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Has Jessica Cottis Pulled Ahead in CSO’s Music Director Race?

Lawrence Toppman, WDAV -- 

"I wonder if I can outdo Beethoven at the top of his game," said no sensible composer ever during the last 220 years. But I'd bet Felix Mendelssohn had that fleeting thought as he labored over his Second Symphony, which depending on tempos taken by the conductor was either the longest or second longest symphony in the world when he finished it in 1840.

The other contender, Beethoven's Ninth, had premiered 16 years earlier, when Mendelssohn was a teenager. Both consist of orchestral sections about as long as the symphonies the two had previously written, followed by a choral finale with soloists.

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