'I miss you already.' Louis Langrée said goodbye to Music Hall Sunday. Relive the moment

“I miss you already,” Louis Langrée told the Music Hall audience that came to hear his final concert as Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra music director on Sunday afternoon.

He said much the same thing to the capacity crowd that gathered in Music Hall Saturday night. That event was larger and more pomp-filled. After the concert, in fact, he was named an officer of France’s Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

But Sunday’s farewell concert was different. It was less grand, perhaps, but it was much more emotional. There were many misty eyes in the audience and on the stage, Langrée's included. All of us in the hall knew that this really was the end.

Langrée will be back, of course. Beginning during the 2025-2026 season, he will be the music director laureate and will be here for at least two series of performances a year. But it won’t be the same. Louis knows that. We all know that.

Sunday was the finale for the heyday of the Langrée-Cincinnati relationship. When he returns, we will celebrate him. We will recall his enlightened 11-year tenure. And it will be fabulous to have him among us again. But it will be different.

His leadership has brought significant benefits to the orchestra, as President and CEO Jonathan Martin reminded us in remarks before the concerts. At the outset of the pandemic, he said, Langrée urged the orchestra to launch a series of streaming performances as quickly as possible.

As Langrée himself would remind us later in the program, “If there is no music, there is no life anymore.”

Martin also noted that Langrée:

• Oversaw the commissioning of 65 new pieces of music.

• Led the orchestra on two international tours.

• Was, along with the orchestra, nominated for a pair of Grammy Awards.

• Added 37 new musicians to the orchestra.

It really is a remarkable record.

But Langrée’s greatest achievement wasn’t something that could be so easily enumerated. He endeared himself to this city in a way that few if any of his predecessors had. And by doing so, he helped the CSO develop a more profound relationship with the community than it has had in many decades. Perhaps ever.

He and his family embraced Cincinnati as their home. They cherished the idea of being Cincinnatians. And as music director, Langrée didn’t limit his interactions to his work on the podium. He was vocal about his musical passions. Like an eager music historian, he enthusiastically shared his knowledge with anyone who would listen. And we were all the better for it.

The first half featured Beethoven’s “Leonore Overture” and the world premiere of Anthony Davis’ “Broken in Parts.”

But it was during the program’s second half that we really got a palpable reminder of why we have been so moved by Langrée’s time here.

Like Langrée himself, the second-half music was all French. First came Paul Dukas “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” made famous by Walt Disney’s “Fantasia.” It’s a dazzling piece of music, a showcase for nearly every player in the orchestra.

And then came the final piece: Maurice Ravel’s “Daphnis et Chloe Suite No. 2.”

On Saturday night, he said that if he were stranded on a desert island, the one piece of music he would want with him would be “Daphnis and Chloe.”

Briefly, he tried to explain why. But in the end, he settled for “It is a miracle.”

Musically speaking, “Daphnis and Chloe” is a masterwork. But what we saw in front of us was the culmination of an 11-year collaboration, of a conductor and a group of musicians working together as seamlessly as Ravel wove together his masterly score.

We saw Langrée’s love of drama, demonstrating how the power of silence can outweigh even the greatest bursts of sound, how just when we think Ravel’s undulating score can’t get any more impassioned, it does. At times, it was as if he was sculpting the sound with the sweep of his hands.

“When I came here, I had dreams,” Langrée said Sunday. He noted how people often have to scale back their dreams. “But here, the reality was much better than the best dreams.”

He recalled that the first time he heard these musicians perform, it was during a Cincinnati Pops concert conducted by John Morris Russell. One of the works on the program was composer Lalo Schifrin’s theme music from “Mission: Impossible.”

“I was mesmerized,” Langrée said. “It was one of the fantasies of my life to play that music.”

And so, he did. The encore was short and spirited and just the right sort of piece to leaven the feeling of loss that many of us were experiencing.

It probably wasn’t what we expected. But then, that was one of the hallmarks of Langrée’s tenure. We never knew what to expect. And wasn’t that a treat?

We’ll miss you, Louis.

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Louis Langrée conducts Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra for one last bow