CSO Audio Program Notes

CSO Audio Program Notes

Founded in 1891, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra is consistently hailed as one of the greatest orchestras in the world. In collaboration with the best conductors and guest artists on the international music scene, the CSO performs well over one hundred concerts each year at its downtown home, Symphony Center, and at the Ravinia Festival on Chicago’s North Shore, where it is in residency each summer. Music lovers outside Chicago enjoy the sounds of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra through best-selling recordings and frequent sold-out tour performances in the United States and around the globe. Visit cso.org for tickets and information.

Episodes

September 1, 2025 116 mins
Reiner Rarities by CSO Association
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Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra and Wynton Marsalis by CSO Association
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August 18, 2025 116 mins
Musicians of the Orchestra by CSO Association
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August 11, 2025 116 mins
Janáček; J. Strauss, Jr. & Mussorgsky by CSO Association
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Chicago Symphony Orchestra Daniel Barenboim, conductor
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July 7, 2025 116 mins
Salonen & Apkalna - Broadcast by CSO Association
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Verdi’s Requiem Mass, in its fervent quest for eternal rest, stands as a powerful demonstration of the composer’s ability to harness the human voice. Hailed by NPR as “simply magnificent” for their two-time Grammy Award-winning CSO Resound recording of this work, Riccardo Muti and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus are joined by a thrilling quartet of international singers to once again deliver a masterful blend of passion a...
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Esteban Batallán, the CSO’s principal trumpet since 2019, makes his much-anticipated debut as a soloist with the Orchestra in a pair of brilliant, high-flying concertos. Riccardo Muti frames the program with Joseph Haydn’s tempestuous Symphony No. 48 and Schubert’s Haydn-inspired Tragic Symphony. Learn more: cso.org/performances/24-25/cso-classical/muti-and-esteban-batallan
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2024 Ravinia Festival Opening Night: Celebration of Americana - Broadcast by CSO Association
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In Randall Goosby, the pioneering American composer Florence Price “has her ideal champion,” writes The Guardian, “his playing full of old-school warmth and breadth but never schmaltzy.” Price’s beguiling violin concerto shares a program with Prokofiev’s enchanting Seventh Symphony, composed for a children’s radio broadcast. The suite from Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg gathers stirring moments from Wagner’s opera. Learn more: cs...
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May 27, 2025 12 mins
Dvořák’s radiant salute to the New World kicks off an American road trip with James Gaffigan at the wheel. Take in poignant selections from Gershwin’s landmark opera — sung by Janai Brugger — and the composer’s urbane and nostalgic love letter to Paris. Chicago native Florence Price sets two American poems to song, and a pair of symphonic showstoppers by Bernstein transports audiences to “New York, New York” and beyond. Learn more...
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May 26, 2025 116 mins
Haitink Conducts Mahler 2 - Broadcast by CSO Association
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May 19, 2025 116 mins
Giulini Conducts Mahler 9 - Broadcast by CSO Association
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May 19, 2025 116 mins
Giulini Conducts Mahler 9 - Broadcast by CSO Association
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The CSO brings the soaring emotional peaks and valleys of Mahler’s Sixth Symphony to Chicago audiences before performing it on Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw stage. The “hammer blows of fate” in the finale seem to foreshadow the tragedies in Mahler’s life, including his own fatal illness. But the symphony brims with life’s pleasures, too, from memories of mountain pastures (listen for the cowbells) to a rapturous portrait of the compose...
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April 24, 2025 14 mins
CSO Artist-in-Residence Daniil Trifonov, “without question the most astounding pianist of our age” (The Times of London), takes on Brahms’ Second Piano Concerto, as remarkable for its rich orchestral writing as for its simultaneously glittering and muscular piano part. Dvořák’s turbulent Seventh Symphony is both an expression of the composer’s personal crises and a lyrical tribute to the Czech spirit. Learn more: cso.org/performan...
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In his Third Symphony, Mahler portrays the whole of earthly existence. Its six movements — written for a massive orchestra, two choruses and a contralto soloist — explore humanity’s relationship with nature using fanfares, marches, folk dances and bird calls. Children’s voices portray angels while the sixth movement is a pantheistic love song to all of creation. Learn more: cso.org/performances/24-25/cso-classical/makela-conducts-...
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Dancers from Chicago’s world-renowned Joffrey Ballet join the CSO with newly commissioned choreographies. Symphonies by Haydn and the Chevalier de Saint-Georges abound in witty and joyful melodies while two 20th-century works are full of popular influences: Perkinson’s jazz-tinted Sinfonietta No. 1 and Milhaud’s rollicking Brazilian postcard, The Ox on the Roof. Learn more: cso.org/performances/24-25/cso-classical/cso-and-the-joff...
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Earth, in all its marvelous vitality and fragility, has inspired generations of composers. In The Oceanides, Sibelius conjures the water nymphs of Greek mythology and the broad majesty of the sea. Dvořák’s The Wild Dove is based on a dark folktale about a dove’s prophetic song. Childhood memories shape Rachmaninov’s Symphonic Dances, his sumptuous masterpiece. Learn more: cso.org/performances/24-25/cso-classical/canellakis-and-rac...
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