Rattle Lets Them Play

So, three days before Monday evening's concert I finally managed to get a decent ticket to the Berlin Philharmonic's single Chicago appearance on this North American tour. (Note to those hunting for tickets for "sold out" performances on the CSO website: just hit "best available" even if it says "sold out". You might just get lucky.)

Berlin Phil principal flute Emmanuel Pahud sitting down a few rows behind me in civilian garb was an early indication that this concert would be played by the BPO's "B-Team". (Indeed, Radék Baboràk and Albrecht Meyer also skipped this event.) While in some orchestras that would be cause for worry, in the Berlin Philharmonic it is anything but. Financially sufficiently endowed to support 129 well paid full-time members, including *three* first concertmasters, it is one of the few orchestras that can maintain an exalted level of musical excellence even when some of its star players have the night off. (And it is not afraid to show that off by broadcasting one concert from every subscription week live over the web through its Digital Concert Hall, which was being heavily promoted through glossy brochures in the Symphony Center lobby.) That situation should be interesting for Chicagoans who have seen their orchestra's ranks dwindle in recent decades with some expensive second principal positions being eliminated by attrition through retirement. Compounded by the absence of a mandatory retirement age, this has left the CSO with a number of noticeable musical liabilities in its ranks. But that is a discussion for another day.

The Berlin Philharmonic has always been an orchestra willing to take great musical risks: in its choice of music directors as well as in the flexibility of its playing. But one wonders whether the opening item of last night's program was the ideal way to start its first visit to Chicago in six years. Sir Simon Rattle and the Berliners had not programmed Wagner's Meistersinger overture at any of their earlier ports of call and have not performed it at all this season in subscription concerts in Berlin. And besides being the one work Brahms admired most of his musico-ideological adversary's (going so far as to acquire the original manuscript), it does not really fit in with the Brahms-Schoenberg theme Rattle and the Berliners have been presenting on this North American tour. But the real problem was that it was simply woefully under-rehearsed. Yes, this is a repertoire staple for the BPO and the audience was thrilled enough just to hear the glorious, lush sound of the Berliners that this performance could be deemed a popular success either way. But the dry acoustics of Orchestra Hall are one of the worst places in which to exhibit this much sketchy (by BPO standards) ensemble coordination. Rattle's interpretation was fairly straightforward enough. There was an occasional tendency to overemphasize downbeats that would have made a traversal of the whole opera tedious, but in the overture on its own it worked quite well. Sectional balancing was superb as would be expected from this band.

Far and away the highlight of this concert in every respect was the performance of Schoenberg's Chamber Symphony No.1 in its later full orchestral version. Brahms has frequently been paired with Schoenberg in concerts on account of the younger composer's affinity for the structural rigor of his predecessor. But most of the time such programs feature the latter's serialist works. Rarely do we get to hear some of Schoenberg's fascinating earlier stuff. Rattle's leadership in this piece was really insightful, managing to convey both the sweep and the logic of the work despite the denser orchestration as compared to the original version. This Chamber Symphony also showed the Berliners at their most virtuosic of the evening: every phrase was of a single mind and the solos from the principal wind and brass players, as well as from concertmaster Daniel Stabrawa were superb.

The performance of Brahms's 2nd that constituted the second half of the program had very much the same qualities and drawbacks of the new EMI recording this tour was meant to promote: wonderfully fluid first three movements with a structurally not quite logical finale. Like the recording, the first three movements benefited from Rattle trusting his players to know where to run with this, not micromanaging excessively. The Berliners as an ensemble have an almost intuitive urge for flexibility of tempo and phrasing, often, it seems, independent of a given conductor's ideas, with individual sections negotiating with each other for space to phrase. This worked to tremendous effect in the glowing account they gave of the first three movements. This had all the hallmarks that we associate with the Berlin sound: absolutely glorious lower strings, a warm, rich woodwind section with lots of power to project and a brass section (CSO take note!) that supports and colorizes the work of the woodwinds from beneath without ever going anywhere near overpowering them.

