Maestro Haitink opens his residency with four performances of Mahler's soaring Symphony No. 2, part of his ongoing exploration of Mahler works with the CSO. A composer of extraordinary spirit and insight, Mahler asks the great question of what lies beyond the grave in his Resurrection Symphony. Every performance of Mahler's monumental Symphony No. 2 is highly anticipated. But with Maestro Haitink, an oversized orchestra, the amazing Chicago Symphony Chorus, and two muchadmired soloists, this CSO specialty will be one of the highlights of the season.

Lutosławski's Fourth Symphony has been called "stunning," with an "instantly appealing lyrical warmth." Lutosławski believed that the first movement should be a preamble to the main movement. "The first movement must engage. . . It must make us hungry and even impatient. That is the right moment to introduce the main movement. That is my solution, and I think it works rather well." Regarded by many as the greatest Polish composer of the second half of the 20th century, Lutosławski conducted the premiere of the Fourth Symphony just days after celebrating his 80th birthday in 1993, and he posthumously won the International Music Award for best large-scale composition for this work.

"Among today's top pianists, there is not a more complete musician," declared the Chicago Tribune last year after Murray Perahia's recital. In recent years, Perahia has performed at Orchestra Hall in solo recital, and he was guest soloist with the CSO during the European Tour in September. Surprisingly, it has been more than 10 years since he and the CSO have shared the stage in Chicago. For this long overdue collaboration, Perahia will perform the Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 4, a work that he has recorded with Maestro Haitink.

In this concert, Maestro Haitink pairs two great composers and two remarkable works. Mozart's last, and perhaps his most famous, symphony — filled with joy, elegance, and brightness— was written during a difficult time when the composer was beset with debts, loss of loved ones, and wavering support. In spite of such troubles, he generated, within an astonishing two-month span, an explosive outpouring of creativity, including his last three symphonies. He finished the E-flat major symphony on June 26, the G minor symphony on July 25, and the Jupiter on August 10.

For more than a century, the CSO and Richard Strauss have been closely linked in a number of memorable "firsts." In 1900, the CSO gave the U.S. premiere of Ein Heldenleben, Strauss' last tone poem, in the Auditorium Theatre under the baton of Theodore Thomas. A few years later, in 1904, Strauss became the CSO's first-ever guest conductor. Since then, the Orchestra has performed the largerthan- life Ein Heldenleben dozens of times, recorded it, and toured the world with it.

"Haitink is today's foremost Bruckner conductor," said the Chicago Tribune after last year's performance of the Seventh Symphony. "There is a wondrous naturalness about everything this conductor does. And the playing he elicits from the Chicago Symphony is a marvel." The performance, captured on our in-house CSO Resound recording label, was singled out on The New York Times' guide to the year's most notable CDs. Don't miss your chance this season to hear Maestro Haitink lead the CSO in Bruckner's Symphony No. 7, for one performance only. Haitink opens the program with Haydn's popular Clock Symphony, which features a slow and somber first movement but moves to an Andante with a persistent tick-tock accompaniment that led to the symphony's nickname.