Visions of heaven in Salzburg with Muti

Riccardo Muti’s annual concerts at the Salzburg Festival with the Vienna Philharmonic are some of the most anticipated of the season, and this year’s three performances, August 14-16, were no exception. The program examined the theme of mortality and offered a glimpse of eternity. It opened with Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony followed by Franz Liszt’s From the Cradle to the Grave tone poem and, finally, Arrigo Boito’s Prologue in Heaven from Mefistofele, featuring bass Ildar Abdrazakov, the Concert Association of the Vienna State Opera Chorus and the Salzburg Festival and Theater Children’s Chorus. As the headlines in the Salzburger Nachtrichten read, “Everything aspires to heaven”; the article continued, declaring Muti’s annual concerts “a bedrock of the Salzburg summer and indispensable, too.”

Muti has been a fixture at the Salzburg Festival, where he has appeared annually since his initial invitation to conduct the Vienna Philharmonic there in 1971 by Herbert von Karajan. After Karajan’s death in 1989, Muti succeeded the German maestro in leading the festival’s popular mid-August concerts, known as the “Ferragosto” appointment, in honor of the Feast of the Assumption. This residency typically includes performances of great Romantic choral and orchestral works. Austria’s Kurrier refers to Muti’s annual concerts with the Vienna Philharmonic as “the essence of the Salzburg Festival. This is where something truly special takes place, in the form of the highest quality music, meticulously thought through from the first to the last note.”

Once again, this year’s program delighted its discerning audience. “Have you ever heard a program beginning with Tchaikovsky 6, rather than ending with it?” asked Jay Nordlinger of New Criterion; he replied to his own question “I had not. An innovation.” “A program order that every other conductor would fear as risky, Muti [took on],” remarked Wilhelm Sinkovicz of Die Presse, who was impressed with the success of a program that began with an anchor piece like Tchaikovsky’s Sixth and ended with a rare prologue, with a sparse tone poem in between.

Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony, the Pathétique, is the composer’s emotionally fraught and somber final symphony that premiered nine days before his sudden death in 1893. Kronen Zeitung noted the distinctly “Viennese” take on the first two movements — “a solemn funeral procession that shines with elegant restraint.” Kurrier exclaimed, “Muti triggered a veritable quake in Tchaikovsky’s soul” where “again and again, these longing motifs were woven together like fine golden threads.” Salzburger Nachrichten remarked that the “mutual trust is palpable” between the Vienna Philharmonic and Muti evident in their performance; “Muti took Tchaikovsky’s farewell symphony seriously, [bringing] pathos and drama as only he can. The wealth of melodies, the fabulous art of instrumentation — [it was] a pleasure to listen to that precision.” Der Standard stated, “Every detail of this stupendously enlightening reading deserves mention.”

The concert continued with Liszt’s last symphonic tone poem and final orchestral composition. As scholar-in-residence and program annotator Phillip Huscher described it in his program note for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s September 2015 performance of the work with Muti, “[Liszt] took the idea for his new symphonic poem from a mediocre drawing by Count Michael Zichny, which depicts the grave as the cradle of a future life. Liszt’s three short movements move from infancy and innocence through the toil and suffering of life on toward death — with which the cycle seems to begin again.” The tone poem opens and closes with lullaby music, a rocking cradle theme. Alluding to the themes of death and rebirth, Kurrier claimed, “Muti came to life with the brilliantly playing Philharmonic” in this performance. “Wonderful — Riccardo Muti with all his wisdom transformed the Philharmonic’s potential into tonal speech,” read the Salzburger Nachrichten.

Concluding the concerts was the epic Prologue to Mefistofele by Boito, the composer perhaps better known as the librettist for Verdi’s Otello and Falstaff. Muti concluded the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s 2016/17 season with this same work, later released on the CSO Resound label on the Italian Masterworks recording. “With Boito’s overwhelming setting of Faust, Muti took us to musical heaven,” exclaimed Kurrier. Kronen Zeitung added, “[Muti] saved his great pathos for the finale of the concert . . . and this choice ensured that [it] was remembered as an outstanding choral concert.” In this dramatic scene that opens the opera, a heavenly chorus is followed by Mephistopheles’ brazen challenge to God himself to win the soul of Faust.  “Although represented by a considerable number, . . .  the singers successfully gave the impression of a gentle, heavenly choir of angels, then Muti finally let muscles flex again. The audience absorbed this energy and gave resounding final applause to everyone involved.”  “The Philharmonic unleashes all of its tonal sensuality under [Muti’s] direction,” noted Die Presse

In addition to their annual collaboration at the Salzburg Festival, Muti and the Vienna Philharmonic enjoy a special conductor orchestra relationship that is over fifty years strong. Highlights of their partnership include the invitation to lead the Vienna Philharmonic’s 150th-anniversary concert, when the orchestra presented Muti with the Golden Ring, a special sign of esteem and affection, awarded only to a few select conductors. In 2021, he conducted the Vienna Philharmonic in the New Year’s Concert for the sixth time. Regarded as the largest annual worldwide event in classical music, the concert reaches millions via radio, television and online outlets in more than 90 countries. Their 2018 recording of the concert went double platinum, and the 2021 concert received the prestigious audience award, the Romy Prize in the TV Moment of the Year category. Additional Austrian honors include the Silver Medal from the Salzburg Mozarteum and honorary membership of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, Vienna State Opera, and Vienna Hofmusikkapelle. In August 2021, he received the Great Golden Decoration of Honor for Services to the Republic of Austria, the highest possible civilian honor from the Austrian government.