Concert Review: A Coal of Fire Upon the Ice

Riccardo Muti and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

An action shot of Riccardo Muti (center, back to camera) leading the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
Image © 2015 Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

It is the privilege of a great conductor to bring little-known music to another city and present it to a curious, yet largely trusting audience. Such privilege was exercised Sunday at Carnegie Hall, when Riccardo Muti led the third and last of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's concerts on that hallowed stage this season. The program, which featured not just the Orchestra but the equally impressive Chicago Symphony Chorus, paired two Russian composers who could not be more different: Alexander Scriabin and Serge Prokofiev.

Concert Review: This Wheel's on Fire

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra opens Carnegie Hall with Carmina Burana.

Your host for Wheel of Fortune: Chicago Symphony Orchestra music director Riccardo Muti.

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra opened both the 2012-2013 Carnegie Hall season and and a three-night stand at the famous New York concert venue on Wednesday, Oct. 3. The choice of repertory: Carl Orff's epic 20th century choral work Carmina Burana, under the baton of music director Riccardo Muti.

Orff's blend of choral drinking songs, pseudo-medieval dances and operatic arias has remained popular since the work's 1938 premiere. However, due to the pop-culture omnipresence of the chorus O Fortuna that opens and closes this hour-long piece, Carmina Burana (the title means "Songs of Bavaria") has something of a mixed reputation. The piece continues to draw scorn from critics and cognoscenti for its catchy melodies, simple structures and a conspicuous lack of thematic development in each of its twenty-five sections.

Those perceived weaknesses became strengths under Mr. Muti's direction. The fiery Italian seemed almost sedate during the opening O Fortuna, barely lifting his arms to direct the choristers as the musicans pounded out the familiar ostinato rhythm. But as the cycle continued, Mr. Muti used his experience in opera and symphonic repertory to carve these granite-like blocks of sound into sharp reliefs showing the details of Orff's medieval world.