Also available as a hybrid Super Audio CD.

Insightful interpretation and the intensity of a live performance enhance the strength of this outstanding recording.

Released in 2010, this CSO Resound recording of Verdi’s Requiem is based on concert performances from January 2009 at Orchestral Hall (Symphony Center)m, Chicago.

The discs set forth the first recording of the CSO under the direction of its new director Riccardo Muti. They offer a vivid interpretation of this familiar work which captures the dynamic character of the concerts while also providing excellent sonics. A welcome addition to the discography of this venerable work, the CSO recording is notable for the bringing out of details of execution that set it apart from others.

The famous opening section of the Dies Irae is full of dynamic contrast, from the thunderous percussion and brass playing to almost whispered choral sounds. Such extroverted gestures stand in contrast to the sometimes chamber-like solicitous treatment of the opening. In rendering such varied emotions, Muti arrives at an interpretation that never treats the music passively. In bringing this performance together he confers his sense of the wholeness of the piece on the entire ensemble, orchestra, chorus and soloists.

As to the soloists, they equally strong in their abilities, with their distinctive timbres used well. Barbara Frittoli soars when appropriate, and at the same time works well with Borodina in the “Recordare” duet. In the same way, Mario Zeffiri brings out the pathos of the “Ingemisco” section, with vibrato coloring passages purposefully. In the trio “Quid sum miser” he blends well with Frittoli and Borodina. The bass Ildar Abdrazakov is equally suited to his part, with a dark timbre that is particularly effective in the “Confutatis” section of the Dies Irae. The four soloists work together in ensemble in the “Domine Jesu Christ” passage to bring the Dies Irae to its conclusion. The duet between Frittoli and Borodina in the Agnus Dei is particularly touching, with Borodina’s rich sound emerging well.

Through the recording, the CSO offers a warm, opulence that supports the voices, as in the opening of the Offertorio and the Lux aeterna. At the same time the CSO Chorus is impressive for its focus, unified diction and solid intonation. The combined voices seem effortless. These aspects are essential to the recording which is immediate and natural. In many ways the forces involved encapsulate the style and meaning of the entire piece in the final section, Libera me. It is among the finest passages of the recording. Frittoli gives a sense of urgency throughout much of the section, a sense that resolves at the conclusion. Along the way, the choral and orchestral timbres support and delineate her text, as Verdi brings the Requiem to a conclusion. The reprise of the Dies Irae brings a spirit of unity again, with an edge to which Frittoli responds. This interaction contributes to making this reading continually appealing.

Such appeal is apparent because of the power of the performances. This interpretation has a sense of relevance arising from the manifest engagement of all concerned. Within the continuous tradition of performance, this recording, with its fine sound, excellent interpretation and abundantly apt musicianship, demonstrates the appeal that Verdi’s Requiem continues to retain.

This is issued as a two-disc set with a generous booklet that contains the full text and translation, as well as an interview with Muti and performer details. Those familiar with the CSO may wish to add it to their own collections, and those who prefer downloads will find that the CSO makes those available, too.

Insightful interpretation and the intensity of a live performance enhance the strength of this outstanding recording.

-- James L Zychowicz, MusicWeb International

Recorded in 2010 during Riccardo Muti's first subscription concerts as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's tenth music director, this new double-CD release pairs Hector Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique with it's sequel, Lelio, ou le retour de la vie (Lelio, or The Return to Life). Berlioz intended Symphonie fantastique to be followed by Lelio in concert, as the artist returns to life to comment anew on music and art. Maestro Muti and the CSO are joined in Lelio by acclaimed actor Gerard Depardieu as the narrator, tenor Mario Zeffiri, bass-baritone Kyle Ketelsen, and the Chicago Symphony Chorus.... to hear this pairing of works as Berlioz intended was fascinating. (New York Times) [T]he vivid, evocative and beautifully detailed performance the maestro elicited from his platoons of performers - including narrator, soloists and full Chorus, in magnificent voice - drew a thunderous ovation from the packed auditorium. (Chicago Tribune)

The recording of Dmitri Shostakovich's "Symphony no 4" on this album won the 2008 Grammy Award for "Best Orchestral Performance."

