Riccardo Muti leads the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in superb evening of Beethoven

Riccardo Muti delivered one of his finest conducting jobs since his appointment to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 2010.

– Kyle MacMillan | January 14, 2022

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s concert Thursday night featured what could be described as a typical all-Beethoven program, the kind heard each year in music halls across the country, but the results were anything but typical.

Although he does present world premieres and his share of off-beat repertoire, Riccardo Muti was primarily hired as music director to make the expected unexpected. And that is exactly what he did Thursday at Orchestra Hall in one of his finest conducting jobs since his appointment in 2010.

Even though the two main works on Thursday’s program — Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 and No. 8 — are part of the bedrock of the symphonic repertoire and are familiar to regular orchestral goers, he managed to inject a sense of interpretative suspense, and compelled listeners to sit up and listen anew.

How did he do it? It is, of course, impossible, to fully explain the alchemy that goes into, dare we say, a great performance like this. On one hand, it means going back to the fundamentals and paying attention to the tiniest nuances when it comes to tempo, dynamics and articulation.

On the other hand, it’s a matter of artistically transcending those elements. And that’s where Muti, who turned 80 in July, draws on a lifetime of confronting, performing and living with this music.

Of course, no such performance would be possible without a first-rate orchestra, and the Chicago Symphony was in particularly fine form. There were highlights aplenty from the dark, resonant low strings in the Symphony No. 5 to the note-perfect French horns that lit up both symphonies, especially principal David Cooper and associate principal Daniel Gingrich in the third movement of the No. 8.

The playing was all the more impressive considering the musicians, like so many other workers, have had to undergo heightened COVID-19 testing protocols and must now wear masks during performances (all but the wind and brass sections). To its credit, the CSO , unlike such fellow arts organizations as the Joffrey Ballet or Lyric Opera of Chicago, has not had to cancel or postpone any performances this season, even with the recent onslaught of the omicron variant.

The evening’s big draw was the Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67, with its emphatic opening eight-note motif that is regularly heard on television commercials and everywhere else. But this work has much more to offer than those first seconds, as this bold, full-bodied and, yes, sometimes suspenseful performance made abundantly clear, especially the big, resplendent finale with the glory of the CSO brass on view.

An argument could be made, though, that the highlight of this concert was the Symphony No. 8 in F major, Op. 93, which might be slightly under-recognized if that can be said about any Beethoven symphony. The orchestra offered a nuanced, sensitive interpretation of this work that conveyed both its subtle complexities and inner contrasts.

This take was marked as much by what Muti did as what he didn’t do, an approach that was most evident in the second movement, which is marked allegretto, a tempo that is meant to be neither too fast nor too slow. In his hands, the music was appealingly sprightly.

Muti often did not beat time during this section, sometimes letting his right arm rest as his side, as he kind of nudged the playing along with a simple gesture or facial expression. He clearly trusted the musicians and didn’t want in any way to dampen the music’s innately light, free-flowing spirit.

This minimalist tack could be seen to a lesser degree elsewhere as well, including the first movement, in which Muti captured the genial feel of this section while assuring a sense of drive and momentum.

His most overt, involved conducting came in the final movement, with Muti imbuing this section with energy and pop, snappily executing its constant shifts in texture from galloping rhythms to gentle motifs and maximizing all the thrills it has to offer.

Overshadowed by the two symphonies was the evening’s opener, the “Coriolan” Overture, Op. 62. It was inspired by “Coriolanus,” a play by Beethoven’s friend, Heinrich von Collin, and it packs surprising drama into its compact eight minutes.

Kyle MacMillan, Chicago SunTimes, January 14, 2022

A Night of Sheer Brilliance, Maestro Muti & CSO’s Bravura Musicians Prove Beethoven is Forever New

– Hedy Weiss | January 15, 2022

Maestro Riccardo Muti returned to Orchestra Hall on Thursday evening with a bravura all-Beethoven program to open the 2022 season.

