Performing Arts

CHICAGO – Jaap van Zweden is too tactful to compare the Chicago and Dallas symphony orchestras – or, for that matter, their very different concert halls.

But working with the Chicago Symphony this week has been "an incredible joy for me," he says. "I think the chemistry is extremely good. The orchestra seems to be happy."

Although he has worked with major European orchestras, this is the Dutch conductor's first outing with one of the "Big Five" American orchestras.

"They are even better than I expected," he says of the CSO. "They are so professional and so fast, and they are very nice, a very warm group of people. And they had not played the Bruckner Fifth Symphony in quite a long time – I think it was six years ago, with [former music director Daniel] Barenboim."

He was certainly struck by the CSO's fabled sonic intensity.

"The sound has a little more volume" than European orchestras, Mr. van Zweden says, "especially the brass. Of course, it's great for Bruckner, but it's also very dangerous that you may be overdoing it. Bruckner needs this huge sound, but never rough. It always has to be a round sound."

After the lush acoustics of Dallas' Meyerson Symphony Center – and, for that matter, Amsterdam's Concertgebouw, where Mr. van Zweden was for 16 years concertmaster of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra – Chicago's Symphony Center can seem a sonic Sahara. That's especially a challenge for Bruckner, whose music begs for reverberant space. To compensate, notes sometimes have to be a little longer, rests a little shorter.

"Interestingly enough, the orchestra has known the hall so well that they make a lot of their own acoustic," Mr. van Zweden says. "When you have an incredible hall to play in every day, it can spoil you in a way."

Mr. van Zweden hasn't yet conducted Bruckner in Dallas, but he's halfway through recording all the symphonies with his Dutch orchestra, the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic. (Unfortunately, the Japanese record label is not yet distributed in the U.S.) He recorded the Fifth Symphony two and a half years ago.

Thursday morning, he got a call to conduct the Bruckner Fourth Symphony next week with the Berlin Philharmonic, substituting for an indisposed Bernard Haitink. But Mr. van Zweden was already booked for a tour of Spain with his third orchestra, the Royal Flemish Philharmonic.

"I was a little disappointed," he admits. "But hopefully the chance will come back very soon."