In London, Riccardo Muti leads ‘a major musical event,’ Verdi’s Requiem

In March, Riccardo Muti, the CSO’s Music Director Emertius for Life, returned to London’s Philharmonia, where he was principal conductor from 1972 to 1982, for a sold-out performance of Verdi’s Requiem at the Royal Festival Hall. 

The March 27 occasion marked Muti’s first British concert in 15 years: “Tickets for this concert were like gold dust, the hall was packed to the gunwales; there were people standing (with paid tickets) at the rear of the stalls,” wrote John Rhodes of Seen and Heart International. "This was not simply another concert — it was a major musical event.

"Music-lovers had traveled from far and wide to witness the occasion. Muti has been performing and recording this work for decades, knows every note, and has developed his own quite distinct and powerful interpretation, even if not adhering strictly to the composer’s markings. Some passages are slower than you would expect, others faster such as the start of the Sanctus, which almost caught the chorus off-guard."

Before the occasion, Muti sat for an interview with Neil Fisher of the Times of London, at the maestro’s home in Ravenna, Italy. Fisher started with the observation that "the inescapable phrase that clings to Riccardo Muti is ’last of the big beasts.’ The Italian conductor says himself that he ’belongs to another world.’ It is the world of the maestro, a man — and they were invariably men — who inspired devotion, admiration and sometimes terror. Egos usually matched salaries. At 83, Muti may indeed be the last one standing."

Muti’s 15-year British hiatus marked a period that encompassed his tenure at the Rome Opera (2010-2014) and his time as music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (2010-2023), where he will return to conduct the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus in four performances June-19-24 of Verdi’s Requiem. To Muti, the big beasts of that era were themselves intimidating, as he told Fisher: “I was very young and in London at that moment there was [Pierre] Boulez at the BBC [Symphony Orchestra], [Sir Georg] Solti at the London Philharmonic, Rudolf Kempe at the Royal Philharmonic, André Previn at the LSO.” 

With rehearsals at this point still ahead of him, Muti said, “I still have in my ear the sound of the Philharmonia, their way of phrasing — the way it became after more than 10 years with me. So when I do the first downbeat [at rehearsal], I will hear if there is still something of the past or something has changed. And certainly I hope something has changed because you cannot remain the same!”
 
Before the interview ended, Muti shared one of his pet peeves about performances of the Requiem. Muti criticized how most choruses sing the first choral words of the Requiem. He conceded that "it’s written pianissimo,” he said and then delivered the line in an exaggerated whisper  (the opposite of what he expects). “Maybe the chorus doesn’t know Latin, or maybe they don’t study enough — the phrase is ‘Requiem aeternam dona’: ‘Give them eternal peace.’ ”
 
In other words, it’s a plea of desperation, a cry from the edge of the abyss. “How do you say in English … when your [rear] is to the fire, you don’t say ‘give me peace’ like that. It’s not about relaxing!”