Features: The Sound of Muti

IRONICALLY, ALL THE ARTISTIC excitement Muti has fostered has created a new problem. The Academy is sold out, and there is no possible way for the orchestra to play more nights than it already does. Many more people want to see the orchestra than are able to. There are two ways to solve this over-demand problem is to arrange for orchestra performances to be televised. Since Leonard Young People’s Concerts left air in 1980, classical music hasn’t had TV as a consistent venue. Muti has that combination of technical skill, charismatic screen presence and accessibility that Bernstein had. And for some time the orchestra has been trying to negotiate a deal with PBS’ Great Performances. But it is a hard sell, and some are worried that now that Andre Previn will be leading the Los Angeles Philharmonic media-crazed L. A., which has very ambitious public TV station — that Previn the communicator will beat Muti and Philadelphia to the punch. (Actually, Muti and the Philadelphia Orchestra are on television quite often — in Italy. In his homeland, Muti is a national hero.)

The other, probably more practical, way to make the orchestra accessible to more — at least to more Philadelphians — to the new performing arts center
that Muti has championed for years. He wants a new concert hall not only to expand and restructure seating (the Academy has, proportionally, too many cheap seats), but also to get a space with better acoustics. Despite the commonly held notion that it is "acoustically perfect," most musicians find the Academy, built originally as an opera hall, a hard place to be heard in. Because of its design, along with several changes that have been made on the supports under the stage, the Academy is said to "eat sound." When the orchestra performs in places like Carnegie Hall, where the acoustics are better, Muti must constantly remind the musicians to play more softly. Partly because of the Academy’s acoustics, the Philadelphia Orchestra was always known for having a "big," overpowering sound; Muti wants it to play with more precision, more delicacy — so that the big sound is only one of the weapons in its musical arsenal.

Because the study of acoustics remains an inexact science, building a new hall is always a risk. But Muti believes it is a risk worth taking. If the hall were built, Muti and the orchestra would be able to record and play in the same setting (they now make records in Memorial Hall in Fairmount Park, since their last site — the old Metropolitan Opera House — virtually fell apart before their eyes) and the city would have a facility for the staging of classical concerts by other orchestras. Now, the orchestra so monopolizes the Academy stage that the local opera and ballet companies can barely squeeze in rehearsal time.
Fighting for these musical causes has forced Muti out of his shell a bit, but he must still be coaxed to appear in public by his support staff (although the public rehearsals and a new chamber music series featuring orchestra musicians — premiering next month — were his ideas). Still, he’ll never be accused of being a publicity hound. His abounding concern continues to be the
music — and his wife and three children in Ravenna. Sometimes they accompany Muti to America. "I can see Riccardo walking from the stage door to his apartment from the window of my shop," says Dino the barber. "When he has come here from Italy alone, he is a different person, more intense, more preoccupied. When you see him walking past with his wife Cristina and the kids, you can see everything. He is more alive." Muti’s jetting around has meant missing out on important family moments. "I remember Muti was with us in Philadelphia on the night Cristina went into the hospital in Italy with their youngest one," says Norman Carol. "I have never seen anyone suffer more. I know ball players and musicians who’ve been on the road when their wives had a kid, but he was really tortured. I was really touched by the occasion, because here’s a man who has devoted his life to music and traveling and so forth, and in so many ways he was just a very little, helpless father again. "

Some describe Muti as aloof. Others say he is just shy around people before he gets to know them, and his powerful presence makes his silence seem judgmental. For years his English was a problem — it isn’t anymore — but in America he will always be a foreigner. Sometimes, though, the feeling in those dark eyes must simply be loneliness. The music he has devoted his life to makes Muti’s existence one long business trip. But the music is his mission in life.

"We are too small in comparison with what we have to do," Muti says. "Every great conductor is just a little part in a long chain. "