Classical Music

Classical Music

Riccardo Muti leads the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, men of the Chicago Symphony Chorus and bass soloist Alexey Tikhomirov in this poignant performance of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 13, Op. 113 (Babi Yar). Recorded live in September 2018, the ensemble shines throughout—from passages requiring the sheer sonic force of the first movement to the indelible moments provided by single instruments, reminding the listener that despite the enormity of its theme, this is, after all, a symphony of individuals. Muti and musicians expertly navigate the intricacies of the five movements, each set to the poetry of Yevgeny Yevtushenko and expressing themes that were dear to Shostakovich—revolution and war, the individual’s role in society, idealism in the face of easy compromise, prejudice and intolerance. Yevtushenko said, “Over people like Shostakovich death has no power. His music will sound as long as humankind exists. . . . When I wrote ‘Babi Yar,’ there was no monument there. Now there is a monument.”

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REVIEWS:

There are American ensembles with a more sustained Shostakovich tradition than the Chicago Symphony but the present recording, taken from the opening concerts of the orchestra’s 2018-19 season, can stand comparison with any of its distinguished predecessors, however different in tone. Strongly recommended.

– Gramophone

The tone virtually throughout is dark and intense, most particularly the opening movement which sets the title poem. Muti confirms his identification with this work in its subsequent movements. Tikhomirov, rich-toned and sentient throughout, is backed by a superbly characterful Chicago Symphony Chorus.

– BBC Music Magazine

The CSO’s performance, with bass Alexey Tikhomirov and the men of the Chicago Symphony Chorus, revealed Muti’s continuing devotion to Shostakovich’s often-shattering music. It was the first concert of the CSO’s new Symphony Center season, and the audience’s mood was festive. Muti channeled that excitement into rapt, almost reverent attention with a searing performance of a dramatic work that is very close to his heart.

– Chicago Sun-Times

Chicago has long been a welcoming home to the working composer, and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at the heart of the musical life they found in the city. The three American composers whose music is performed on this recording all have important ties to the CSO, from Philip Glass’ formative years as a student listener in Orchestra Hall in the 1950s, to Jessie Montgomery, who is the Orchestra’s Mead Composer-in-Residence today, and Max Raimi, who is both a prolific composer and a longtime member of the Orchestra’s viola section. 

The works by Montgomery and Raimi were both their first CSO commissions, and these are their world premiere performances. Montgomery’s Hymn for Everyone is a meditation for orchestra that speaks to the significance of her emergence in today’s cultural climate through its reflection on the personal and collective challenges of the spring of 2021. In it, a hymn-like melody traverses different orchestral choirs to poignant effect. For each poem in Raimi’s Three Lisel Mueller Settings, he selects an admired colleague to enter into a dialogue with the soloist, mezzo-soprano Elizabeth DeShong. This highlights the talents of Principal Clarinet Stephen Williamson in a frenetic waltz, Principal Bassoon Keith Buncke in a tragic elegy and Principal Bass Alexander Hanna in a metaphor for hope, with soaring, song-like phrases that transcend standard conceptions of the instrument’s expressive possibilities.

Glass’ Eleventh Symphony is part of the symphonic tradition that captivated him as a student. Each movement has its own unique character — the first bold and driving, the second crowned by a slowly unfolding melody and the third a barrage of cascading energy and racing percussion.

For Glass in the 50s, it was Fritz Reiner. Now Riccardo Muti champions the compositional voices of the age with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. “It takes courage,” says Glass of the Orchestra’s legacy of performing contemporary music, “and that courage becomes a tradition.”

REVIEWS:

This album stands as testimony to the Italian master’s innate musical understanding and ability to bring out the best in almost everything he conducts.

-- Gramophone

Glass delivers a variant of the crowd-pleasing movie music he has trademarked for decades. It is hard to gainsay America’s most prolific and popular serious composer. Muti’s performance is all that it could be, and the orchestra lends glamour to the score.

