In Monday’s (4/28) Chicago Tribune, John von Rhein writes, “Now in his second season as music director, David Danzmayr is well on his way toward establishing his Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra as one of the leading suburban orchestras in the Chicago area. One way the gifted young Austrian conductor is achieving that is to offer programs that challenge his musicians even as they broaden the musical awareness of audience members. He scored a success on both fronts with the concert he led Saturday night … highlighted by what was believed to be the U.S. premiere of Alexander von Zemlinsky’s Symphony in D minor.… A prominent figure in Viennese musical life in the late 1800s, Zemlinsky was perhaps the most important composer to suffer the consequences of having his music suppressed by the Nazis and largely forgotten following World War II.… Danzmayr’s rescue mission on behalf of the Austrian composer’s 1892 symphony was a major event in the classical music life of the area.” Also on the program were Ralph Vaughan Williams’s “Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis” and Gunther Schuller’s 1988 Concerto for String Quartet and Orchestra.
Posted April 29, 2014
