Confession

So who exactly was that mysterious "New York-based" critic quoted at the end of Andrew Patner's review in the Chicago Sun-Times of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's recent Carnegie Hall visit?

OK, out with it: It was I who uttered that remark. Yes, indeed--despite the rough going in the brass during the Scherzo of Mahler's Fifth Symphony, despite the flagging energy in the Adagietto, despite my wishes that the Schoenberg Variations that opened last Saturday's performance were more transparently textured, I stand by my statement that the CSO schooled New Yorkers in what a real first-class orchestra actually sounds like. I'm betting that I'll remember their first and second movements of the Mahler for years to come. (Unfortunately, the Saturday evening concert was the only one of this series that I was able to attend.)

I've complained here before about what an utterly enormous and dismaying chasm lies between what other American and international orchestras are able to achieve and the accomplishments (such as they are) of the New York Philharmonic on most of the occasions I've heard them over the last decade or so, so I'll save yet another iteration of that particular rant for another day. Then again, I grew up in Boston during the Ozawa years, so I should be used to disappointment, no?

Now, for the disclaimer: I'm actually related by marriage to two CSO players. My sister-in-law (well, to be  more precise, my brother-in-law's wife) is currently under contract with the orchestra as an oboist; she was actually a student of Alex Klein. Her mother, in turn, has been a CSO violist for several years. (My brother-in-law, a freelance percussionist, has also subbed with the orchestra as well.) However, the CSO's performance certainly speaks for itself, though I might add that their new principal trumpet, the (very) young Christopher Martin--who recently arrived from the Atlanta Symphony--is just amazing.