Muti Is New CSO Director
John Gibbons
4 Comments
Newspapers reported Riccardo Muti as new CSO music director in a five yr. contract. I make the assumption tht they’ll be plenty of coverage on internet sites and message boards, etc. Personally, I’m bored stiff by accounts of musical politics, and am largely ignorant of the topic.
As for Muti as conductor? Well, his tenures at Philly and La Scala seem like a mixed bag to me. I’m hesitant to predict what’ll happen here, because when Barenboim began in Chicago, I thought his conducting was deeply problematical, and he evolved into a magnificent conductor right before my ears. Rumors of Muti not getting along with players? We heard this about Barenboim, as well. The conductor should be boss. He should tell the players what to do, and they darn well better try to do it. That’s the way it works…otherwise, you have chaos or mediocrity. There has been a prima donna syndrome affecting certain CSO players over the years, in my view…one of the CSO players once complained to me that Barenboim fired a player for making a wrong note, and was indignant about it. I say, right on! Look at the price on your ticket…a conductor is responsible to music, firstly, and to the patrons, secondly, just as a CEO is responsible to the shareholders, firstly, and anyone else secondly. Anything else is sentimentality.
Believe me, I want the CSO to be the greatest orchestra in the world, I live in Chicago. But I think the CSO needs to work to that goal, not just rely on its well-deserved high reputation. Look at the music, not in a mirror.
Reader Comments (4)
The Muti/Chicago could certainly be formidable;
whatever happens,I doubt it will be dull.
Orchestra musicians have vast experience and
enormous technical skill. They don't want a bossy,
arrogant conductor who talks down to them and
bad mouths them.They want some one who really
knows the score,is an efficient rehearser,and
who will inspire them.I think Muti fits this
description,or he would not have been chosen.
While everything you say is true, there is a difference between being boss and being bossy. And most conductors are arrogant. My sources tell me Muti is very well liked by the CSO. Nevertheless, I hold to what I say, I think there has been some drifting at the CSO in recent years, some laxity. Muti is obviously a significant conductor,but he is a 66 yr. old European, a known quantity. I'd like a younger conductor, preferably an American. I think there is too much of the "same old" going on in American orchestras, sometimes it seems the orchestras get better and better, and too many of the concerts are duller and duller. Please let's have modern music and esoterica, and no more Franck symphonies in d minor.
I don't quite agree with you about programming
today.Yes,certain standard works by Beethoven,Brahms
and Tchaikovsky etc are still popuilar,but plenty
of new works have been premiered by a wide variety of
living composers,including some promising young ones.
And many interesting rarities from the past have been revived;so there is actually greater diversity
of repertoire than ever before! And by the way,
the Franck D minor symphony is no longer played that
often,but I like it any way,and it should played
from time to time.
And we have enterprising conductors like Alan Gilbert,Robert Spano,James Levine,Neeme and Paavo
Jarvi,James Conlon,Leonard Slatkin,Gerard Scwarz,
David Zinman,Marin Alsop,Joann Falletta(under whom
I have played as a horn player),and others.
So we're not doing too badly when it comes to
stimulating programming.
And speaking of French symphonies,it would be
great if Muti did the rarely heard but gorgeous
symphony in C major by Paul Dukas,who wrote more
than"The Sorcerer's Apprentice(unfortunately little
else escaped the composer's destruction).There are
some excellent recordings of it.Or the symphonies
by Saint-Saens other than the Organ one,or Albert
Roussel,Alberic Magnard,VincentD'Indy,and Ernest
Chausson etc,all well-worth doing.