What makes music “folk,” anyway?
Forget Pete Seeger or Tracy Chapman: In its broadest definition, folk music can describe any music tied to a specific people, culture, or movement. However, those in the Western classical world are sometimes guilty of drawing the distinction between what is inarguably “folk” and not-folk a bit too crisply. After all, what music out there hasn’t been shaped, even unwittingly, by generationally transmitted sounds and rhythms?
Thursday’s Chicago Symphony Orchestra concert — conducted by Erina Yashima, assistant conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra and a former Solti conducting apprentice at the CSO — quietly advanced a more expansive view. The evening’s roving program united under the not-so-radical observation that our favorite composers, like us, are nothing if not products of their environment.
On the one hand was the folkiest piece on the program: Zoltán Kodály’s “Dances of Galánta” (1933), played with élan by the CSO and led propulsively by Yashima. The work strings together folk melodies from the composer’s hometown; as one of the first researchers to comprehensively document traditional Hungarian music, Kodály approaches his collage with special rigor and care. (These days, his fieldwork partner — a certain Béla Bartók — unfairly hogs most of the credit for that endeavor.) His “Dances” is a pass-the-baton showcase for the orchestra’s winds, but the work is most known for its prismatic, demanding clarinet solos. Principal clarinetist Stephen Williamson played those with narrative intensity — hushed turns of phrase coming on the heels of declarative outbursts, kittenish gestures clashing with keening lines.
Then, there was a piece that was folky in spirit: “Strum” (2006, revised 2012) by CSO composer-in-residence designate Jessie Montgomery. “Strum” doesn’t literally quote American folk melodies, but it echoes jam sessions past or imagined: The principal second violinist and violist start off thrumming their instrument like guitars, then the piece takes flight with a flurry of scattershot plucking and the ear-tugging twang of open strings. Somewhat mind-bogglingly, Thursday’s performance was the CSO premiere of this string quartet-cum-string orchestra work, arguably Montgomery’s most widely played composition. The CSO strings’ performance, crackling with warmth and wit, only affirmed “Strum’s” broad-based appeal.
So, where does Schubert’s Symphony No. 5 (1816), the four-movement work holding down Thursday’s program, fit into this folk schema? It doesn’t — and that’s precisely what makes it so fascinating. In writing this symphony, Schubert didn’t bask in the Austrian dance forms by then popping up in his solo and chamber works. Instead, the 19-year-old composer had Mozart on the mind: The Symphony No. 5 echoes the older master’s gestures and even shares the same idiosyncratic instrumentation as his Symphony No. 40 (one flute, two oboes, two bassoons, two horns, and strings). Not coincidentally, around the time he wrote this symphony, the already prolific Schubert began composing for pay for the first time in his life. One can sense not just Schubert’s idolatry of the late Mozart but his own keen self-awareness.
Though Schubert mostly hews to the tropes of the classical symphonic form, Yashima, in her powerful interpretation from the podium, tucked some surprises into the 200-year-old work. She established a heartbeat-steady internal motor from the orchestra; when she spun out more indulgent moments, stretching phrases here and there like taffy, it sounded all the more profound.
Thursday’s concert started off with a taste of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s four Novelettes for string orchestra (1903), lushly romantic works as many-hued and detailed as landscape paintings. Guiding the orchestra through subtle color shifts, Yashima grasped the brush assuredly in the belated CSO premiere of the last two Novelettes. Concertmaster Robert Chen’s stately opening solo and the cellos’ gossamer lines sent the minor-key Novelette No. 3 straight to the heart.
In contrast, the fourth Novelette is all rousing rhythms and rustic melodies. Cynthia Yeh’s every hit on the tambourine and the double basses’ driving pulses chipped at the walls between concert hall and dance hall, into the liminal space where classical and folk music have always freely communed. May it always be so.
Notes on notes:
In all the stage rearrangements happening at Orchestra Hall concerts this weekend, one behind-the-scenes shuffle is not to be missed: Cristina Rocca is returning to her recently vacated role as the CSO’s vice president for artistic programming. Previously serving from 2015 to 2020, Rocca briefly left her position to act as artistic director of the London Philharmonic Orchestra.
The Chicago Philharmonic has found a successor for longtime executive director Donna Milanovich: Terell M. Johnson, a former Chicago-area music teacher who’s returning to the city after a prolific five-year tenure at New World Symphony in Miami. There, he served as the orchestra’s interim community engagement director, business development director, and audience services and marketing manager. He is also the recipient of a two-year LEAD Fellowship from the Sphinx Organization.
Hannah Edgar is a freelance writer.
The Rubin Institute for Music Criticism helps fund our classical music coverage. The Chicago Tribune maintains complete editorial control over assignments and content.
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