Muti on CSO Resound, from 19th-century opera to contemporary works

During his tenure as music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Riccardo Muti has led 12 recordings on CSO Resound, the orchestra’s house label. From his specialty of 19th-century Italian works to contemporary compositions, Muti has tackled an extraordinary range of repertoire since taking up his CSO post in 2010.

His most recent recording, “Contemporary American Composers,” features works by American icon Philip Glass, CSO viola Max Raimi and Jessie Montgomery, CSO Mead Composer-in-Residence. It will be released digitally June 16 on CSO Resound and at retail outlets worldwide this summer. 

Muti’s first commercial recording with the CSO, Giuseppe Verdi’s Messa da Requiem (recorded when he was music director designate in 2009), earned two Grammy Awards for best classical album and best choral performance. All of his CSO Resound recordings listed below are specially priced through May 27 at the Symphony Store (at the hall or online). Please click on the links below to order.

2023: Contemporary American Composers

Chicago has long been a welcoming home to the working composer, with 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 CSO’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’ Symphony No. 11 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 CSO’s legacy of performing contemporary music, “and that courage becomes a tradition.”

Contemporary American Composers

Montgomery Hymn for Everyone
Raimi Three Lisel Mueller Settings
Glass Symphony No. 11

Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Riccardo Muti conductor
Elizabeth DeShong mezzo-soprano

Producer, editing and mixing: David Frost
Recording engineer: Charlie Post
Mastering and Dolby Atmos mixing: Silas Brown, Legacy Sound

Recorded: March 2018 (Raimi), February 2022 (Glass) and April 2022 (Montgomery) live at Orchestra Hall, Chicago
Released: June 16, 2023

2022: Mascagni, Cavalleria rusticana

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 concert performance from February 2020 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.

“Muti’s forces provided all the passion imaginable, yet never descended into sensation or vulgarity. One basked in the idiomatic italianata of it all. This was the most beautiful orchestral performance in memory of Mascagni’s seminal score.” — Opera News

Mascagni Cavalleria rusticana
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Riccardo Muti conductor
Anita Rachvelishvili mezzo-soprano
Piero Pretti tenor
Luca Salsi baritone
Ronnita Miller mezzo-soprano
Sasha Cooke mezzo-soprano
Alessandra Visconti actor
Chicago Symphony Chorus
Duain Wolfe chorus director

Recorded: Orchestra Hall, February 2020
Release date: September 2022

2020: Shostakovich, Symphony No. 13 (Babi Yar)

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.

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.”

“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

Shostakovich Symphony No. 13 in B-flat Minor, Op. 113 (Babi Yar)

Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Riccardo Muti conductor
Alexey Tikhomirov bass
Men of the Chicago Symphony Chorus
Duain Wolfe director

Recorded: September 2018, Orchestra Hall, Chicago
Released: Jan. 17, 2020
Digital downloads: Two audio resolutions are available for this album: standard, MP3 files with a 256-kbps bit rate, and hi-res, 24-bit, 96kHz WAV files. Both selections include complete liner notes and album artwork.

2018: Riccardo Muti Conducts Italian Masterworks

Overtures, choruses and intermezzos drawn from masterworks by Verdi, Puccini, Mascagni and Boito, brilliantly performed by Riccardo Muti and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus. Muti has presented these works many times over his career, including countless performances during his tenure as music director of the Teatro alla Scala in Milan. The performances heard on this album were programmed as Muti’s final concerts of the 2016-17 season. This album presents a virtuosic showcase of 19th-century Italian music in all its passion, joy and heartbreak.

“No living conductor knows more about these scores and their historical context, has a closer regard for textual fidelity or a more practiced understanding of how to bring them to dramatic life on stage than Muti.” — Chicago Tribune

Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Riccardo Muti conductor

Verdi Nabucco, Overture

Verdi Nabucco, “Gli arredi festivi”
Chicago Symphony Chorus
Duain Wolfe director

Verdi Macbeth, “Patria oppressa!”
Chicago Symphony Chorus
Duain Wolfe director

Verdi I vespri siciliani, Overture
Puccini Manon Lescaut, Intermezzo
Mascagni Cavalleria rusticana, Intermezzo

Boito Mefistofele, Prologue
Riccardo Zanellato bass
Chicago Symphony Chorus
Duain Wolfe director
Chicago Children’s Choir
Josephine Lee president and artistic director

Recorded: June 2017, Orchestra Hall, Chicago
Released: Dec. 7, 2018

2017: Bruckner, Symphony No. 9

Riccardo Muti leads the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in a compelling performance of Bruckner’s formidable Ninth Symphony. Left unfinished at the time of the composer’s death in 1896, the immense work unfolds with stirring climaxes, daring chromaticism and harmonic richness. It is perfectly executed by the CSO, long admired for its Bruckner interpretations. The CSO also holds the distinction of presenting the American premiere of this symphony in 1904. Muti brings remarkable lyricism to this dramatic work in a performance embodying the exceptional synergy between the distinguished maestro and the CSO.

