The CSO and Riccardo Muti bring rarely heard gems to Costa Mesa

Riccardo Muti may have officially passed the baton to Klaus Mäkelä as Music Director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, but it’s impossible — at least for this listener — to think of a post-Muti CSO. Like Bogie and Bacall, Romeo and Juliet or Bert and Ernie, you can’t think of one without the other.

When Muti stepped away from formal leadership in 2023, the CSO granted him the title of Music Director Emeritus for Life, testimony to his exceptional artistic guidance over his 13-year tenure. As such, he continues to conduct, and it is in his emeritus role that he and the CSO arrived Jan. 24 at Costa Mesa’s Renee and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall, the last stop on the California leg of their 2026 West Coast Tour (sponsored by the Zell Family Foundation). In February, another tour will take them through Michigan, New York, Washington, D.C., and Boston.

In 2023, the last time Muti and the CSO visited Costa Mesa was a valedictory appearance just as he was formally stepping down. That stop — sold out like this one — gave listeners benchmark performances from the orchestral repertoire. On the agenda: Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony and the Ravel/Mussorgsky Pictures at an Exhibition, both familiar territory for Muti and the CSO, and given as radiant and moving, as joyous and life-affirming performances as one could desire. Back then, we were still emerging from the pandemic, finding our way back into concert halls, and that concert was a burst of sunshine, an event, as well as what was thought to be a final opportunity to hear one of the nation’s great orchestras under the guidance of its authoritative champion.

Happily, the farewell was more of a “see you soon,” as Muti and the CSO returned to Orange County on Saturday, Jan. 24, presented by the Philharmonic Society of Orange County. Consider it an extended encore.

This time, the majority of the program was pulled from a more distant corner of the canon. We heard Ravel again, this time his other perpetual crowd-pleaser, the sexy, sensual, seductive Boléro. It was matched, though, with pieces that worked together seamlessly, but don’t get as much exposure: Strauss Jr.’s Overture to The Gypsy Baron, Hindemith’s Symphony: Mathis der Maler and Stravinsky’s Divertimento, Suite from The Fairy’s Kiss. Quite a theatrical line-up.

Among the energized concertgoers milling around the lobby pre-performance was Tim Mangan, Orange County’s longest-tenured classical-music critic, with much praise for the evening’s slate.

“It’s a fun program,” he said. “It’s nice and varied. Some 20th-century neoclassical works that I haven’t heard in a long time. Mathis der Maler is a chestnut, but no one plays it anymore. And Boléro! As a trombonist, I can say it’s got the hardest trombone solo in the repertoire.”

Also in the audience were more than 100 members of the Orange County Youth Symphony,  who were hearing the orchestra that night and meeting several of the players the next day for a masterclass and Q&A session.

Los Angeles radio personality Suraj Partha led a preconcert lecture featuring a conversation with two CSO members: violist and composer Max Raimi, and principal tubist Gene Pokorny. Raimi provided a glimpse into his performance approach with a quote from Glenn Gould (“Every note must have a past and a future”), and Pokorny paid a touching tribute to fellow tubist Jim Self, a ubiquitous presence in the Los Angeles orchestral world, who passed away late last year.

Preliminaries complete, concert hall packed to the rafters, Muti entered to a rousing cheer and got straight to business. It’s still close enough to New Year for some light and bubbly Strauss. The Gypsy Baron overture’s lilt and pop were articulated gracefully, as Muti kept the CSO in admirable control as it built to the effervescent climax. A curtain-raiser full of charm and sparkle.

Then, a transition from light to shadow. Hindemith’s Symphony: Mathis der Maler is generally considered a symbol of spiritual resistance, a forceful assertion of conscience over ideology. Banned by the Nazis as “degenerate art,” it’s an unsettling work, astringent and uncompromising. Still, the struggle between artistic integrity and political crisis ends in triumph, and the orchestra gave the audience the resonant benediction in full.

Boléro was paced brilliantly — from the deft and emergent start through the woozy, punch-drunk, thunderous close. While all the multiple soloists executed their duties with aplomb, a hat tip is particularly due to the CSO’s Principal Percussion Cynthia Yeh, a model of discipline, concentration and taste.

As a farewell, the CSO gave us the overture to Verdi’s Nabucco. “We play Verdi because the CSO plays this composer like very, very, very few other orchestras in the world,” said Muti from the podium. “It’s not long. Next time we’re here, we’ll bring Haydn’s Seven Last Words of Christ. That’s about an hour.”

So ... he’s saying there’s a next time? We’ll be here.