Muti was in stellar form. He clearly is in love with the indomitable musicians of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and they return that passion with a magnificent combination of sound and fury and absolute beauty. That love affair extends to the audience as well, held in thrall by this remarkable concert. With Muti in his most dynamic mode, the impressively full house erupted in a massive standing ovation at the concert’s conclusion. It could have gone on and on were it not for the Maestro’s playful habit of finally waving an appreciative “goodnight.”

It has become fashionable these days to disregard classical music and the great roster of geniuses who composed it. By extension, it fails to celebrate the musicians who continue to play it with such technical brilliance and emotional ferocity. But listening to the CSO perform Beethoven’s galvanic Symphonies No. 5 and 8, as well as his brief but beautiful “Coriolan Overture,” there could be no doubt that these works elude any fashion of the times. They feel astonishingly modern and of the moment, awash in great sweeps of emotion that are at once an evocation of our crazily chaotic current existence and a profound force for hope and healing.

In his program note for the “Coriolan Overture,” an eight-minute work dating from 1807, Phillip Huscher, the CSO’s superb program annotator, explains that Beethoven was familiar with two plays written about the Roman general of the title (one by his friend, the Austrian playwright Heinrich von Collin, and the other by Shakespeare), but that he chose to focus on Collin’s work. Either way, the overture suggests the innate theatricality and emotional heat in all of Beethoven’s music, as well as his ability to radically shift moods in the most seamless and thrilling ways.

“Coriolan” opens with a blast of sound that establishes an instant intensity and sense of drama. It then quickly moves into a lyrical riff by the strings, proceeds to capture a mood of great ferocity involving the winds, horns and timpani, and finally settles into a gently mournful, introspective mood conjured by the cellos and basses. It is a mood that hints of Coriolan’s suicide.

Next on the program was the “Symphony No. 8 in F Major,” written in 1812. A work of immense power and beauty, it is just another testimony to Beethoven’s ability to shift emotions with both absolute clarity and a wonderful sense of surprise.

There is total confidence in its declarative opening, with the winds and horns suggesting there is something in the air. And then, out of that dynamism and strength comes a burst of lyricism with a waltz-like theme. But there is always a sense of a storm lurking in the air with Beethoven. Indeed, the orchestra caught full fire before switching to the delicacy of plucked strings and then erupting into palpable excitement with the addition of clarinet and flute and a thrilling massing of all the orchestra’s voices.

The work’s second movement comes with the sounding of winds and French horns, with plucks on the low strings, and with a playful teasing quality as the various sections of the orchestra engage in dramatic conversation with each other. Every “voice” in this orchestra has a crystalline beauty and unique ability to mesh gorgeous gradations of sound. The symphony’s final movement is frenetic at the start and marked by the orchestra’s mix of razor sharp precision and lightness. The richness of sound from the timpani, the riffs by the winds and cellos and the celebratory nature of the finale were just further evidence of Beethoven’s timelessness and immediacy.

Finally, it was on to the composer’s widely familiar but ever revelatory 1808 work, the “Symphony No. 5. in C Minor.” The opening pronouncement is a series of four beats repeated with a sort of Morse Code punctuation and urgency, followed up by the drive of the horns, clarinet and timpani that conjure a compelling rhythmic drama.

The second movement is set in motion by a gorgeous use of the lower strings and a kind of call-and-response of many voices. There is a beautifully sustained triumphant sound here, with Beethoven’s sense of building to a surprising moment and deploying the full grandeur of the orchestra — with a notably rapturous use of the bassoon and clarinet — in full evidence.

The strings enter again in a restrained mood, but then the horns signal that something’s coming. And it is, with Muti’s magnificent signaling of each part of the orchestra as it drives with escalating speed and excitement to a grand, celebratory, knockout finale.

Hedy Weiss, WTTW, January 15, 2022

Asia tour scratched, Muti and CSO turn their light on Beethoven to start bonus run at home

– Lawrence B. Johnson | January 17, 2022

In the original plan for this season, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and music director Riccardo Muti were supposed to be touring Asia about now. But somewhere in the muddle of Covid and politics, that trek was canceled. So the band and its director ended up with three extra weeks at Orchestra Hall. To begin this unexpected residency, Muti and company served up a sensational Beethoven concert Jan. 13.