“[Muti] distills an impressive degree of power, grandeur and lyrical expansion from the score, along with a thoughtful regard for beauty of texture and resilience of contour. The orchestra plays magnificently for its chief, bringing out the mystery of the first and last movements.” — Chicago Tribune

Bruckner Symphony No. 9 in D Minor (Unfinished)
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Riccardo Muti conductor

Recorded: June 2016
Released: June 16, 2017

2016: Schoenberg, Kol Nidre and Shostakovich, Suite on Verses of Michelangelo Buonarotti

This release features works by two modern masters: Schoenberg’s Kol Nidre and Shostakovich’s Suite on Verses of Michelangelo Buonarroti. The seventh CSO Resound recording with Music Director Riccardo Muti, it captures live performances in Orchestra Hall from March and June 2012.

Kol Nidre showcases Muti conducting the CSO and the Chicago Symphony Chorus, with Alberto Mizrahi, renowned interpreter of Jewish music, as the narrator. Internationally acclaimed Russian bass Ildar Abdrazakov is the soloist in Suite on Verses of Michelangelo Buonarroti.

Arnold Schoenberg composed his Kol Nidre in 1938 at the request of Rabbi Jacob Sonderling of the Los Angeles-based Fairfax Temple. The Kol Nidre is a statement of faith associated with the eve of Yom Kippur — the Day of Atonement, the most solemn of Jewish holidays. Receiving its world premiere only a month after the Kristallnacht in Nazi Germany, Kol Nidre is a liturgical work in which a rabbi engages in reverent dialogue with a chorus.

Composed in 1974 for bass and piano, Dmitri Shostakovich’s Suite on Verses of Michelangelo Buonarroti was later scored for full orchestra. Shostakovich regarded the suite in its final version as his last symphony. He died on Aug. 9, 1975, before the orchestral version could receive its premiere. Written in part to mark the fifth centenary of Michelangelo’s birth, the suite features settings of 11 poems by the Italian artist and writer on topics ranging from love and creativity to death and exile. Shostakovich’s spare settings of these verses underscore the gravity of the suite’s heavier themes; those themes had personal relevance to the dying composer, who had lived nearly his entire life under Soviet rule.

“In these live performances by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under Riccardo Muti the cumulative power is inexorable.” — Financial Times

Schoenberg Kol Nidre
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Riccardo Muti conductor
Alberto Mizrahi narrator
Chicago Symphony Chorus
Duain Wolfe director

Shostakovich Suite on Verses of Michelangelo Buonarotti
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Riccardo Muti conductor
Ildar Abdrazakov bass

Recorded: June 2012, Orchestra Hall, Chicago
Released: Oct. 14, 2016

2016: Bates, Anthology of Fantastic Zoology

Mason Bates composed Anthology of Fantastic Zoology to close his tenure as Mead Composer-in-Residence with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Based on a story by Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges, the 11-movement, 35-minute work evokes a series of creatures “familiar and unknown,” according to the composer, which he calls "a kind of psychedelic Carnival of the Animals." Listeners are sure to respond to Bates’ composition, written with the dramatic abilities of conductor Riccardo Muti and the virtosity of the CSO in mind.

“While individual movement titles reference nymphs, sirens, a sprite and a gryphon, this fantastical menagerie becomes a pretext for a grand, playful, surprising, exuberantly colorful concerto for orchestra, one that pays homage to both the full ensemble and to individual members of that ensemble ... how brilliantly engineered and integrated are the score’s sly sonic quirks and how beautifully the music plays to the strengths of the musicians. This is great, audience-pleasing fun going down.” — Chicago Tribune

Bates Anthology of Fantastic Zoology
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Riccardo Muti conductor

Recorded: June 2015
Released: June 10, 2016

2015: Berlioz, Symphonie fantastique and Lélio

Recorded in 2010 during Riccardo Muti’s first subscription concerts as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s 10th music director, this double CD pairs Hector Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique with its sequel, Lélio ou Le retour à la vie (Lelio, or The Return to Life). Berlioz intended Symphonie fantastique to be followed by Lelio in concert, as the artist, subject of the original work, returns to life to comment anew on music and art.

Maestro Muti and the CSO are joined in Lélio by acclaimed actor Gerard Depardieu as narrator, tenor Mario Zeffri, bass-baritone Kyle Ketelsen and the Chicago Symphony Chorus.

