By Maria Teresa Sette and Giorgio Di Marzo
Looking sober, sever and slightly reluctant, on October 5th Riccardo Muti appears on the stage of the Royal Festival Hall, reopened after two years of refurbishment, to conduct the legendary Chicago Symphony Orchestra which opened the Shell Classical International season 2007/2008.
The Chicago SO’s 117-year history makes it a juggernaut of the international classical music tradition. Due above all to the long direction of three distinguished chief conductors (Frederick Stock, Georg Solti, Daniel Barenboim), the Orchestra boasts currently one of the leader positions in the world promotion of contemporary classical music. The collaboration between this prodigy of symphonic music and one of the biggest contemporary conductors is precious and unique. Riccardo Muti has been on the podium of the Chicago SO to perform a European tour, starting from Italy and reaching Germany, Paris and finally London, here with two acclaimed concerts (October 5th and 6th).
The cryptic and dramatic notes of the Symphony No. 6 (Pathétique) by Tchaikovsky reigned on the first evening concert. The Russian composer’s latest masterpiece is like an introspective, tormented and anxious travel inside the most hidden sides of human soul. The audience holds its breath until the very last drummer beat, the Orchestra shouts off and an impassioned and liberating handclap spreads throughout the hall. It was a liberating and cathartic clap because of the tension created by the whirl of notes transmitting darkness and human suffering. The tension was indeed emphasized by the Orchestra’s solemnity and by such a charismatic conductor’s performing. An encounter between two examples of severity and discipline, that yet some English critics have read as not a positive aspect. One of them is for instance Erica Jeal, musical critic of the Guardian, who admits the great emotional impact created by Muti’s exclusive performance but in the meantime underlines that overall “the price of the orchestra's discipline was a sense that Muti may have the music on slightly too taut a leash.”(Guardian, October 10th 2007, Chicago SO/Muti).
The second part of the concert was dedicated to two 20th century pieces: Nobilissima visione – Suite, a mystic and peaceful symphony by Hindemith, and Le poème de l’exatase Op. 54, the colourful single movement of music by Scriabin.
The fluidity and the atmosphere of ecstasy that the latter piece spreads seem helping Muti to feel easier and now he turns towards the hall with more spontaneity. To his London audience, which gives him an intense and warm acclamation, he answers by offering an encore. The orchestra starts again with a solemnly beautiful piece of the Rosamunde by Schubert. The extase that has ravished the audience is slowly sublimating into melancholy and serenity.
The second evening opens with Prokofiev and his Symphony No. 3 in C minor, Op. 44 that unfortunately we had not the pleasure to hear as we arrived during the interval… just in time to notice a young girl of about 7 to be the first one to take her seat – it is amazing indeed to see the youngsters at classical music concerts – and a few minutes later to see Muti stumbling whilst reaching the podium: to us the only stumble, as Muti conducted The Three-Cornered Hat – Suite No. 2 by Manuel de Falla, a piece full with Spanish sonorities (thanks not just to the castanets), as well as fairy-tale atmospheres (mainly thanks to the winds instruments), with force and joy, with a finale played with great emphasis. Compared to the first evening we heard (and looked at) a more joyful direction, with Muti that sometimes seems to be dancing on his podium.
Well, for a piece of music that began as a mean pantomime, which saw Picasso joining the forces to design sets and costumes, and suddenly became known worldwide, this tale about a magistrate who tries to seduce, with no success, the wife of a miller, its success is almost as crazy as the jota – a form of wild dance for the finale – is!
The flute releases the first notes, Muti beat time with almost imperceptible movements of his hands first, then his head and his body, the hammering rhythm “tatatata-tatatata-ta-ta-tatatata-tatatatatatatatata” fills the hall and the audience’s hearts and souls, and the music rises louder and louder and louder until its orgasmic apex… Of course it is the Bolero by Ravel, a piece known almost in any corner of the world, meant to be an experiment… What an experiment! We can totally be sure this experiment did not go wrong: the Bolero is a continuous, unpredictable in its repetitiveness, sensual whole of musical doodles which gained Muti and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra a great deal of applauses leading to the grand finale, the encore: La forza del destino by Giuseppe Verdi, a perfect conclusion for two concerts that, as always when such great masters are involved, left a mark in classical music.
Copyright 2007 GIORGIOSTUDIO Ltd – All rights reserved
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