CSO audiences are getting generous helpings of Beethoven this season, perhaps as fallout from the Covid-disrupted 2019-20 season, the Beethoven 250th-anniversary birth year when Muti had plotted out all nine symphonies with the Ninth providing the grand finale. The pandemic blew up that plan, and when the CSO finally got back to playing concerts last fall, Muti opened the season with consecutive weeks featuring the “Eroica” Symphony and the Seventh, and guest conductor Giancarlo Guerrero led the First Symphony a few weeks ago. Muti also will come back around to the long-deferred Ninth with four performances Feb. 24-27.

It’s hardly overstatement to say that irrespective of what the band is playing, Muti’s presence alone guarantees sold-out concerts at Orchestra. Hall. Or anyway that’s true in normal times, which these are not. Covid has taken a wrecking ball to theaters everywhere. On this occasion, the expansive lower balcony of Orchestra Hall looked about one-third empty. To play on or not to play on is a big question in light of the highly contagious Omicron variant. Chicago theaters have been wrestling with this dilemma since mid-December, when the Joffrey Ballet shut down its “Nutcracker” and Goodman Theatre shuttered “A Christmas Carol.” Lyric Opera has postponed its next production, and several theaters have scratched or deferred plays. But the CSO has soldiered on, and mostly the turnout has been strong.

If the wash of empty seats was un-Muti-like, the performance of Beethoven’s Fifth and Eighth Symphonies and the “Coriolan” Overture bore the singular imprimatur of a conductor whose directorship here has only enhanced the Chicago Symphony’s longstanding reputation among the world’s preeminent orchestras. Muti and his precision ensemble delivered as brilliant an Eighth Symphony as I ever heard, whether live or recorded.

It was brisk and buoyant, witty and surprising. This was Beethoven fully armed, albeit in full obeisance to his great forebears Haydn and Mozart. Muti and company conjured Beethoven’s claim that he loved the Eighth in the same special way he loved that other oft-neglected child of this creative genius, the Fourth Symphony. Reflecting qualities that make Muti such a distinctive and compelling conductor, this Eighth Symphony unfolded in luminous clarity and stylistic awareness. The orchestra, ever responsive to Muti’s atomic-level inflections, delivered a performance of burnished surfaces and deeply grained humor.

As for the Fifth Symphony, which Muti had led in four performances at Orchestra Hall in that aborted Beethoven year, just before the Covid hammer came down, this time around was no less marvelous than the last one – crackling, incisive, fraught with tension and graced with eloquence. Decades ago, before I ever insinuated myself into music journalism, a prominent critic suggested that Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony be pulled from the repertoire for 50 years. And when the composer and critic Virgil Thomson decided to step down from his newspaper post, he famously declared that he had “nothing more to say about Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.”

Clearly, Muti does. The concise, coiled power of the Fifth Symphony was everywhere apparent in Muti’s efficient, closely gauged concept, and in the propulsive urgency of the low strings as well as the great brass proclamations that launch the finale and then land it. But no less wonderful was the lyrical finesse displayed by the strings and winds in the second movement, Beethoven’s respite from the prevailing tension in an amiable set of variations that shone in the sensibility of Muti the opera maestro.

Lawrence B. Johnson, Chicago on the Aisle, January 17, 2022

Muti ladles some whipped cream Vienna-style at ‘New Year’ concert for CSO’s hardy faithful

– Lawrence B. Johnson | January 21, 2022

It wasn’t a pops concert. We know that because the Chicago Symphony Orchestra doesn’t play pops concerts. But music director Riccardo Muti does have quite a history of leading New Year’s Day concerts with the Vienna Philharmonic, and the program Jan. 20 at Orchestra Hall looked a lot like one of those. So let’s call it that – a somewhat displaced New Year’s concert by the CSO and a conductor who was in the full spirit of celebratory shenanigans.

