Riccardo Muti

Some critics get their thongs in a tangle because maestro Riccardo Muti is supposedly hot-blooded, authoritarian, and rigid. Funny, that's just how vilaine fille likes her men—and her conductors. (She keeps lashes and cuffs on hand for the overly saucy ones.)

18 April update: From today's Newsday, a review by vilaine fille alter ego Marion Lignana Rosenberg of last week's New York Philharmonic concert under Riccardo Muti. Unfortunately, an error was inserted during production: late in the story, it should read "Wagner raided," not "Wagner aided."

I hear not only Walküre but also Tristan and Parsifal all over Liszt's "Faust Symphony," which had its world premiere in 1857 and was slightly revised in 1861 and 1880. (I hear Lohengrin, too, whose world premiere Liszt had conducted in 1850, though he had begun "A Faust Symphony" some years earlier.) The chronology and specifics of who influenced whom are extremely tricky, to be sure, but who knew how much mighty Riccardo (the earlier one) owed to his dashing beau-père?

Further update: Check out the detective work by ACD regarding Liszt and Riccardo the elder. Visitor JLB recommends the Bernstein recording of "A Faust Symphony," available in the DG Originals series; here's a review from Classics Today comparing several versions, including Muti/Philadelphia.

I commend to you David Patrick Stearns' smashing article on "the fabulous, brilliant and sometimes imperious Muti." (Try BugMeNot.com for a username and password.) Also not to be missed: Dr. Martin Bernheimer's Financial Times review.

Comments

[alan]

Hey! Why do people slag off Liszt? His 'Annees de Pèlerinage' alone contain some of the greatest Romantic piano music ever written.

[Jordan]

Funny, I hear TCHAIKOVSKY all over the piece, although Peter stole from LISZT remember... Why do all critics bash the Faust Symphony as though it were as bad as all the rest of FL's work? (See: NY Times) It's clearly a stroke of genius and far beyond Liszt's usual ability. (Bernstein, whose Boston recording is to die for, claimed it was Liszt's only masterpiece, which I think is apt.)

What did you think of it as a work?

[A.C. Douglas]

Oops. Almost forgot.

_Chag Sameach_! to you.

ACD

[A.C. Douglas]

You might want to take a look at this:

http://www.soundsandfury.com/soundsandfury/2004/07/detective_story.html

Regards,

ACD