It is amazing how true the BPO has stayed to its general sonic style over the decades, despite changing music directors and despite the historically international roster of its musicians. If one thing can be said about the different sound of the BPO under Rattle as compared to his predecessor, it would be that while Claudio Abbado preferred to clarify Karajan's butter, with Rattle we're back to leaving the milky bits in the sound. I think the BPO has the nicest, most resonant pizzicato sound I have ever heard of an orchestra. I'm not quite sure what the ingredients are that make it such. Rattle demonstrated in Birmingham that he is a first rate orchestra builder. His leadership has certainly only improved the already elite level of musicianship of the BPO.

In the finale of the Brahms 2 Rattle reverted to the interpretive quirks exhibited on his recording. Instead of letting the music run its natural flow as in the first three movements, Rattle held back the tempo of the hushed opening, thus robbing the eventual explosion of the main theme of the anticipatory electricity that should precede it. For all the love of interpretive variety, this just doesn't work, as I have explained in more detail in my review of Rattle's recording. But besides being interpretively illogical, in the problematic acoustics of Orchestra Hall it also led to some disconcerting mis-coordination in the strings. Our hall in Chicago is --despite some improvement following the 1997 renovation -- still infamous for an inability of the musicians to hear each other well on stage. That same lack of ability to hear each other I'm sure also plagued the Berliners last night as they sought to ascertain what Rattle wanted the main tempo of the fourth movement to be after the unnaturally slow introduction. From my vantage point at the front of the main floor I sensed a tendency of the 2nd violins at times wanting to push the tempo but not being quite sure whether the 1st violins and violas across the hall from them were in agreement. That's again the beauty of the BPO's willingness to take risks, but in this hall that can be treacherous. I think this performance made me more understanding of the CSO's reluctance to indulge in more flexibility: in this hall it's a precarious undertaking.

Sadly, for all the audience's ovations for the Berliners, no encore was offered.

It was generally an evening of amazing, wonderful music-making. But here is the question: is this sort of performance worth the 160 percent markup Symphony Center was charging on the tickets, as compared to regular CSO subscription concerts? Here in Chicago we are somewhat deprived of hearing great visiting orchestras if we unrealistically compare Symphony Center to the annual roster of greats that visit New York's Carnegie Hall. So in that sense the rare visits by the Berlin Philharmonic are extremely welcome given that they remind us that the CSO sound is not the only kind of orchestral ideal out there. But in terms of sheer musical value for the money I can't escape a certain overpriced feeling. Even just comparing to recent Chicago visits of other major German orchestras, I would have to say that I found last season's performance by the Staatskapelle Dresden far more fulfilling: it was technically at least on the same level as the Berliners', showed yet another orchestral tradition completely different from that of the local band, but delivered an interpretation far more thought out and revealing than this Berlin Phil concert. Yet the tickets, while marked up, were nowhere near as absurdly priced as these. Yes, it was completely sold out, so free market capitalists will undoubtedly argue that the price reflected market demand (though that argument is somewhat undermined by a considerable contingent that was reserved for VIPs from the main sponsor, Deutsche Bank). Still, there is no way prices of $61 for the Gallery and $96 for the Upper Balcony can be justified, given the visual and acoustic limitations of those seats.

PS: You know how in regular CSO program notes there is always the "For the Record" section that tells us of all the glorious recordings the orchestra has made of a given piece that was on that evening's program? Well, they don't do that for visiting orchestras. But if they did, this is how it would look for the Berlin Philharmonic in Brahms 2:

The Berlin Philharmonic recorded Brahms's Second Symphony in 1944 with Hans Knappertsbusch on Archipel, in 1949 with Sergiu Celibidache on Urania, in 1950 with Bruno Walter on Urania, in 1952 with Wilhelm Furtwängler for EMI, in 1953 with Eugen Jochum on Deutsche Grammophon, in 1955 with Rudolf Kempe on EMI, in 1964 with Herbert von Karajan for Deutsche Grammophon, in 1971 with Claudio Abbado for Deutsche Grammophon, in 1973 with Herbert von Karajan for UNITEL video, in 1977 again with Herbert von Karajan for Deutsche Grammophon, in 1986 again with Herbert von Karajan for Deutsche Grammophon, in 1988 again with Claudio Abbado for Deutsche Grammophon, in 1997 with Nikolaus Harnoncourt for Teldec, and in 2008 with Sir Simon Rattle on EMI.