The night began and ended, respectively, with Emil von Reznicek’s noisily brilliant Overture to his opera “Donna Diana” and Johann Strauss Jr.’s brilliantly elegant “Emperor” Waltz. Between those fell two Tchaikovsky ballet suites, “Sleeping Beauty” before intermission and “Swan Lake” after. Muti apparently felt the need to offer an apologia (in the Latin meaning of defense, not the evolved sense of apology) for the program, which he delivered, mike in hand, before proceeding with Reznicek. Acknowledging another modest turnout that left many seats bleeding the red of box office losses, Muti first congratulated those present as true music lovers who had braved both Covid and the cold. Then he got to his larger theme, the apologia for leading this great orchestra in basically a full evening of Tchaikovsky ballet music. He made the point that while the music is easy to take in, it is quite exacting and difficult to play – and, moreover, that in these trying times it’s good to have an occasional evening of easy listening. The critics might prefer “deep,” he said, but deep can also just put listeners to sleep. And therewith he plunged into the blazing orchestral fray of “Donna Diana.” This was going to be a light night, which the rarely encountered cuttings from “Sleeping Beauty” confirmed. That it was honestly, even generously intended to be exactly that – a Neujahrskonzert der Wiener Philharmoniker in Chicago – quickly became clear in Muti’s droll mugging directed sometimes toward the orchestra, sometimes toward the audience. He was having fun. The orchestra, which sounded fabulous, was having fun. The hardies in the house were obviously into it, as well. Apart from the grand waltz that capped this “Sleeping Beauty” pastiche, the “difficulty” of the music perhaps exceeded its allure. Tchaikovsky the master craftsman was not at every moment at his most imaginative here: I don’t think it was the depth of “Sleeping Beauty” that induced my somnolence.

From the outset of “Swan Lake,” however, I was wholly engaged and fascinated. Here was Tchaikovsky in top creative form, a stream of clever and fetching ideas tumbling one after another and everywhere the composer’s command of the orchestra and its colors on splendid display.

Concertmaster Robert Chen and principal cello John Sharp joined guest harpist Katherine Siochi, principal of the Kansas City Philharmonic, in playing of radiant intimacy, and the final sequence of character pieces – Czardas, Spanish dance, Neapolitan dance, Mazurka – showed off the CSO’s virtuosity front to back. Principal trumpet Esteban Batallán unleashed an electrifying solo in the Neapolitan dance. Across that famous series of dances, the CSO strings, winds, brasses and percussion cycled through the spotlight in a parade of spectacular playing.

Lawrence B. Johnson, Chicago on the Aisle, January 21, 2022

Oldies but goodies are reborn via masterful interpretations by the CSO, Riccardo Muti

– Kyle MacMillan | January 21, 2022

The program was no disparate group of selections. Muti clearly wanted to transport viewers back to a very particular world of late Romanticism, where beautiful melodies and harmonies were the norm.

At a time when orchestras across the country are putting a more urgent emphasis on expanding, updating and diversifying their repertoire, the first in a pair of Chicago Symphony Orchestra concerts Thursday night at Orchestra Hall was something of a throwback.

These performances with maestro Riccardo Muti on the podium are part of a three-week series of programs that the orchestra added when a planned Asian tour had to be canceled because of COVID-19 concerns.

And for this week’s line-up, Muti clearly wanted to present a group of crowd-pleasers. There was nothing necessarily heroic or profound about these works from the late 19th century. It was just great fun, and there is certainly nothing wrong with that.

As though anticipating a music critic might write those very words, Muti grabbed a microphone and offered some rare introductory remarks from the podium. He noted that while this music might seem “easy” to perform, it actually presented “great difficulty,” and he took a few (hopefully lighthearted) jabs at critics who might not make this realization.

Of course, he has a point. And nowhere was it more evident than in the evening’s scrumptious musical dessert — Johann Strauss Jr.’s “Emperor Waltz,” Op. 437, a familiar, festive work that is performed so often at New Year’s concerts and orchestral galas that it is often taken for granted.

