The Chicago Symphony Orchestra is one of the three most acclaimed orchestras in America and one of the few serious rivals the New York Philharmonic has had in its long history. Curiously, the histories of the two orchestras are somewhat intermingled.

Theodore Thomas had organized and led orchestras in New York during the 1870s and 1880s, competing with the Philharmonic Society of New York for audiences, soloists, and American premieres of works. His orchestra did very well as a major rival to the group that would become the New York Philharmonic. The orchestra visited Chicago during several seasons, and it was intended that he would be music director of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in that city. However, in 1891, he abandoned New York entirely in favor of Chicago and arrived as the first conductor of what was then called the Chicago Orchestra. Thomas held that position until his death in 1905. In his honor, the Chicago Orchestra changed its name to the Theodore Thomas Orchestra in 1906. Six years later, the group was renamed the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

It was under the leadership of Thomas' assistant, Frederick Stock, that the Chicago Symphony's modern reputation was formed. From 1905 until his death in 1942, Stock led the orchestra in decades of programs that featured not only the established classics but the American premieres of many post-romantic works. Additionally, Stock raised the level of performance and the financial status of his players and established the orchestra in a major teaching role for aspiring musicians in its home city. Its recordings were relatively few in number because the long-playing record -- central to the appreciation of classical music -- had not yet been invented, which means there is little evidence by which modern listeners can judge the work of the orchestra during this period, but some of the recordings from that era were among the best in the world at the time. Among the few available from the period on major labels are the Beethoven Piano Concertos Nos. 4 and 5 on the BMG label, featuring soloist Arthur Schnabel with Stock conducting.

Stock's death in 1942 precipitated a difficult decade for the orchestra. Apart from the general complications of World War II, it had a great deal of trouble finding acceptable leadership. Désiré Defauw lasted for only four years, from 1943 until 1947, and Artur Rodzinski (best known for his leadership of the New York Philharmonic) was in the job for only one year (1947-1948). Rafael Kubelik served three years as music director from 1950 until 1953, but his gentlemanly manner and decidedly modern, European-centered taste in music proved unsuited to the players, critics, and management -- although it was under Kubelik that the orchestra made its first successful modern recordings, for the Mercury label, many of which were reissued in the mid-'90s.

Fritz Reiner became the music director of the Chicago Symphony in 1953, beginning the modern renaissance and blossoming of the orchestra. Under Reiner, the orchestra's playing sharpened and tightened, achieving a clean, precise, yet rich sound that made it one of the most popular orchestras in the United States. The Chicago Symphony under Reiner became established once and for all as an international-level orchestra of the first order, rivaling the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Boston Symphony. Moreover, Reiner's arrival with the orchestra coincided with its move to RCA Victor, which, in 1954, was beginning to experiment with stereo recording. With Reiner as conductor, these "Living Stereo" recordings -- characterized by vivid textures, sharp stereo separation, and microphone placement that gave the impact of a live performance -- became some of the best-selling classical albums of all time and have since been reissued numerous times on compact disc to new acclaim from critics and listeners, more than a generation removed from their original era.

Reiner's death in 1963 led to another interregnum period, during which conductor Jean Martinon led the orchestra (1963-1968). In 1969, Sir Georg Solti joined the orchestra as its music director. Under Solti, the orchestra's national and international reputations soared, as did its record sales. Reiner had begun the process of cultivating the burgeoning audience for late-romantic composers such as Mahler, but it was with Solti that the works of Mahler and Bruckner became standard fare in the orchestra's programs, right alongside those of Beethoven and Mozart. The playing standard achieved during Solti's tenure, in concert and recordings, was the highest in the history of the orchestra. Additionally, the orchestra under Solti began a quarter-century relationship with London Records that resulted in some of the best-sounding recordings of the era. Solti's approach to performance was very flamboyant yet intensely serious -- even his performances of lighter opera and concert overtures strike a perfect balance between broad gestures and finely wrought detail, attributes that have made him perhaps the most admired conductor of a major American orchestra, if not the most famous (Leonard Bernstein inevitably got more headlines during the 1960s, especially with his knack for publicity). Solti was both popular and respected, and his tenure with the Chicago Symphony coincided with his becoming the winner of the greatest number of Grammy Awards of any musician in history (he also recorded with orchestras in London and Vienna). Daniel Barenboim succeeded Solti and served as music director from 1991 until 2006, with Solti transitioning to the post of music director emeritus. Bernard Haitink was named the orchestra's first principal conductor, holding this position from 2006 through 2010. Riccardo Muti was chosen as the tenth music director in the orchestra's history in 2010.

As with other major American orchestras, the Chicago Symphony found itself competing with its own history, especially where recordings are concerned. Reissues of its work under Reiner and Solti continue to sell well and are comparable or superior to the orchestra's current recordings in sound and interpretive detail. Even the early-'50s recordings under Kubelik were reissued by Mercury in the late '90s, while RCA-BMG and some specialty collector's labels have re-released the recordings under Stock. The recordings of Solti and Reiner leading the Chicago Symphony are uniformly excellent, and virtually all of them can be recommended. The orchestra also maintains composer-in-residence and artist-in-residence partnerships; in 2023, Jessie Montgomery occupied the former, and Hilary Hahn the latter. ~ Bruce Eder

Conductor and pianist James Levine was one of the powerhouse figures of the classical music scene. Throughout his career, Levine conducted many of the leading performers, orchestras, and opera companies in the world, most notably serving as the music director of the Metropolitan Opera for 40 years.