Fourteen in total! That's a bit ridiculous, don't you think? ;-) I might even be missing some in that list...

Haitink Delivers Glowing Bruckner

Despite Bernard Haitink's faithfulness to his own basic interpretive concepts, over time one notices a certain development in his approach to his favorite core repertoire pieces: a certain search for more, a quest to make even more details meaningful within the context of the whole. The Bruckner 9th is one such Haitink staple that seems to have benefited from continuous reflection. Having heard Haitink conduct this work a few years ago in Amsterdam -- a superb performance in its own right -- I was struck by how Haitink managed to make this CSO performance last Saturday sound even more like one single logical progression -- a performance out of a single mold.

Haitink has always been one to go for sober, straightforward objectivity, eschewing indulgent emotionalism. In Bruckner this has usually meant a sort of "defused Jochum": a quite brisk general tempo with well articulated climaxes, but far less tempo fluctuation than his erstwhile mentor would have wanted, while never showing any interest in constructing altars to grandiose Brucknerian mysticism à la Giulini. But midway through his ninth decade, I find that Haitink has tempered his objectivism with good dose of human warmth. The hallmark of this performance was that it was a living, breathing thing that absorbed the listener fully in its sound world. An opening movement full of determination gave way to a scherzo of ideal tempo relations between the central trio and the bracketing outer sections, leading finally to that haunting, dissonant Adagio that illuminates a path well into the 20th century.

Not that the CSO ever plays less than their best for Haitink, but the musicians do seem to be sensing that the Haitink interregnum is approaching its end and seem to be wanting to make these last few concerts with its interim maestro very special ones. Even some of the recently less reliable members of the orchestra were in top form. The strings, in particular, were exceptional, and the woodwinds featured the (uncredited) superb co-principal flute of the Concertgebouw, Kersten McCall, substituting for the absent Mathieu Dufour.

I am told this performance was recorded for a future CSO Resound release. It will be one to look forward to.

The Bruckner was preceded in the first half by Haydn's Sinfonia Concertante in B flat major featuring CSO principals Eugene Izotov (oboe), David McGill (bassoon), John Sharp (cello), and concert master Robert Chen. It was altogether a fine Haydn performance, if a bit brawny in the tutti string sound for my taste. Both Chen and Izotov shone in their solo contributions while Sharp sounded a tad anemic.

Your Sunday Classical Youtube Video

Here's a gem I found a while ago: Giovanni Antonini performing the Vivaldi Concerto RV 443 on sopranino recorder with his Giardino Armonico.

A Little Rattle/BPO Record Guide

In less than two weeks, Sir Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic will be upon us for their first visit to Chicago in six years with one (already sold out) appearance at Symphony Center on November 16. With Grammophone Magazine serving as an extension of Sir Simon's personal PR office, and the Hurwitzer over at classicstoday having made a second career out of reflexively bashing nearly every Rattle release, it can be a bit difficult to distinguish hype and hyperbole from substance and to ferret out the worthwhile among Sir Simon's recordings from the superfluous. So, herewith a small guide to recent recordings by the Berlin Philharmonic with its maddeningly inconsistent music director.

