Low-key Leinsdorf hits a high note of impact

Put it in one word. What did Erich Leinsdorf achieve with theChicago Symphony at Orchestra Hall Thursday?

My answer is lucidity.

When Leinsdorf is up there in center stage everything is clear,clean, precise. The orchestra gives him its very best. It playstogether. Even more basic, it thinks together.

On his return to the CSO this spring, Leinsdorf drew twoso-called split weeks, which is to say he had two half orchestras twoweeks running and had to offer music that could be prepared by halfthe usual CSO instrumentation. Being an old and practiced hand, hehad no difficulty making up programs that reflected his customaryhigh standards in this department, but they also reflected hisexperience.

Thursday he began with Stravinsky's Danses Concertantes, which Iwas impressed to find the CSO was playing to its subscribers for thefirst time; the Op. 9 Chamber Symphony by Schoenberg, and theStrauss suite from his incidental music to "Le BourgeoisGentilehomme."

The result was one of the great concerts of the season, one ofthose occasions when you feel the CSO is absolutely at the peak ofits form. But this was a low-key concert. You sensed itssignificance in the quality of the playing, not decibels.

Circa 1930, the world of 20th century music was divided betweenStravinsky, who was going his way, Schoenberg, who was pursuing hisgoals, and Strauss, who was simply being himeself. The upshot wasthat everyone won, but it wasn't clear then that Chicago SymphonyOrchestra, Erich Leinsdorf conducting, at Orchestra Hall Thursday.Danses Concertantes, Stravinsky; Chamber Symphony No. 1, Schoenberg;Suite from "Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme," Strauss. this could happen.

The Stravinsky was clear, clean, precise, strongly phrased andever effective as dance and concert music. The Schoenberg shows uswhere Mahler might have gone musically had he lived longer. Crisp,clean, always idiomatic, it was given to us in a performance ofmonumental impact.

The "Bourgeois Gentilhomme" project, on which Strauss embarkedin 1911, was to prove the great disaster of his theater career, buthe did know how to salvage things and this suite is a treasure of hisrescue operations. Leinsdorf's performance was as close to perfectas any critic has any right to expect.

It was tightly focused in the style, light, witty, filled withmusical imagery, and, above all, concerned with the things thecomposer had on his mind. It confirmed what many knew, thatLeinsdorf is a Strauss conductor with few peers.