Levine was born on June 23, 1943, in Cincinnati, Ohio. As a child, he undertook both piano and violin; he was so accomplished on the violin that at the age of ten, he played Mendelssohn's second violin concerto at a Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra youth concert. He studied piano at various summer music festivals before enrolling at New York's Juilliard School, where he took conducting courses with Jean Morel and continued piano studies with Rosina Lhevinne. George Szell of the Cleveland Orchestra then invited him to become an apprentice. At the conclusion of this term, he became an assistant conductor of the orchestra from 1965 to 1970. In 1973, he became the music director of both the Ravinia Festival (the Chicago Symphony's summer series) and the Cincinnati May Festival. His debut with the New York Metropolitan Opera also came in a summer festival appearance, conducting Puccini's Tosca.

In 1973, following the sudden departure of music director Rafael Kubelik over artistic differences, the Metropolitan Opera appointed Levine to be its principal conductor. Although Kubelik was the first conductor ever to have been given that title at the Metropolitan, he did not remain there long enough to actually exercise the wide responsibilities it implies; Levine was effectively the first music director of the Met. Levine's tenure at the Metropolitan was one of the longest such associations between an opera company and its chief conductor, providing the company with one of its greatest and most stable periods. His season planning was outstanding, and the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra owes some of its reputation as a world-class ensemble to his leadership. In 1996, the Metropolitan Opera conducted a televised celebration of the 25th anniversary of Levine's first performance there in the form of a gala. So many singers agreed to appear that the event lasted over eight hours, conducted entirely by Levine.

In 1975, Levine began to appear regularly at the Salzburg Festival in Austria, where his performances of Mozart were highly esteemed, and he proved himself an excellent Wagnerian in his appearances at the Bayreuth Festival beginning in 1982. He also conducted groups such as the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonic Orchestras, and he served as the chief conductor of the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra from 1999 until 2004. In 2004, Levine became the music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, holding this position until 2011. In 2016, following the revelation that he had been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, Levine resigned as the music director of the Metropolitan Opera, assuming the role of music director emeritus. A series of sexual assault allegations came to light in 2017, leading to the termination of his contract with the Met in 2018. Levine died in Palm Springs, California, on March 9, 2021.

Levine commanded a wide repertoire in opera and the concert hall, ranging from Bach, Haydn, and Mozart to Iannis Xenakis. He was known for an open and engaging personality, which appeared in his rehearsals as well, but this did not prevent him from conducting them with businesslike efficiency. He produced a large number of recordings with the Metropolitan Opera and other opera houses, as well as orchestral recordings with great orchestras, such as the Chicago Symphony on the soundtrack to Fantasia 2000. He was also noted as a pianist who accompanied many of the world's top vocalists and participated in several chamber music recordings. ~ Joseph Stevenson & Keith Finke

The Orpheus Chamber Orchestra was one of the first small orchestral ensembles to adopt the model of playing without a conductor, and they remain one of the most acclaimed such groups critically. They have premiered numerous new compositions, have broadened their work beyond classical genre boundaries, and have drawn many of the world's top musicians as collaborators. The Orpheus Chamber Orchestra was founded in 1972 by a group of musicians who endorsed the anti-authoritarian goals of the counterculture of the era. Cellist Julian Fifer was one of the original founders. The orchestra comprises between 25 and 30 members, and turnover has been slow: as of 2019 it had only 14 emeritus members, and two of the original members were deceased. The group's rehearsal process takes place in two stages: first, a concertmaster (a rotating position) and a group of players determine the overall interpretation of the work, and then in full group rehearsals, other members refine the performance. The ensemble rests on a foundation of extreme mutual attention akin to that of a string quartet. By the early 1980s, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra had established a strong reputation in New York, and it went on to give regular concert series at Carnegie Hall and at New York's Riverside Church. Since the group's repertoire took a turn toward the contemporary, it has also performed at experimentally oriented venues such as Brooklyn's ShapeShifter Lab. The group has commissioned more than 40 new works. Audiences have been drawn by the presence of superstar collaborators including Yo-Yo Ma, Isaac Stern, and Martha Argerich. They have also backed the likes of Renée Fleming, Dawn Upshaw, and Anne Sofie von Otter in vocal music. The Orpheus Chamber Orchestra has toured internationally, including, unusually, in Southeast Asia; they gave the first performance by an American orchestra in Vietnam since the end of the Vietnam War, leading master classes in Hanoi. In 2019 the group gave a series of performances at the Palacio Euskalduna in Bilbao, Spain. The Orpheus Chamber Orchestra began its recording career in the early '70s on the budget Nonesuch label, but in 1985 they signed with the prestigious Deutsche Grammophon label in Germany, releasing an album of Dvorak's Serenades. The group has recorded works by Fred Lerdahl and William Bolcom, but most of their recordings take up standard repertory. The orchestra has remained on Deutsche Grammophon throughout the late 2010s, releasing the album Mendelssohn in 2019 with the young Polish-Canadian pianist Jan Lisiecki. ~ James Manheim