There is actually considerable complexity to this piece, as is clear by the many performances that miss the mark. That was anything but the case here. Muti has conducted the famed Vienna Philharmonic myriad times, and he is clearly steeped in the style and ethos of this music.

It is imperative to capture the circular, swirling motion of the waltz, not to mention its distinctive swoops and swells, and Muti and the CSO did that and much more. They injected constant variety into the phrasing and alternately brought a sense of elegance, delicacy and even drama to this music. In short, it was a delight.

While musical pleasure might have been the chief goal Thursday night, this was no disparate group of selections. Muti clearly wanted to transport viewers back to a very particular world of late Romanticism, where beautiful melodies and harmonies were the norm.

All of these works were written within 19 years of each other, and three of them were composed in an even more compact period from 1888 through 1894. What further ties them together is that they are all related in some way to the worlds of opera or dance.

Muti clearly reveled in this music, evenly playfully mugging to the audience after a couple of frolicsome sections, and his infectious zeal carried over the musicians, who very much got into the spirit of the evening.

At the heart of the program were excerpts from two of Tchaikovsky’s great ballets. Leading off was the Suite from “The Sleeping Beauty,” Op. 66a, with its rich, well-known aural world providing an ideal showcase for this orchestra. It was a matter of sitting back and basking in the stunning sounds emanating from the stage— lush strings, shining brass and poetic woodwinds.

Much the same could be said of the Suite from “Swan Lake,” Op. 20a, though it often takes on a darker, more melancholic tone so tellingly encapsulated in the opening section with its plaintive solo by principal oboist William Welter. This work includes an array of dances, and Muti and the orchestra nicely captured the distinctive flavor of each.

The program’s one largely unknown work was the five minute opener, the Overture to “Donna Diana,” by Emil von Reznicek, a prolific composer who is only remembered for this one work. Although often performed in the past, this light, effervescent appetizer has fallen out favor in recent decades, which is a shame, as this sparkling take made evident.

As Muti noted in his introductory remarks, these works offered abundant opportunities for solos by the orchestra’s principal musicians, and they took full advantage. Deserving particular note was guest principal harpist Katherine Siochi from the Kansas City (Missouri) Symphony, who drew a well-deserved sustained ovation after the Suite from “Swan Lake.” She delivered solos in both suites that were graceful and transporting.

Kyle MacMillan, Chicago SunTimes, January 21, 2022

Riccardo Muti, CSO taking their art into the community: “Music puts people together”

– Lisa Fielding | January 21, 2022

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s music director is reflecting on a 50-year career as a world-class conductor — and the ways that cultural institutions like his can better serve their audiences.

Riccardo Muti, who has been at the helm of the CSO for more than a decade, said Chicago will always be close to his heart.

“Chicago is the most beautiful city in the United States — for the architecture, for the lake, for the atmosphere. It’s absolutely fantastic. And also the people in the Midwest here,” the native of Naples, Italy tells WBBM Newsradio’s Lisa Fielding.

At 80, Muti has returned to his adopted home to kick off the CSO’s 2022 season. That will include performances at venerable Orchestra Hall but also a series of free concerts throughout the community.

He and the famed orchestra performed recently at Morton East High School in Cicero. Next weekend, they will be at Apostolic Church of God in Chicago’s Woodlawn neighborhood.

“This is the future,” Muti said of taking the orchestra out to the people, rather than having them come to him. “We have to go there and to teach them that music is the most important element that puts people together.”

Muti, who made his debut with the CSO in 1973 at Ravinia Festival, extended his contract into the 2023 season to make up for shows the CSO lost during the height of the pandemic. And after that?

“Everything should end,” Muti said. “I will not take any other position with another orchestra. I will remain very close to the (Chicago Symphony) Orchestra. Of course, they will find a new music director. But I will continue to come here and to make music with these fantastic musicians.”

