From the 1980s, when I heard Riccardo Muti in some impressively programmed and played concerts with the Philadelphia Orchestra, I have often been floored by his musicianship. An alltime favorite combined three choral works: Mozart's Ave Verum Corpus, Bruckner's Te Deum and Verdi's Four Sacred Pieces. Although the Mozart shows up now and then, the last two are relative rarities in the concert hall. Muti's Scriabin recordings with that ensemble are some of the most luxuriously phrased, and I love his operatic Mahler First Symphony, which is to my knowledge the only one of the composer's that he recorded.
So now he is in Chicago, and I can't help but feel slightly envious, especially since when Muti conducts the New York Philharmonic, the results are often explosive. Just last January he all but cracked open Avery Fisher Hall with Scriabin's Le Poème de l’extase. Yes, he could probably be even more adventurous in programming living composers in general (and some of his countrymen like Scelsi and Sciarrino in particular), but perhaps his Chicago tenure will encourage that. On paper, it seems like a great orchestra, already shepherded by Pierre Boulez and Bernard Haitink, is making long-range plans for even more years of excitement.
[Photo: Riccardo Muti by Guido Harari]
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