Poor dog.
Muti + CSO
Program
**Liadov** *The Enchanted Lake*Stravinsky
Suite from The Firebird
Brahms
Symphony No. 2
23/24 Season with Muti as CSO’s last Music Director started last week. Last year’s Mäkelä/CSO’s Firebird was the best I have ever heard live of this program so I was not expecting Muti will top it. Well I was right! Both Stravinsky and Brahms programs’ timing was just too slow for me. Especially massed strings sounded lagging behind everyone else. Brahms’s Second Symphony really did not start cooking till the 4th movement coda. I almost fell asleep in the slow movement.
The short Liadov piece, however, was lovely. I have one more program with Muti before he and CSO embarks on NY and European tours. Hope my last concert with Muti will be a good one!
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Muti/CSO: Final Chicago Concert
Program
Glass
The Triumph of the Octagon [World Premiere, CSO Commission]
Mendelssohn
Symphony No. 4 (Italian)
R. Strauss
Aus Italien
The theme of the night was ‘Italy’. Both the Mndelssohn and Strauss pieces were inspired when they were as young men travelling in Italy. Felix age 24, Richard age 22. It’s interesting how different these two scores sound even tho they are both about impression of Italy. 4th has a muted pastel shade tone whilst Aus Italien has a vivid layered strokes of colours.
Muti’s orchestra handling was much better and in tune than the last set keeping a fast pacing throughout. I enjoyed both pieces. Interesting to note that even tho it was Strauss’ first tone poem, I can hear many themes and motifs he used on his later pieces. Undoubtedly it was a Stauss.
The piece I did not get at all was Phillip Glass’ Octagon. It was too repetitive and like watching a paint dry. Did not get the visual image from what he wrote. It is supposed to depicts the octagon-shaped Castel del Monte in the Apulia region of Muti’s native Italy. The only good thing I can say about it was it was not long. 
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As an Italian, I often smile a little at how artists of the past centuries depicted Italy in their works of art.
Artists’ Italy usually begins with Tuscany and goes south to begin with - Firenze, Roma, Napoli, Sicilia; only exception is Venezia. Half of the country, with its less picturesque features, is usually absent from the Romantic Era’s interests.
Then, Goethe, Mendelssohn, Strauss and others traveled as wealthy tourists and had a wealthy tourist’s perspective.
Mendelssohn’s Fourth’s last movement is a typical 12/8 dance from the South for instance, Saltarello, and as for Strauss’s Aus Italien, its last part is a Straussian adaptation of a famous Tarantella.
Respighi’s Pini and Fountains are of course a native’s point of view, and manage to disclose a sense of streets, neighborhoods, squares, gardens that escapes the broader strokes of the earlier, foreign composers; and they’re fantastically well written and orchestrated; but the final part of Pini is so imbued with the Fascism’s spirit of glory and ‘Romanity’ that in spite of its extreme captivating-ness it sounds unpleasant; like if someone should have an impression of Germany in the twenties from Orff’s Carmina Burana…
I post my personal suggestions for a different perspective: Sibelius’s Second Symphony, written in Rapallo, a lovely town in Liguria close to the sea, whose last movement really feels of sunlight and joy de vivre without being a postcard; or Leone Sinigaglia’s Danze Piemontesi, a rare contribution to my own region by a composer from my hometown, who also lived and studied in Vienna and was a friend of Brahms’.
Enjoy!
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I definitely want to visit Chicago!
I definitely want to visit Rapallo!
I need to re-listen the last movement of the 2nd Symphony but it’s an awe inspiring finale. I saw a bright sunlit snow covered vast glacial land instead of southern Italy, tho! I think it would help me a great deal when I visit your country. Tho I understand it’s a big country and depending on the location impressions would change.
I admire Respighi and Pini is one of my favourite score. Interesting that you feel other two are somewhat superficial. I certainly understand your sentiment because sometime a Westerner try to depict Japan I always wince. The worst example is the Madama Butterfly. Augh… 
Danze Piemontesi is lovely and thank you.
P.S. What do you think of Italian Anthem?
It depends…
How interesting that your country man Abbado’s reading sounds like a usual carnival music ( that’s what I thought when I first have heard it regularly played at F1 or MotoGP when Italian drivers/riders win ) whilst Romanian Celi makes something out of it!
For solidarity!
I can almost see you wincing. 
Sorry, I won’t even listen to it…
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Because Celibidache was a genius and Abbado was not.
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The magnificent Nils Petter Molvaer and band playing Stitches and a couple of others at Ronnie Scott’s tonite. Lady BC actually stayed awake this time despite a few grogs in the Ship on Wardour St and sharing a bottle of Ronnie’s Fleurie.
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Serious line up. I’d love to see Mayer.
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Sorry, I just can’t help myself:
What is the difference between a bull and the André Rieu Orchestra?
A Bull has horns at the front and an a***hole at the back.
We saw them a few weeks ago in Southport absolutely brilliant loved every minute of it
The Waiting Room is a subterranean venue in Stoke Newington, always attracts a raucous crowd.
Last night Ese & The Vooduu People (on this occasion Ese, Kissangwa and Indigo) with guest jazz saxophonist Dan Wardham played a short but very fiery set to a very appreciative sold out audience. The gig was notable for “Dynamite” being played for the first time in years and the two minutes of cosmic feedback Ese got out of her guitar on an incendiary “Silver Spoon”.
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Goddamit. My Ese radar failed completely for this gig. Mind I didn’t get back from work till gone 10.30 so would’ve been too late anyway. Dammit!!!
Glad it went well, Kev. Give Ese and the guys my love 
Great photo btw! 
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