Lisa Fielding, WBBM, January 21, 2022

CSO Boldly Explores Tchaikovsky Scores Inextricably Linked to Ballet

– Hedy Weiss | January 21, 2022

In something of an unconventional move Thursday evening at Orchestra Hall, Maestro Riccardo Mutiarrived on stage, turned to the audience, and explained why the program was largely devoted to Suites
from two of Tchaikovsky’s most famous and widely recognized ballets: “The Sleeping Beauty” and “Swan Lake, as well as to Johann Strauss, Jr.’s lush “Emperor Waltz.”

It was not, as Muti said, an exercise in “laziness,” noting that none of these pieces were “easy” to perform. Rather, he saw them “as the works of Russian and Viennese composers that are full of beautiful melodies and were now being played by the CSO’s American musicians as led by an Italia conductor.” Muti said he wished politicians would take note of this cultural mix, noting optimistically that “when they do, the world will become a better place.”

Wishful thinking perhaps. But what this glorious, superbly performed concert did prove was that listening to these works without the element of dance that ordinarily is a crucial partner of the music (and this is by no means to question the absolute beauty of the ballets that are usually attached to these scores), you begin to hear them in a wonderfully fresh and exciting way. And watching the musicians at work you see something of a “ballet” all its own.

The evening opened with the “Overture to Donna Diana” (1894), a four-minute, lushly romantic piece by the Viennese composer Emil von Reznicek that was popular in the CSO’s repertoire in the 1920s and ‘30s. (The full opera was even conducted by von Reznicek’s far more renowned contemporary, Gustav Mahler. But the Overture alone, with its speed, exuberance and big orchestral sound, suggests why it had such wide appeal.)

And then it was on to a Suite from Tchaikovsky’s 1890 masterwork, “The Sleeping Beauty,” a ballet about which I should confess I cannot be objective. (As an 8-year-old student at the old Metropolitan Opera House’s ballet school in New York, I was chosen to be a page to the Queen, and was able to watch Margot Fonteyn and other stars of Britain’s Royal Ballet close up as they performed the work during their fabled early visit to the city. Unforgettable.)

As demonstrated in the excerpts in this Suite, Tchaikovsky was a master of musical storytelling, capturing both characters and moods with passion as well as playfulness. The introduction here suggests a warning of the curse cast over the Princess Aurora by Carabosse, the evil fairy in this tale, and also suggests the spell of 100 years of sleep that the elegant Lilac Fairy will conjure to save Aurora until she is
awakened by a prince.

The adagio that follows features a long, dream-inducing harp solo exquisitely played by this week’s guest artist, Katherine Siochi, principal harp of the Kansas City Symphony. And then comes the immensely challenging “Rose Adagio” for Aurora that is a supreme test of any ballerina’s balance and control as she plucks a rose out of the hands of each of her four suitors and pirouettes with precision.

From there it is on to a whimsical, teasingly flirty pas de deux for Puss in Boots and the White Cat, with the clarinet suggesting the cats’ playful meows. Next comes a “Panorama” sequence of veiled beauty that brings back a dreamy sound from the harp and strings. And finally, there is a grand, full-force waltz signifying the ballet’s happy ending.

The concert’s second half begins with a Suite from Tchaikovsky’s 1877 ballet, “Swan Lake,” with the composer’s full sense of theater already of the essence as he spins the story of a young prince who falls in love with Odette, a princess who has been transformed into a swan by Rothbart, an evil sorcerer.

Here, too, a sense of warning is issued with a haunting opening that suggests both danger and romance, as well as the floating grace and beauty of the swans. A gorgeous melody driven by plucked strings, percussion and winds drives the thrilling “Waltz.” And the instantly recognizable “Dance of the Swans” suggests the quartet of precision-tooled pointe-work the music inspired.

