Features: The Sound of Muti

TO CONDUCT, A MAESTRO MUST have a sound in his head, a musical idea that makes a symphonic piece or an opera come together for him, a concept that
can be used as a microscope with which examine certain musical questions the players might have. The conductor develops this through listening, analysis and study — not only of the score (the conductor must know each player’s part cold) also of the circumstances surrounding composition. Muti is famous for his for this kind of research, poring over Verdi’s letters, for example, to find clues the composer’s intentions.

After the studying comes the communicating: the conductor must be able explain, briefly, succinctly, how he the orchestra to achieve his musical Muti is a good teacher. His classroom, the stage, has rules of discipline that bring to
mind those of a strict high school room. The players must pay attention —
Muti stares a string player into submission if he is caught not listening. When Muti started conducting this orchestra, he knew little English. He learned early on to communicate with body movements, sounds. He now speaks fluent English, the nonverbal communication still best. The way he sings the parts, for example. Part of his training in Italy was feggio-a process of singing notes concert pace, using the notes’ names, instead of nonsense syllables, like “la, la, la” — and this is very a language the players can appreciate. Muti also has pitch, and what players call "radar ear." He not only hears problems, he can pinpoint through that lush Philadelphia string section which player is slightly off.

As with any good teacher, Muti’s criticisms are constructive. He always begins with va bene — that’s good— and follows a very specific recommendation: he told a flute player to make his attack like a ripe tomato dropping. This is how Muti rises to the challenge of taking excruciatingly talented players who probably impress most audiences without even trying, and convincing, cajoling, intimidating them into pushing toward almost imperceptible improvement in or flexibility or coloring that perhaps only they, and Muti, will ever appreciate.

Another way Muti keeps his players alert is by offering a program of sometimes unexpected selections, slowly replacing some of the hall-packing warhorses — the ones Ormandy was happy to saddle up whenever he could — with works from the same era that have never been played by the orchestra or heard by Philadelphia audiences.

Muti’s best-known programming idiosyncrasy is his selection of particular versions of the pieces he performs. Many listeners in his audience don’t realize that there are several versions of most major works — some rewrites by the original composers, and some versions edited by those whom Muti disapprovingly calls "post-creative talents." Some of the most famous opera arias in the repertoire changed after the composers’ deaths, written for operatic stars who wanted to show off their voices. Some symphonies have had repeats of certain sections edited out over the years because conductors believed they were … well, repetitious. Muti thinks a conductor should either play the piece as originally written or not play it at all.

Besides new versions of time-tested symphonies and operas, Muti has, in the last two years, brought something new to the Academy stage: the finance-style opera. Over the years, schism has developed between opera, orchestras and symphonic orchestras. Opera productions tend to overshadow quality of the musical accompaniment. It’s very rare for a symphonic orchestra perform an entire opera, although they often play overtures or movements during the course of a program. Last year the orchestra did Verdi’ s Macbeth in its entirety — no costumes or staging, just the singers and the players in perfect balance — and this year they did Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice. Librettos with translations were handed out to the audience, enabling the maestro to hear the only audience sound he enjoys: pages being attentively turned. (He dislikes coughing and wheezing so much, however, that during a recent performance of the Berlioz Symphonie fantastique, he had a soloist stop playing and begin again after a loud throat -clearing in the audience.)

On the other hand, Muti has been criticized for not programming enough modern and especially American repertoire, and for shirking his responsibility to introduce new music. He has responded by hiring a modern music consultant, Penn music professor (and Pulitzer Prize-winner) Richard Wernick.