-- Fanfare

Riccardo Muti leads the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Chorus and a cast of outstanding soloists in Pietro Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana. As an opera, Cavalleria rusticana is one of the most enduring works for the stage, and its extraordinary popularity has never waned. This exquisite concert performance from February 2020 vividly captures the unforgettable cut of its melodies, the intoxicating colors of its Sicilian atmosphere and the urgent, heart-racing pace of its drama, which has few equals in the repertoire. The entire ensemble, featuring the notable portrayal of Santuzza by mezzo-soprano Anita Rachvelishvili, captures all the emotion and nuance of Mascagni’s opera as it hurtles toward its inevitable catastrophe — the celebrated Intermezzo offering the only moment of respite. In the early part of its history, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra was in the pit for an astonishing number of operas, including nearly 50 performances of Cavalleria rusticana. The orchestra’s founding music director, Theodore Thomas, conducted the Intermezzo on the second program the Orchestra ever played on October 19, 1891. Riccardo Muti, world-renowned for his superlative interpretations of Italian operas, reunites the orchestral prowess of CSO with the work (one it had not performed in its entirety since 1931) in this definitive 21st-century performance certain to stand the test of time.

REVIEW:

The performers seem determined to make listeners forget the concert setting and hear the drama. Like some other famous mezzo-sopranos, Anita Rachvelishvili handles Santuzza’s music with considerable assurance, including a brilliant high B to conclude the Easter ensemble early in the opera. Generally, she relies mostly on volume to register strong emotion, which can be exciting when the orchestra and voice go all out. She pays somewhat less attention to characterization and to the clarity and impact of the words.

Baritone Luca Salsi has the authentic Italian diction and timbre, as Alfio, to ensure verismo flavor along with passion. It’s mostly a reactive role but also a menacing one, as Salsi shows in his fatal, headlong duet with Santuzza.

In the final scene, Pietro Pretti’s voice shatters, flees, fights, and irrupts madly; it’s the sound of a man suddenly torn apart, facing the abyss. Ronnita Miller’s cavernous tone and tense reactions make Mamma Lucia a one-woman Greek chorus, and Sasha Cooke is alluring in Lola’s brief scene.

Muti is typically masterful in deploying the virtuoso orchestra and, of course, the excellent chorus, which plays a crucial role in the work. In the Intermezzo, he departs from his own tradition, balancing the rage and terror of the drama with unexpected restraint. Conductors on recordings have gone overboard in the Intermezzo’s climactic main theme ever since Mascagni’s own recording, in 1940, never sparing the string vibrato and tripling the forte indicated in the score. But here, almost startlingly, Muti shades and lightens the texture, suggesting rare poignancy and hints of grace.

-- Opera News

Also available on Super Audio CD

VERDI Otello • Riccardo Muti, cond; Aleksandrs Antonenko ( Otello ); Krassimira Stoyanova ( Desdemona ); Carlo Guelfi ( Iago ); Juan Francisco Gatell ( Cassio ); Barbara Di Castri ( Emilia ); Eric Owens ( Lodovico ); Chicago SO & Ch • CSO RESOUND 9011301 (2 SACDs: 135:57 Text and Translation)


Riccardo Muti’s Otello derives from three concert performances given at Chicago’s Orchestra Hall in 2011. The recording combines the excitement of a live performance with the virtues of an excellently engineered studio effort that brilliantly captures orchestral and choral detail within a huge dynamic range. CSO Resound provides a booklet that includes essays and a libretto, and there’s no applause or audience sound.


Muti’s masterful conducting of Verdi’s greatest tragic opera would make this an important Otello to hear even if it weren’t for its generally strong vocal performances. In the first act’s storm and sequence of choruses, Muti’s slightly restrained tempos resemble Fürtwangler’s more than the forward momentum of Kleiber or Toscanini, but he generates taut excitement through control of dynamics, precise rhythm, and steady, logical pacing. The Chicago Symphony, which performed the opera under Solti, plays wonderfully well. Throughout the performance, Muti has the orchestra make subtle differences in articulation from what one traditionally hears.


A unique feature of this recording is the inclusion of a rarely heard revision of the busy ensemble that closes act III that Verdi made for a Paris production in 1894, seven years after Otello ’s La Scala premiere. The last operatic music that Verdi composed, its musical and dramatic quality is equal to that of the more familiar concertato , but its increased clarity allows Iago’s asides to be heard more clearly.


