The CSO and Muti lauded for ‘formidable discipline’ at historic Carnegie Hall

From Florida, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra flew to New York City, the next stop on its U.S. Winter Tour 2025 with Riccardo Muti, Music Director Emeritus for Life. 

After arriving on Jan. 20, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a federal holiday, and spending some time sightseeing around snowy Manhattan, CSO musicians convened for a rehearsal the next day at historic Carnegie Hall, arguably the nation’s most revered concert venue.

Since hall’s founding in 1891, the CSO has performed almost 150 concerts at the storied venue, known for its stellar acoustics. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1964.

The program — a blend of repertoire performed across the tour so far — combined the stately power of the overture to Bellini’s opera Norma with the orchestral fireworks of The Four Seasons ballet from Verdi’s opera I vespri siciliani (The Sicilian Vespers) and Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony. After a standing ovation, Muti and the CSO performed Giuseppe Martucci’s "Notturno,” as an encore, delighting the sold-out crowd.

The New York Times gave the CSO and Muti a rave review: "The Tchaikovsky showcased the formidable discipline of the Chicago sound under Muti, with the orchestra’s famous brass section gleaming in the fearsome fanfares that function as the fate motif anchoring the symphony. ... It was easy to project a sense of retrospective melancholy onto this concert [as] Muti, 83, is leaving the orchestra in the hands of his wunderkind successor Klaus Mäkelä. As an encore, Muti offered a tender rendition of “Notturno,” a rueful, openhearted reverie shimmering with echoes of Mahler."

Next, the CSO and Muti travel to Stillwater, Oklahoma, wrapping up their tour with a two-day residency at the McKnight Center for the Performing Arts.