As you can tell, my own concert experience with Rattle has been mixed. A truly spectacular Ravel in Berlin is offset by a messy and incoherent Bruckner 9 on tour in Frankfurt and a rather pedestrian Rite in Berlin, among a few other ups and downs. Nevertheless, given the love and admiration Rattle seems to have been able to generate among musicians in Birmingham, Philadelphia (who dearly wanted him to be their music director), and Berlin, I thought there must be more to this guy and hence plunged into an exploration of his recent discography with, I guess, a certain level of perverse curiosity. In most cases, I came away pleasantly surprised.

Sumptuous, Endearing Ravel

When I mentioned a "truly spectacular Ravel" above, this is what I meant. Although this particular recording was made from a different series of performances a few years later than the concert I attended, it features much of the same vocal forces and much of the same results. Rattle strikes me as having a particular knack for French music, be it romantic or impressionist (see below), and this disc is no exception. The shades of Ravel-ian orchestral color are handled expertly and the sonics of the recording display the Berliner's prowess to maximum effect and listening enjoyment. Though only two of the singers are native French speakers, the entire cast does an excellent job of signing the text with expression and the requisite humor. François le Roux's grandfather clock is brilliant, as is his cat duet with Sophie Koch. Magdalena Kožená (a.k.a. Mrs. Rattle) superbly captures the tantrums and mood swings of the disobedient enfant of the title.

For L'Enfant alone this recording goes to the very top of the list of recommendations, surpassing the classic Maazel/ORTF version. But the disc is additionally worthwhile for its exquisitely calibrated Ma mère l'oye, culminating in a magical rendition of Le Jardin féerique. The superb woodwind section of the BPO seems to be the ideal instrument for this work and Rattle knows how to employ it idiomatically and in a narratively persuasive manner. As a coupling to L'Enfant it makes eminent sense, as it represents the other work that Ravel specifically dedicated to children and childhood. The preciousness and innocence of this world depicted by Ravel in both cases benefits massively from the Berliner's superior prowess at playing chamber music in a large group, with rhythmic precision, yet a flexible flow, which creates a beautifully intimate atmosphere, excellently captured here by EMI's sound engineers. 

Pure Gold with a Hefty Cheese Topping

If you wanted to spend a lot of money on just ten minutes of mesmerizingly beautiful woodwind playing, you could do a lot worse than to get this disc. This performance of Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune is easily worth the weight of the disc in gold. Hardly surprising, given that between Emmanuel Pahud (flute), Albrecht Meyer (oboe) and Wenzel Fuchs (clarinet) the Berlin Philharmonic probably fields the best woodwind section of any orchestra today. Pahud's control of phrase and coloring just makes you want to replay track one over and over again. But the disc is worth your attention and money not just for the first ten minutes. Rattle's fine performance of La Mèr likewise benefits from having a rejuvenated orchestra that sounds far more authentically French than its former flabby self under Karajan. The woodwinds shine again and so does the brass, but it is Rattle who deserves the accolades here, having carefully judged balances and producing a wonderfully flexible, sweeping account that just pulls the listener in. The second movement, in particular, is absolutely masterfully done and riveting from beginning to end. On account of the first two works on the program, this disc is of such high caliber that it is practically self-recommending.

If, however, you're looking for value for your money, then the filler material on this disc could be a deterrent, if not a dealbreaker. André Caplet's orchestral arrangement of Boîte à joujoux, not Debussy's strongest work to begin with, is so garishly Hollywoodish in its orchestral coloring that Debussy as the original author is hardly recognizable. It doesn't help that Rattle indulges in the schmaltzyness by dragging a phrase here or there and encouraging very warm playing from the orchestra. Colin Matthews' arrangements of three of Debussy's Préludes for piano is similarly devoid of any hint of Debussy-ian atmosphere, if not nearly as garish, and Rattle's phrasing is bizarrely at odds with the original piano score in a number of places. There are so many wonderful orchestral works by Debussy that could have been used as filler instead (Iberia, Images, etc.). Why this unmitigated cheese, Simon?