Next comes a scene with a long, dreamy harp solo and the superb playing of concertmaster Robert Chen, followed by a Hungarian “Czarda” that begins with a seductive slow theme played by the strings and winds, and then erupts into a thrillingly wild, swirling folk dance. It is followed by a rousing “Spanish” dance enhanced by wonderful work from the percussion section, by a spinning “Neapolitan” dance with terrific trumpet work, and then culminates with a grand finale in the form of an explosive “Mazurka,” the Polish folk dance that drives the orchestra into a great frenzy.

Finally, it’s back to Vienna for the closing work on the program, with more dance in three-quarter time courtesy of Johann Strauss, Jr.’s dynamic 1889 “Emperor Waltz.” Cynthia Yeh’s percussion magic and Muti’s teasing phrasing help capture both the lyrical and the volcanic in this waltz. And as the concert draws to a close it begs the question: Shall we dance?

Hedy Weiss, WTTW, January 21, 2022

CSO, Muti find music of the baroque an interesting challenge

– Kyle MacMillan | January 28, 2022

Riccardo Muti has performed and recorded a vast variety of works in his long and distinguished career, emphasizing composers like Giuseppe Verdi, but the music of the baroque has never been at the forefront of his conducting.

Much the same could be said for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. While the ensemble has not ignored the baroque era — roughly 1600-1750 — it has not paid the epoch much heed, either. And that’s not surprising, considering that it tends to focus on later musical periods where larger-scaled pieces are the norm, and considering that Chicago boasts a first-rate group known as the Music of the Baroque that specializes in such repertoire.

Given that background, it was intriguing Thursday evening at Orchestra Hall to see the Chicago Symphony and Muti, who serves as the orchestra’s Zell Music Director, devote the first in a pair of programs entirely to the baroque. They took on four works by two of the era’s biggest stars — George Frideric Handel and Antonio Vivaldi.

The conductor and orchestra brought the same skill, care and commitment to this music as they do to everything else they take on, and there were some notable musical moments throughout the evening, but it seems fair to say that this repertoire is not their forte.

Since the 1960s and ‘70s, with the rise of groups like the Academy of Ancient Music, baroque playing has come to come to be dominated by ensembles that use period instruments like gut-string violins and employ historically informed performance practices, leading to a lighter, earthier and more translucent sound.

As Muti has made clear in interviews over the years, he has objections to aspects of the period- instrument movement, but Thursday’s performance conformed to at least a few of its tenets. These included the use of a harpsichord to provide continuo and the small ensemble sizes — just 20 instruments for a couple of the Vivaldi selections.

Moreover, Muti cultivated a real sense of intimacy in these works, as tough as that is to do in a venue as large as Orchestra Hall, forgoing his usual use of a baton and just relying on his hands to lead and shape the musicmaking.

Few if any composers have written more concertos and in more dizzying variety than Vivaldi, who produced more than 500 works in the form. The orchestra took on three of these works, none of which it has performed more recently than 1975 and one of which it had never before played.

The most fascinating was the Flute Concerto in G minor, “La Notte (Night),” Op. 10, No. 2 (RV 439), Vivaldi’s eerie conjuring of a nighttime realm. Although this unconventional work runs just 10 minutes, the composer packs a great deal into its six highly varied movements, none more memorable than the slow, spare fifth, “Il sonno (Sleep).” It was delicately rendered with playing so soft at the beginning that it was barely audible.

The featured soloist was Stefán Ragnar Höskuldsson, the orchestra’s principal flutist, who delivered a stunning performance, playing with ease and sensitivity and subtly altering his tonal color to fit the work’s ever-changing moods. He possesses a pure, shimmering sound that ideally suited this often spare work.

The first half opened with the Concerto in B minor for Four Violins, Op. 3, No. 10 (RV 580), which showcased concertmaster Robert Chen and associate concertmaster Stephanie Jeong as well as assistant concertmasters David Taylor and Yuan-Qing Yu, who are both first-rate players but are rarely heard in such solo roles.

All four delivered fine individual performances, but the interpretation overall never really came together and sparked. It didn’t help that the tempos in the fast sections seemed to lag just a bit, something that occurred a few times elsewhere in the program as well.

