CHICAGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
In anointing Barenboim the CSO’s next leader, the Orchestral Association has settled for a safe bet: a versatile but wimpy version of Solti. (The other finalist was reportedly Claudio Abbado; I would have voted for Michael Tilson Thomas, the brightest American-born conductor since Leonard Bernstein.) Barenboim comes with impeccable credentials. He is, like Solti, an accomplished pianist, a sought-after chamber player, and a renowned conductor of both orchestra and opera. According to some CSO members, he (unlike Solti) is no harsh taskmaster, but rather easygoing to a fault. Is he a box-office draw? Most likely–unless he allows the orchestra to become unruly like the Orchestre de Paris, whose head he was for 15 years. Musically, however, he remains something of an enigma, despite a four-decade career on the concert stage. Surprisingly broad in his musical taste, he can be annoyingly bland when he performs–few of his many recordings wind up on must-own lists, and few people rhapsodize about a Barenboim interpretation, a Barenboim stamp. He is capable of greatness though, as some of his Bruckner and Liszt performances here have proved. The Symphonie fantastique he conducted last season was a model of mannerist delirium, which showed he had thought enough about the old crowd pleaser to give it a new spin. Let’s hope he can forge a strong identity of his own with the CSO–and widen the repertoire.
