Arsht series opens with the blazing virtuosity of Muti, Chicago Symphony

Riccardo Muti led the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in music of Bellini, Schubert and Tchaikovsky Thursday night at the Arsht Center in Miami. Photo: Todd Rosenberg
Endless repetitions of standard symphonic repertoire can sound tiresome and routine. When a great conductor and world-class orchestra assay familiar fare in top form, however, the results can be revelatory.
Such was the case Thursday night when the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under Riccardo Muti opened the Arsht Center’s 2025 classical concert series. At 83, the ensemble’s emeritus conductor for life cuts a vigorous and charismatic figure on the podium. Leading with tremendous energy, bending down and even leaping in the air at one point, Muti directed the Chicagoans in revitalized Schubert and Tchaikovsky and a sample of his bona fides in Italian opera.
Muti’s dynamic energy on the podium was reflected in the orchestra’s incisive articulation in Bellini’s Overture to Norma the program’s opener. There was high tension and scrupulous variation of dynamics in this curtain raiser, music that can sound like a potboiler in lesser hands.
That was just a warmup for an outstanding reading of Schubert’s Symphony No. 8 in B minor (“Unfinished”). This was patrician Schubert, flowing and unhurried with a vivid sense of the score’s drama and musical architecture. The opening bass and cello statement resounded at the edge of audibility and the cellos and violas really sang in the famous secondary melody, serving well the music’s dark lyricism. Balances were expertly contoured and well proportioned, avoiding brassy raucousness. Muti built the first movement’s climax in gradual and subtle variants of volume and emphasis. The serene principal subject of the Andante con moto flowed with the songfulness of a Schubert lieder. Warmth of string sonority and rounded winds gave full resonance to the melodic lines, making the contrast of more stormy martial interjections that much more effective.
Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4 in F minor received an even greater revitalization, with Muti drawing out a myriad variety of colors and subtleties from the instrumental choirs.
A fiery Allegro sostenuto commenced with a firm and precise statement of the fate theme from the brass. Solos by Stephen Williamson, clarinet, and Keith Buncke, bassoon, emerged mellow and deeply expressive and violin phrases were spun like silk. Muti’s astute sense of pacing was faultless, fluently ratcheting up the tempo and excitement in the movement’s coda.
William Welter’s oboe was admirably transparent in the melancholy opening solo of the second movement. Muti shaped the thematic threads with both elegance and drama. The massed string pizzicatos of the Scherzo were played with clarity and crispness and the trio section had the verve of a Russian folk dance. Stefán Regnar Höskuldsson’s flute stood out among the stellar wind contingent.
The opening of the Allegro con fuoco finale radiated both shock and tumult and there was zest and character aplenty in the main melody. Muti’s wide-ranging sonic palette brought out details that often go obscured and unheard.
An excited and wildly enthusiastic audience demanded an encore and Muti obliged with Brahms’ Hungarian Dance No. 1, played with a combination of gypsy spirit and symphonic heft. The entire concert was a vivid demonstration of great music-making.
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra repeats the program 7:30 p.m. Friday at the Kravis Center in West Palm Beach.
The Arsht Center classical series presents the London Symphony Orchestra under Sir Antonio Pappano playing George Walker’s Sinfonia No. 5, Elgar’s Enigma Variations and Leonard Bernstein’s Serenade with violinist Janine Jansen 8 p.m. March 2. arshtcenter.org
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Fri Jan 17, 2025
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