Rounding out the first half was the Concerto in C major (“Per la solennità di San Lorenzo”), RV 556, a kind of concerto for orchestra, spotlighting players across the ensemble including guest harpsichordist Mark Shuldiner, who acquitted himself admirably all evening.

Culminating the evening was the Suite No. 1 in F major from Handel’s spirited “Water Music,” which he famously wrote in 1717 for an excursion by King George I and his court on the Thames River that lasted well into the night.

Kyle MacMillan, Chicago SunTimes, January 28, 2022

The CSO in a Resounding Homage to the Baroque

– Hedy Weiss | January 29, 2022

For the last of his three different concerts with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra this month maestro Riccardo Muti has traveled back in time with a program comprised of a beguiling mix of works by two early 18th century Baroque masters – Antonio Vivaldi (the Italian priest, longtime music director of a Venetian orphanage for girls, and virtuoso violinist), and George Frideric Handel (the German-born composer and keyboardist who won great fame in London with his oratorio, “Messiah,” as well as “Water Music,” a series of three suites, the first of which is being played as part of this concert.

To be sure, we no longer live in the world of the Baroque, that period of ornately decorative art whether in the form of architecture, painting, dance, or its many different musical manifestations that are at the root of what is now called “classical music.” Our society, our methods of communication, our musical instruments, and even our way of listening has changed, yet the allure of this music is enduring. And of course, when it is played by contemporary musicians for contemporary audiences it can sound simultaneously “era specific” and surprisingly refreshing with its high energy and virtuosity that in so many ways sidestep the psychological storms of later times.

The first half of the program is devoted to three brief concertos by Vivaldi that condense the CSO into what might best be described as a galvanic chamber orchestra.

It begins with the Italian composer’s “Concerto in B Minor for Four Violins” (featuring flawless and feverish violin virtuosos drawn from the orchestra, including concertmaster Robert Chen, associate concertmaster Stephanie Jeong, and assistant concertmasters David Taylor and Yuan-Qing Yu), along with additional string players and the impeccable Mark Shuldiner on harpsichord. And in what feels like spirited conversations that might be overheard in the busy little public squares of Italy, the solo violins engage in a series of beautiful, richly animated riffs that move from the exuberant to the solemn with speed, lightness and a sort of bejeweled mix of emotions.

Next is the composer’s “Flute Concerto in G Minor (La Notte or The Night),” a splendid showcase for Stefan Ragnar Hoskuldsson, the CSO’s superb principal flute, and a work that wonderfully shifts moods from the quietly dark, to the dreamlike, to jaunty and dance-like moments of great speed and birdlike song along the way.

The last of the Vivaldi works is the “Concerto in C Major (Per la solennità di San Lorenzo),” written to celebrate the feast day in memory of the Christian martyr of the title. This concerto — one of the more than 500 Vivaldi wrote — is scored for a far larger number of musicians, including two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, a bassoon, two solo violins, plus a large additional contingent of strings.

The piece opens with a golden, formal sound and a quietude that then erupts into a burst of joy that marks just one of the many shifts of mood from the strong to the delicate, including a wonderful conversation between Chen and John Sharp, the orchestra’s ever formidable principal cello, and a be soulful solo clarinet riff winningly played by Stephen Williamson. All in all, the concerto feels very much like a very elaborate, wonderfully indulgent dessert.

The concert’s second half features the first of the several suites that comprise Handel’s “Water Music,” the 1717 work that delighted England’s King George I as it was initially performed for members of English nobility afloat on an open barge on the Thames River. The buoyant sound of two French horns, along with two oboes, a bassoon and strings, set the piece afloat, with the sound of such dances as a lively minuet and a high-spirited bourree suggesting both the formality and ease of the lives of royalty.

Throughout the evening Muti shaped both the Vivaldi and Handel works with wonderfully balletic moves and meticulous cueing. The result was a concert that served as a reminder that it is the musicians of the CSO that are members of the true “royal family” that calls Orchestra Hall its castle.

Hedy Weiss, WTTW, January 29, 2022

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January 13