of hissymphonies that typically run more than an hour in length. But theycan turn ponderous and plodding if musicians or conductor allowBruckner's underlying tension and momentum to flag.

Sometimes Barenboim's drive for heartfelt lyricism undermines thattension, but on Thursday night his pacing was firmly incisive. Thesymphony's shifts of mood seemed organic, with untroubled momentsemerging from darker territory like a shaft of sun gliding betweenstorm clouds. The CSO brass was both bright and commanding, and theall-important solos from principal horn Dale Clevenger wereinfallibly precise. His rich, golden tone had the haunted power of avoice from another universe. The orchestral playing overall wasequally precise, giving the performance a transparent glow.