“The vivid, evocative and beautifully detailed performance [Muti] 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

“To hear this pairing of works as Berlioz intended was fascinating.” — The New York Times

Berlioz Symphonie fantastique, Op. 14
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Riccardo Muti conductor

Berlioz Lélio ou Le retour à la vie (Lelio, or The Return to Life)
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Riccardo Muti conductor
Gerard Depardieu narrator
Mario Zeffri tenor
Kyle Ketelsen bass-baritone
Chicago Symphony Chorus
Duain Wolfe director

Recorded: September 2010
Released: Sept. 18, 2015

2014: Prokofiev, Suite from Romeo and Juliet

Recorded in 2013, Riccardo Muti’s performances of selections from Sergei Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet drew critical acclaim. On this recording, Muti conducts selections from both of Prokofiev’s suites derives from his ballet — beginning with Montagues and Capulets and taking the listener on a journey through Shakespeare’s story as told by Sergei Prokofiev.

Prokofiev Romeo and Juliet, Op. 64, excerpts
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Riccardo Muti conductor

Track listing:

Montagues and Capulets
Juliet the Young Girl
Madrigal
Minuet
Masks
Romeo and Juliet
Death of Tybalt
Friar Laurence
Romeo and Juliet before Parting
Romeo at Juliet’s Tomb

Recorded: October 2013, Orchestra Hall, Chicago
Released: Sept. 29, 2014

2014: Riccardo Muti Conducts Mason Bates and Anna Clyne

Recorded live at their 2012 premieres, Mason Bates’ Alternative Energy and Anna Clyne’s Night Ferry are united on this one-of-a-kind release from CSO Resound. Both works were commissioned by the CSO and premiered under Riccardo Muti.

Anna Clyne writes of her work that it is a “sonic portrait of voyages; voyages within nature and of physical, mental and emotional states.” It is inspired by Schubert, and makes reference to the mood swings heard in his works as they shift rapidly between emotional extremes.

Bates calls Alternative Energy an “energy symphony,” which takes a voyage of its own. “Beginning in a rustic Midwestern junkyard in the late 19th century,” he writes, “the piece travels through ever greater and more powerful forces of energy — the present-day particle collider, a futuristic Chinese nuclear plant — until it reaches a future Icelandic rain forest, where humanity’s last inhabitants seek a return to a simpler way of life.”

“It’s the kind of score that brings out the musical dramatist in Muti: He and the CSO members ... threw themselves into the music with considerable mega-wattage of their own.” — Chicago Tribune

Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Riccardo Muti conductor

Clyne Night Ferry
Bates Alternative Energy
Mason Bates electronics

Recorded: February 2012, Orchestra Hall, Chicago
Released: May 2014

2013: Verdi, Otello

Coinciding with the 200th anniversary of Giuseppe Verdi’s birthday, Otello marks the second recording with Riccardo Muti. The two-disc recording of Verdi’s second-to-last opera joins remarkable fidelity to the instrumental and choral score with a spellbinding collection of vocal soloists. It will be treasured by opera lovers and anyone who enjoys thrilling music. Recorded live in concert at Symphony Center in 2011, it will stand for years to come as a unique benchmark in Verdi performance and interpretation by one of today’s finest conductors.

“Muti’s has all elements held in balance. This orchestra is certainly capable of the pile-driver brass. In Muti’s hands, Otello remains and opera, not a concerto for orchestra. Muti’s treatment of the Act 3 prelude has such a sureness of dramatic purpose, it’s genius at a Toscaninian level. The orchestra plays like a participatory character in the drama.” — Gramophone

Verdi Otello
Aleksandrs Antonenko tenor (Otello)
Krassimira Stoyanova soprano (Desdemona)
Carlo Guelfi baritone (Iago)
Barbara di Castri mezzo-soprano (Emilia)
Juan Francisco Gatell tenor (Cassio)
Michael Spyres tenor (Roderigo)
Paolo Battaglia bass (Montano)
Eric Owens bass (Lodovico)
David Govertsen bass (A Herald)
Chicago Symphony Chorus
Duain Wolfe director
Chicago Children’s Choir
Josephine Lee president and artistic director

Recorded: 2011
Released: Sept. 30, 2013

2010: Verdi, Messa da Requiem

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, under music director Riccardo Muti, perform Verdi’s Requiem Mass with four outstanding soloists. Winner of two Grammy Awards — best classical album and best choral performance — the performance brilliantly captures both the pathos and passion of Verdi’s masterpiece. 

“[Muti] certainly runs the full gamut of emotions, as does his blazing and immaculately trained chorus, which sounds as if it understands the full import and context of every word of the Latin text, projecting the widest dynamic range and nuance. All-purpose fervor and sanctimonious rhetoric are mercifully off-limits.” — International Record Review

Verdi Requiem

Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Riccardo Muti conductor
Barbara Frittoli soprano
Olga Borodino mezzo-soprano
Mario Zeffiri tenor
Ildar Abdrazakov bass
Chicago Symphony Chorus
Duain Wolfe chorus director

Recorded: January 2009, Orchestra Hall, Chicago
Released: Oct. 18, 2010