Features: The Sound of Muti

EVERYTHING IN NORMAN CAROL’S artistic life has been perfect since Riccardo Muti became music director of the Philadelphia Orchestra five years ago. Carol, the orchestra’s concertmaster, does have one concern, though. "I’d like to see the people of Philadelphia try to understand and appreciate what kind of talent we have here in Muti," says the silver haired violinist. "We have perhaps the number one conductor in the world in this city, yet I read the people here are unhappy Muti doesn’t do this or that. What’s important is that he thinks we’re good enough that he wants to go through this routine of shuttling back and forth from Philadelphia to Italy."

That he thinks we’re good enough? Who is this Muti, to so humble the concertmaster, the first violin, the top player in what some consider to be the best orchestra on the planet?

"I’m convinced that this man has been touched by God," says Carol. "For someone at his age to know and understand the things he does about music . . . well, it is, in my opinion, impossible to learn these things."

If you are unfamiliar with the world of symphonic music, you should know that such testimonials — from a player to his natural enemy, the conductor — are quite rare. Yet they can be heard quite frequently around the Academy of Music, where during the past few years, the 106-member Philadelphia Orchestra and its flock of followers have been inspired by one man, really a boy by industry standards. A simple but accurate gauge is ticket sales. Under Eugene Ormandy, the orchestra usually had tickets available the day of the show. Since the day Muti became music director, it has consistently sold out
its local subscription series, and is the only orchestra in America that can make this claim. The demand for tickets is just as high when the orchestra tours nationally and internationally. And Philadelphia’s is now one of only two orchestras in the country — and four in the world — with a longterm recording contract.

This is one case where the critics and the public —both doubtful at first — are now in complete agreement. "The orchestra is elegant; it is truly a four-star luxury … undoubtedly. [it] has aged like fine wine," wrote one Paris critic in Le Figaro. "Yet it was necessary for it to find its second youth with the wave of a magic wand. The wand is that of Riccardo Muti." "Under Eugene Ormandy, the orchestra produced a lush carpet of homogenized sound that was always ravishing but too bland for many tastes," wrote New York magazine’s Peter Davis. "Muti has lightened the textures, sharpened attacks, and emphasized contrasts among the various instrumental components without sacrificing a smooth ensemble blend." "Muti is a master of the baton," wrote Harold Schonberg, now retired from the Times but still dean of American music critics. "He has plenty of glamour, plenty of talent, plenty of authority."

Or ask the musicians what has happened under Muti. "The Philadelphia Orchestra has a certain quality, a level at which it plays and which it very seldom goes beyond," explains one. "Some of the most frustrated people I know are orchestra players. Unless they are principals [first chairs], they aren’t getting to solo. But when you deal with a conductor as demanding as Muti, who pays such attention to detail and asks for so much concentration . . . most musicians are playing almost in a solo capacity, although they’re not being heard alone. He has us playing at a tremendous level."

"Being in an orchestra as good as this one, it is possible to get bored with the music; playing a symphony again can be like taking a photo and running off 100 copies," says Murray Panitz, the principal flute player. "With Muti, you paint the picture over each time. "

For all the adoration, Riccardo Muti is not — as concertmaster Norman Carol points out — well-known in Philadelphia, at least not outside certain circles. But this could be the year that even Philadelphia discovers Muti. Now that he has the orchestra playing at its best — after what critics and even some players agree was a slight slippage during Ormandy’s last years — Muti appears to be training his eye on the public. He has opened Friday rehearsals to city high school students. He has given public lectures days before conducting challenging pieces that are new to the orchestra. He gives more interviews, gets involved in city and state political issues that affect the orchestra, attends more orchestra-related functions and even occasionally shows up at local sports events. (Dave Zinkoff announced Muti’s presence at last year’s tennis tournament at the Spectrum, and at a 76ers game last year Muti conducted his 12-year old son Francesco into the 76ers locker room to get an autographed ball.) Muti is well-known for looking down that nose of his — the one he shares with a large number of people in the paintings hanging in Florence’s Uffizi Gallery — at anything that smacks of publicity-seeking; he’s also genuinely shy and uncomfortable around people he doesn’t know, especially non-Italians. But he’s making himself more’ visible this year to further the cause of the orchestra and its music —to serve the educational goals he feels are the first function of a symphony orchestra — and his effort can only improve his relationship with the city.

"There has been this tendency to make people feel that the Academy of Music is some kind of temple for elected elite people," Muti suggests, in lightly accented English. "But everybody must feel comfortable to come, and come in
with the music. I’m trying to convince people that not only the so-called ‘experts: are welcome here, but anyone who has some feelings, who wants to learn something, who wants to receive some emotions, he is welcome."