Surprisingly, Mostly Good Brahms

 

This set was a pleasant surprise. It is not entirely without cause that Rattle has acquired a reputation for being somewhat unidiomatic and uncomfortable in the German romantic repertoire. His oddly mannered performance of Schoenberg's transcription of Brahms's Op.25 Piano Quartet at the BPO Athens European Concert of a few years ago made me approach his new Brahms symphony cycle with a certain level of apprehension. Thankfully, this vanished a few bars into this engrossing performance of the 1st symphony. In general, Rattle prefers a more melancholic take on Brahms as compared to, say, the fire and brimstone of Günter Wand (who still remains my first choice). But that is not to say that Rattle doesn't manage to generate intensity. From a seemingly plodding opening, Rattle judiciously builds energy towards the final climax of the opening movement until it becomes an overwhelming force. The inner two movements benefit from stellar woodwind playing and a conductor who doesn't get in the way of it. Throughout the symphony, Rattle seems to have paid special attention to carefully phrasing and articulating the low strings, cellos in particular, which leads to a simultaneously wonderfully warm and yet transparent reading that nicely reveals Brahms's contrapuntal writing without making it feel didactic. The slow introduction to the finale does not generate quite the unsettling atmosphere with Rattle that it does in the best performances. But as consolation, Radek Baborák (unidentified on the recording, but judging by the rock solid intonation, lack of forcing and a slight, telltale Czech-school vibrato, which doesn't sound like Stefan Dohr, it should be him) delivers one of the all time great Brahms-1-horn-solos on record: soaring, noble and without any of the blaring vulgarity some horn principals seem to find necessary.

The Second Symphony is generally similarly successful. The Berliners seem congenitally incapable of turning in an uninteresting performance of this work. Even among Karajan's often lethargic Brahms cycles, his Seconds stick out as absolute gems. Rattle, in this case, nicely keeps the pulse going in the first movement, yet without ever letting it become too rigid. The inner two movements flow similarly well, with similar flexibility and excellent playing from all sections. In the last movement, alas, we run into a few of Sir Simon's mannerisms. He takes the p introduction at a considerably slower tempo than the f central statement of the main theme, even though Brahms asks for allegro con spirito from the start. The result, besides being weird for no apparent interpretively logical reason, obscures the link to Brahms's model: Mozart. The finale of the Second features Brahms at his most classicist. What he is doing here is recreating in a romantic idiom both the structure and the effect of the glorious finales of Mozart's late symphonies, especially the Jupiter, with their soft but fast introductions, bristling with quiet energy which is then unleashed explosively. Rattle exacerbates the weirdness with a few bizarre subito pianos and crescendos which are nowhere to be found in the score.

The Third Symphony is the weakest of the lot, mainly on account of a rather flabby first movement. There is hardly a hint of allegro here, never mind con brio. Instead of a life-and-death struggle, Rattle presents a melancholic stroll in a late autumnal park under an ominously overcast sky. That's fine, if that is what you want. But playing the opening movement of the Third this way raises the question of why Brahms bothered to make such pervasive and unsettling use of hemiola when this is all you're going to do with it. Strolls in the park could have been accomplished with simpler means. Rattle's odd reluctance to get going is all the more foregrounded by the stark contrast to his sudden and drastic increase in tempo towards the middle of the development section, only to lose that momentum again. For me, this just doesn't work. Rattle's version simply lacks the intensity this movement needs if it's going to make sense in context with the three that follow. Those three that follow are done very well, however. The third movement, in particular, is played with a great deal of risk-taking in the flexibility of the phrasing, but like the good chamber musicians they are, the Berliners stick together perfectly. One might have wanted the tempo to be a tick faster here to contrast this Poco allegretto with the preceding Andante, but interpretively the movement works very well as it is and isn't excessively indulgent compared to the historic spectrum. The horn solo is once again a dream and peters off in a perfect blend with the bassoon that takes up the phrase. In the last movement, Rattle nicely manages a general sense of inevitability despite again not mobilizing quite the energy that some others have on record.