Aleksandrs Antonenko sang Otello with Muti conducting (with a different Iago and Desdemona) in Salzburg in 2008, and judging from the excerpts that I’ve seen of that performance, he improved significantly by the time of the Chicago performances. He has the right (and rare) heroic voice for Otello, and he sings musically and technically well, with comfortable-sounding Italian in a performance that begins strongly, but gains conviction in the two final acts. While he doesn’t yet imprint the role with the kind of distinctive personality that its greatest interpreters have done, singing and acting Otello tends to be a career-long process, and Antonenko sings the part far better than Cura, Galouzine, Botha, or Heppner, to name some other tenors who have undertaken the role, A.D. (After Domingo). It remains to be seen whether Jonas Kaufmann can summon the vocal power to sing the part live, but the two Otello excerpts on his recent Verdi recital are a very promising sign that perhaps, not too long from now, two castable Otellos (Kaufmann and Antonenko) may walk the earth.


The wobble in baritone Carlo Guelfi’s delivery of Iago’s first line, “È infranto l’artimon,” warns of vocal trouble, and it turns out that he lacks the required power and the ability to sing sustained notes in the drinking song, and more importantly, in the Credo. Actually, Guelfi does well with the lighter, insinuating side of of Iago’s music, such as the dialogue with Roderigo in act I, and much of act III. There’s pleasure to be had in hearing an Italian baritone in the role, but a successful Iago must be able to really sing, not just do well with role’s parlando aspects. Many a worthy Otello recording has been undermined by odd casting of Iago; I’m thinking of Fischer-Dieskau, Schöffler, Glossop, and Leiferkus. Then there are baritones whose voices are right, but whose characterizations are insufficient: Protti, Capuccilli, even Milnes. Giuseppe Valdengo, in Toscanini’s recording, demonstrates what’s possible in a performance that’s both magnificently characterized and beautifully sung.


An experienced Desdemona, Krassimira Stoyanova gives a strong performance, singing with focused, lovely tone, if not achieving the poignancy of the greatest Desdemonas in act IV: Tebaldi, Freni, de los Angeles. The smaller parts are all efficiently performed, with no particular singer standing out.


Defining what makes a great performance of Otello is straightforward. The opera requires an authoritative, exciting conductor, plus three perfectly cast singers. Good sound is a bonus, but not essential. Del Monaco and Domingo are each essential Otellos to hear, but I think of their many performances as a composite and wouldn’t single out any one particular recording. I’m particularly fond of the espressivo quality that Ramon Vinay and Jon Vickers bring to the role, and recommend the Met video with Vickers, MacNeil, and Scotto, conducted by Levine. Toscanini’s recording is thrilling, though not expansive enough in some of the opera’s lyrical music. I enjoy Solti’s first recording, with the under-appreciated Otello of Carlo Cossuta and beautiful singing by Margaret Price. But the greatest recorded Otello that I know—indeed one of the greatest of all preserved operatic performances—is the 1938 Met broadcast, conducted not only with manic energy, but with uncommon flexibility and imagination, by Ettore Panizza. Giovanni Martinelli’s splendid Otello and Elizabeth Rethberg’s Desdemona are the important interpretations of their day, and Lawrence Tibbett’s is the greatest recorded portrayal of Iago.

FANFARE: Paul Orgel

Also available on standard CD

Coinciding with the 200th anniversary of Giuseppe Verdi’s birthday, CSO Resound releases its second recording with Maestro Riccardo Muti featuring Verdi’s second-to-last opera, Otello. Recorded live in concert at Symphony Center in 2011, this album will stand for years to come as a unique benchmark in Verdi performance and interpretation by one of today’s finest conductors. Maestro Muti and the CSO’s first recording together was a lauded album of Verdi’s Messa da Requiem, which won two Grammy Awards.

Also available as a hybrid Super Audio CD

This outstanding new live recording brings together groundbreaking works by Arnold Schoenberg and Dmitri Shostakovich, two of the twentieth century’s most monumental composers. Arnold Schoenberg’s Kol Nidre is set to the Jewish prayer which is said on the eve of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. The work premiered in Los Angeles in 1938, four years after Schoenberg fled Europe, and one month before the anti-Jewish Kristallnacht took place across Nazi-occupied Germany. Philip Huscher described the work as a “stark, strong modernist statement.” Shostakovich’s Suite on Versees of Michelangelo Buona explores themes just as weighty, including love, morality, death, and the resilience of the human spirit, all shown through the poetry of Renaissance great, Michelangelo. The work was originally conceived to honor Michelangelo’s 500th birthday. The Chicago Tribune commented on these performances, “Such was his textual penetration that [Abdrazakov] was able to extract the full emotional weight of the words and music, abetted by Muti’s finely detailed exposition of the spare orchestral fabric.”

