In Wednesday’s (7/27) Chicago Tribune, John von Rhein writes, “As he approaches his 70th birthday on Thursday, Riccardo Muti is entering a phase of his international career in which consolidation is the keynote. After a half-century in music, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra music director feels the time has come to focus on priorities. Which means the Neapolitan maestro is narrowing his musical family to a handful of orchestras with which he enjoys close working relationships—the CSO, the Vienna and Berlin philharmonics and his Luigi Cherubini youth orchestra in Italy. … Muti is celebrating his birthday in Salzburg, Austria, where he is rehearsing a new production of Verdi’s ‘Macbeth’ that’s set to open at the Salzburg Festival on Aug. 3. … October will bring the U.S. publication of an English translation of his memoirs, ‘Riccardo Muti: An Autobiography,’ subtitled ‘First the Music, Then the Words’ (Rizzoli, 316 pages, $29.95). The book was first published, in Italian, last fall. This is a musical autobiography, not a tell-all autobiography. Its primary aim is to set forth Muti’s approach to musical interpretation, within an absorbing account of his formal training and the development of his career, from early music lessons in Naples and Milan, on to his formal arrival at the helm of the CSO last year.”
Photos by Todd Rosenberg
Posted July 27, 2011
