REVELLING IN RAVEL AND A RAPTUROUS CARMEN

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra opened its late-September program tonight with a shimmering palette of sound while offering many chances for the players to highlight their skills. With Alice Sara Ott at the piano offering not one but two Ravel concertos, and the powerful yet graceful leadership of Mikko Franck — who conjures magnificent sound even while occasionally conducting from a chair (due to a painful spine condition he has endured since nineteen) — the evening’s program traced a vivid journey through French impressionism, jazz-tinged modernism, and operatic passion. When the occasion called for it, Franck would stand to powerhouse effect.

Conductor Mikko Franck leads the CSO in a performance of Bizet’s Carmen Suite.

The concert began with the CSO’s first performances of Les Eaux célestes by Canadian composer Keiko Devaux Pépin. A nine-minute suite of delicately shifting soundscapes, Pépin’s music evoked mist, separation, and crystal tears — shimmering with transparency yet tinged with depth. Franck and the orchestra captured its hushed luminosity, letting every ripple of color register without weight, with especially fine work on the xylophone and vibraphone. For a short work, this is closer to the tone poems of old versus the many soundscapes that seem best for a sci-fi movie. Very enjoyable.

Pianist Alice Sara Ott in a performance of Ravel’s Piano Concerto for the Left Hand

Ravel’s Concerto for the Left Hand followed, with Ott delivering a performance both bold and mercurial. This notoriously demanding work, written for pianist Paul Wittgenstein after he lost his right arm in the First World War, never felt like a display of limitation. Instead, Ott brought out its swagger, its smoky jazz inflections, and its sudden plunges into darkness, carving phrases with steel and sensitivity. Her partnership with Franck and the orchestra crackled — muscular, elegant, and alive.

Conductor Mikko Franck and pianist Alice Sara Ott
in a performance of Ravel’s Piano Concerto for the Left Hand

After intermission, Ravel returned — this time with his sunnier Concerto in G Major. If the Left Hand concerto is Ravel at his most brooding, the G Major is his most playful, full of Spanish dance rhythms and Gershwin-inspired jazz. Ott sparkled in the outer movements, tossing off rapid-fire runs with humor and abandon (those powerful bass notes!), while the slow movement revealed her lyrical gifts: poised, introspective, and exquisitely shaped. Indeed, her pianissimo passages were phenomenal, and when the flute entered with its plaintive melody, gently supported by the strings, the effect was spellbinding. At one point, Ott even turned toward the string section, as if in an intimate salon grouping, syncing herself with them in real time. The horns and woodwinds, seated together, were standouts too, nailing Ravel’s whimsical orchestrations with sly humor and razor-sharp precision.

Emma Gerstein, flute, in Bizet’s Carmen Suite

The program closed with selections from Bizet’s ever-irresistible Carmen, arranged by Ernest Guiraud and later refined by Fritz Hoffmann. Franck drew from the CSO a performance that balanced zest with refinement — not to mention a glorious sound that positively enwrapped us. “Les Toréadors” swaggered, the “Intermezzo” glowed with tender lyricism, and the final “Danse Bohème” whipped up a frenzy of rhythm and fire. Simply the best reading of the Carmen Suite I have ever heard.

CSO trumpets in Bizet’s Carmen Suite

Truly, the concert was a triumph not only for Franck’s sensitive direction and Ott’s dazzling pianism, but for the orchestra’s sheer versatility. Moving from impressionistic mists to Ravel’s brilliance and Bizet’s theatrical heat, the Chicago Symphony has truly upped their game in the last decade, with soloists — piccolo, flute, trumpets, bassoon especially — who were phenomenal. And a thank you to Phillip Huscher for the incredibly accessible and fascinating program comments.

CSO bassoons in Ravel’s Piano Concerto for the Left Hand

photos by Todd Rosenberg Photography

Mikko Franck leads the CSO in Bizet’s Carmen Suite

Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Symphony Center, 220 S. Michigan Ave.
Ravel Piano Concertos & Suite from Carmen
Mikko Franck, conductor
Alice Sara Ott, piano
reviewed on September 25, 2025
ends on September 28, 2025
for tickets, call 312-294-3000 or visit CSO