This new CSO�Resound album features the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and it's Music Director Riccardo Muti in performance from October, 2013 playing an extended suite drawn from Sergei Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliette ballet score. Produced by David Frost, winner of the 2013 Grammy� Award for Producer of the Year. A musical force in Chicago and around the world, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra is one of the finest international orchestras. It's expansive catalog of more than 900 recordings has earned 62 Grammy� Awards-more than any other orchestra in the world. "Nimble string playing painted the lightness of spirit in 'Juliet as a Young Girl' and Mr. Muti drew out an apt, naive and affectionate warmth for the well-meaning 'Friar Laurence.'"-Chicago Classical Review " [The CSO] played here with a brilliance and panache that brought the dramatic narrative alive."-Chicago Tribune

RAVEL Daphnis and Chloé. POULENC Gloria • Bernard Haitink, cond; Jessica Rivera (sop); Chicago SO & Ch (Duain Wolfe, dir) • CSO RESOUND 901 908 (Hybrid multichannel SACD: 77:18) Live: Chicago 11/8–10/2007. Available at www.cso.org


If the name Bernard Haitink doesn’t automatically spring to mind when one considers orchestral performances of Ravel, that is hardly surprising, given the prominence in the discography of Munch, Martinon, Monteux, Abbado, Boulez, and Karajan, just to name a few. Haitink, however, has recorded two collections of Ravel’s orchestral music: with the Concertgebouw in the 1970s (a selection on PentaTone was reviewed by James Reel in 30:6), and with the BSO in the 1990s (reviewed by me in 22:3). This new disc isn’t such an anomaly, then, though the inclusion of the relatively rare Poulenc work makes it more intriguing.


It is the Gloria that is programmed first, and Haitink and his Chicago forces turn in a brightly idiomatic performance: commanding, austere, light-hearted, and celebratory by turns, as the music requires. Soprano Jessica Rivera has the range and sensitivity required for her solos—she was the impressively sensuous Kumudha in Adams’s A Flowering Tree and Kitty in his Doctor Atomic —and she is well matched by the splendid Chicago Chorus. I had not heard this piece for some time, and I was struck again by its beauty, and by how obviously it was one of the sources for Bernstein’s Mass . There is one other SACD available, conducted by Mariss Jansons on RCO Live, reviewed (none too favorably) by Jerry Dubins in 30:5.


Being designated a “middle-of-the-road” or “centrist” conductor often seems like damning with faint praise, but in the case of Ravel it is most appropriate. Haitink balances the precision and acute ear of his Chicago colleague Pierre Boulez with the kind of sonic opulence of Karajan in this music (something the CSO has in spades anyway). In Daphnis , that kind of equipoise is especially effective, giving the drama a much more effective edge; there are sections of this piece that approach Rite -like rhythmic force, the “Dance of the Warriors” particularly, and here Haitink’s precision is most salutary. Yet, in such episodes as the “Sunrise” of the third part, Haitink takes full advantage of the rich orchestral palette that Ravel made such a distinctive facet of his compositions. As is their wont, the engineering team headed by James Mallinson has provided the musicians with a brilliant and full-bodied sound production in SACD and stereo (CSOR 901 906).


In SACD, Munch’s classic account from Boston (RCA) is the only real competition for the Ravel ballet, and it’s a matter of taste as well as budgetary considerations that will decide the issue for most listeners. My advice is to acquire both, and for those already in possession of the Munch disc, the addition of the Poulenc should provide the sweetener. In either case, you won’t be disappointed.


FANFARE: Christopher Abbot

The sixth was the last of Mahler's symphonies to reach the United States, in December 1947, more than forty-one years after the composer conducted its premiere. Even considering the typical fate of Mahler's symphonies - launched under the composer's baton, misunderstood and often rejected by audiences and conductors during the decades that followed - the neglect of the Sixth Symphony is exceptional.