The Fourth Symphony is mostly well done, but not anything that would make you replace your cherished Kleiber recording. Rattle takes the first movement in a rather autumnal fashion, but builds the development very well, with a fine sense of inevitable tragedy. Overall, the movement makes a very coherent whole. Sir Simon takes the second movement so broadly that he is on the verge of entering late-Celibidache territory, clocking in nearly a full minute longer than the already (beautifully) dreamy Barenboim, who manages a similar basic approach much more convincingly. Yes, the BPO horns, clarinets and bassoons play so absolutely gorgeously that you can sympathize with a desire to listen to them for as long as possible. But the thread that holds the movement together is stretched so thin here that at times it threatens to fray and snap. The third movement is in any case one of the easiest Brahmsian symphonic movements to get right, provided decent balances and generally good ensemble, and the Berliners expectedly do themselves proud here. But then the passacaglia that is the last movement makes this performance just a qualified success. Rattle does not find the common denominator that makes this collection of related units one coherent whole. We are left with fragments that, on their own, sound fine, but in context don't produce the sense of inevitability that is found in the best performances of Brahms 4.

So, altogether this makes a reasonably fine, if uneven, set that shows off the playing of the present day BPO in a very flattering light. This is Rattle's latest release and it is probably no accident that it was timed to coincide with the Berliners' US tour featuring this very repertoire (they will be performing the 2nd Symphony here in Chicago on November 16th). And as such it will probably make a nice memento for those who attend the concerts, even if as a whole it doesn't come close to replacing any reference versions.

More reviews after the jump.

Your Sunday Classical Youtube Video Vol.1

Shostakovich 10 with Gustavo Dudamel and the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela from the BBC Proms two years ago:

Branching Out

I've created a second blog, de Pennatibus, specifically for all my birding excursions and photography. All bird posts previously residing on the Tonic Blotter have been moved there, along with all links to birding websites and blogs. This should help disentangle some of my varied interests and make the Tonic Blotter more music/culture focused.

Thank God for Extra Virgin Olive Oil!

Riccardo Muti is to be commended. While Gustavo Dudamel and Alan Gilbert opened their respective orchestra's seasons with at least one big, red meat blockbuster on the program, Muti (who doesn't really start his job here until next season) chose Bruckner's rarely performed Second Symphony as the keystone of this week's series of concerts. OK, so this wasn't the official season opener for the CSO--Paavo Järvi took care of that, and there was another regular concert week with Yan-Pascal Tortelier in between as well--but this week was promoted as a welcome-home-party for the new music director, a year in advance of his official debut in that role ("Benvenuto Maestro!" posters were everywhere), so for all practical purposes this was the "real" season opener.

I went to the Saturday afternoon performance that consisted only of the Bruckner, omitting the Mozart Jupiter Symphony and followed by a "Town Hall" (sans armed right-wing protesters) with Maestro Muti (and tangentially connected by sheer coincidence of timing to the city's Burnham Plan Centennial festival).

What has always fascinated me about Bruckner is his synthesis of a long tradition of Western church music with an expanded classical symphonic structure and a prescient anticipation of the modernity to come, while utilizing the resources of the full romantic Wagnerian orchestra. Bruckner's works at once sound both strangely archaic and yet too modern to have come from the pen of a contemporary of Brahms. It is this richness of influences that allows for such a breadth of interpretive variety. From Jochum's rambunctious jollity to Furtwängler's fire and brimstone to Celibidache's patient search for Nirvana, there are countless plausible and convincing, yet seemingly utterly incongruent ways of approaching Bruckner.

Muti's take was to basically imagine this early symphony as a sort of extended-play Schubert, taking the fragments of Austrian folk dance and song and tossing them about to weave a warm, richly textured quilt of sound. The second movement could have benefited from a bit more breadth to allow the musical ideas space to breathe and develop, and the tempo of the opening of the Finale at one point threatened to endanger clarity of articulation, but otherwise Muti's tempo choices were rather within the historic norm. The reason then that Muti's performance was allegedly five minutes shorter than others, as some critics claimed, had less to do with his choice of tempo than with his choice of the Nowak edition, which eliminates some repeated material in the Scherzo and trims some fat off the Finale compared to the Haas edition, which was frequently used by others in the past, as well as possibly a few additional cuts of Muti's own making.

