A joyful reunion to open the new season

As the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association unveils season highlights for the 2021/22 season, a question on the minds of many listeners might be, “What will Maestro Riccardo Muti conduct for this long-awaited reunion with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and why?”

The CSO’s 10th music director, who is revered for his revelatory interpretations at the podium based on his meticulous study of and genuine passion for score analysis, will conduct three weeks of opening concerts that include beloved works by Beethoven, Brahms and Tchaikovsky as well as those that will be receiving their first CSO performances. “I am delighted to rejoin my Chicago Symphony Orchestra family once again to share the sound of this great Orchestra with audiences in Chicago,” said Muti.

Muti’s three season-opening programs with the Orchestra represent their first performances together in Orchestra Hall at Symphony Center since February 2020. “The long absence has been painful, but that period is coming to a close at last," he said. "Now we can look forward to making music together again.”

The 2021/22 season marks Riccardo Muti’s 12th season as music director. When he first conducted the CSO in 1973 as a young conductor, little did anyone know what a rewarding artistic partnership the two would have. More than 30 years later in his distinguished career, Muti returned to conduct the CSO in September 2007 for a month-long residency that included subscription concerts in Chicago and a triumphant seven-city, nine-concert European tour. The evident synergy was what would lead to his appointment.

By his first official concerts as music director in April 2011, the Muti-CSO chemistry was already making headlines as a musical union not to be missed. That powerful bond is one that both Muti and CSO musicians cite as the source of the signature sound and moving performances audiences have come to expect from them. “The way they responded to my musical ideas and the sense of family that we immediately created together pushed me to accept this very prestigious commitment,” said Muti in a 2018 interview.

Over the past 11 seasons that relationship has only deepened — even under the extraordinary circumstances of the global pandemic during which Muti maintained connections with members of the Orchestra virtually and supervised programming from afar. Happy to be reuniting with his orchestra in person, Muti returns to Chicago to perform works that showcase the strengths of their artistic collaboration.

Throughout his CSO tenure, Muti has brought special attention to the work of several composers, including Verdi, Bruckner, Schubert and Prokofiev to name but a few. These deep dives into the works of particular composers have offered listeners a broader understanding and appreciation of each composer’s signature compositions, as well as introductions to lesser-known works — all with the benefit of Muti’s exceptional interpretations.

This fall, as a nod to some of these past musical explorations, Muti conducts the CSO in Beethoven’s Third and Seventh symphonies (the former was most recently performed during the Beethoven celebration during the 2019/20 season and the latter was performed on the Florida Tour in February 2020), as well as Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6 (Pathétique), a work Muti performed with the Orchestra during the aforementioned 2007 Chicago concerts and subsequent tour, along with the 2014/15 season’s retrospective of the symphonies of Tchaikovsky and music by Scriabin.

Beethoven’s Third, with its heroic themes, and the exuberant Seventh are fitting choices for a triumphant return to Orchestra Hall. Tchaikovsky’s strikingly somber and inward-looking Pathétique, on the other end of the spectrum, is an incredibly moving choice that will allow the musicians and listeners to share a heartfelt reflection on the past year and a half. Muti and the Orchestra will also be joined by one of its favorite guest artists, violinist Leonidas Kavakos, who will perform Brahms’ Violin Concerto, a symbol of friendship written for Brahms’ great friend, the violinist Joseph Joachim, in the Orchestra’s second week of concerts.

Introducing new music to CSO audiences has been an important part of Riccardo Muti’s artistic legacy as music director. With the CSO, he has conducted 13 world premieres to date by CSO Mead Composers-in-Residence and other contemporary composers. Having studied composition himself for 10 years, Muti has the utmost respect for composers: “I approach music of the Classical period – Baroque, modern, Romantic, contemporary – always in the same way, with the same seriousness.” His opening concerts this season will be no exception.

It was in October 2009 when Muti, then music director-designate, outlined several initiatives for his tenure. One of them was to appoint CSO Mead Composers-in-Residence who would act as advocates within the Chicago community to further the understand and appreciation of all music. Muti has since appointed six composers to the role, most recently Jessie Montgomery. The third concert of the 2021/22 season will include a performance of These Words in Us by Missy Mazzoli, whom he appointed Mead Composer-in-Residence in 2018. This work, a meditation on James Tate’s poem “The Lost Pilot,” explores the juxtaposition of grief and joy.

Muti also has chosen to introduce some rarely heard works to Chicago audiences and champion some underrepresented voices in classical music in his first concert of the season. The opening program of the 2021/22 season includes the CSO’s first performance of the Overture to the 18th-century comic opera L’Amant anonyme (The anonymous lover) by Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, a Black composer, conductor and violinist from Guadeloupe, who lived in Paris and wrote a range of works during the Classical period, as well as several operas, including L’Amant anonyme, his only surviving opera score. The program continues with the CSO’s first performance of the Andante moderato written by the Black American composer Florence Price, whose Symphony No. 1 received its world premiere performance by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1933. Price revisited a movement from her String Quartet in G Major to create this lyrical work for string orchestra.

Muti has been a lifelong and passionate champion of music’s ability to transcend cultural divides, enact social change and transform lives. These opening programs set the tone for a season designed to be a joyful reunion, a celebration of beautiful sound and resounding of all voices. In Muti’s words, “The spiritual food of culture will bring us together as it has for so many years, but this time with a special poignancy after being so long apart.”

Explore the Fall 2021 Season