There is no question that the CSO is immensely enjoying its collaboration with its new music director. The mutual enthusiasm for joint music-making could be both heard and seen. Yet, I think that Muti has not yet fully accustomed himself to harnessing the sonic resources of the CSO. Granted that Muti is a conductor who prefers a rich wall of sound to a Boulezian sort of clarity where each voice can be appreciated in isolation, there were still passages where middle voices were swallowed up too much by brass and/or strings. Similarly, a number of crescendos tended to plateau considerably too early. And while there was nothing to complain about the musicality of any given passage, some movements--the Adagio in particular--did not hang together quite as well as possible.

The Bruckner Second is one of the pieces (along with the Brahms and Verdi requiems and Prokofiev's 3rd, e.g.) which Muti has been studying and performing intensively in the last few seasons, and which he has taken with him from orchestra to orchestra. I thus happened to catch a broadcast of a performance he conducted of this work with the Vienna Philharmonic from last season. That performance flowed a bit better and had fewer of these balancing issues. So my criticism above has nothing to do with Muti's interpretation as such, but rather with his success at reproducing that idea yesterday afternoon. And that is not to say that the CSO does not play like Vienna. Quite to the contrary, the CSO sounded glorious yesterday, especially the strings and the woodwinds (even principal flute Mathieu Dufour clearly found this week's concerts important enough to bless us with his presence).

The "Town Hall" meeting that followed was an opportunity for the audience to meet the new music director more or less in person, albeit mediated by CSO Artistic Administrator Nick Winter. An audience amounting to approximately 2/3 of the capacity of the main floor took up the invitation. What was intended as an hour-long Q & A session was quickly turned into an afternoon of storytelling with the gregarious maestro, who with ease free-associated his way far away from the original questions, often getting himself into trouble, e.g. when outlining the "big difference" between a monk and a woman or likening an invitation from a world-class orchestra to the overtures of an attractive female. Thus Muti managed to meander from strictly musical issues seamlessly to, e.g., explaining the differences between Chicago and Neapolitan pizza (both of which he allegedly likes - "Chicago pizza is forty times thicker"). While amusing, over the course of the hour Winter only managed to ask only maybe three and a half questions from the pile that was sent in by audience members, all of them more or less of a softball type. (I guess my questions about his thoughts on mandatory retirement age and the importance of recordings for the orchestra will have to wait.)

A few interesting things did emerge in the session, however. For one, Muti has no overt plans of remaking the sound of the orchestra, an issue he feels is "an American obsession". Muti, who was in equal parts praised and damned for the changes he brought to the supposedly trademark "Philadelphia Sound" during his tenure there, obviously still feels this to be a slightly sore spot and said that the sound of the orchestra is more the result of the musicians and their pedagogical pedigree than of the music director's doing. That being so, it seemed that had the sound of the CSO not already changed substantially over the course of Daniel Barenboim's tenure, Muti accepting the orchestra's invitation would probably have been considerably less likely. When asked about what makes the CSO special, Muti replied that the orchestra today is no longer characterized simply by a world class brass, but has world class strings and woodwinds as well and is capable of the greatest dynamic range of any. But there is another reason why a CSO invitation to Muti some decades ago would probably have been less attractive: "Olive oil ... extra virgin, is even better." Unlike the culinarily benighted Germany of the 1970s, it is not hard to find proper Italian food supplies in Chicago in the new millennium. A fact that makes it easier for Muti to "make [the orchestra] an extension of my family, and let's forget that there is the Atlantic in between."

So, in that spirit, benvenuto Maestro Muti, and should you ever crave proper Neapolitan pizza, do check out Spacca Napoli in Ravenswood.