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On a visit to New York City's Carnegie Hall last week, Muti offered a program that exemplified the merits of such an approach. Three obscure vignettes written around the turn of the century by Italian Composer Giuseppe Martucci, chips off the old Puccinian block, got glowing, almost impressionistic ; readings. By contrast, Richard Wernick's new Violin Concerto had a hard, steely edge. Although the work proved to be much strenuous ado about nothing, it was energetically performed by the Philadelphians and Soloist Gregory Fulkerson. Finally, Dvorak's undeservedly neglected Fifth Symphony received a taut performance that, among other virtues, was notable for the breathtaking precision of the strings. Two days later in Philadelphia, Muti took an Apollonian view of Berlioz's sprawling "dramatic symphony," Romeo et Juliette, featuring Soprano Jessye Norman and Bass-Baritone Simon Estes. For all its splendor, however, the performance could have used more intensity and less Gallic detachment.
Indeed, Muti can be emotionally chilly, even icy in his interpretations. A believer in the primacy of the printed musical score, Muti brooks no interpolations in his concert versions of Verdi operas, like last October's Rigoletto, which adhered rigorously to a new scholarly edition of the opera, or his 1983 Macbeth. This unsmiling view of what were once popular entertainments, steeped in a popular idiom, is at odds with the spirit of the composer he professes to serve. And in recasting the sound of the orchestra in line with today's international ideal -- brighter, crisper, sharper -- he has rendered it almost interchangeable with other crack ensembles, such as the Chicago Symphony and the London Symphony.
"I didn't take the orchestra with the idea that I didn't like the playing and would change everything," explains Muti. "Maybe the people who think that the orchestra has lost its soul are those who wanted it to remain the same way forever. This has been a great orchestra from the time of Stokowski. But Stokowski's personality was much different from Ormandy's, and it is natural that with the change of the conductor, the orchestra, having another experience, will also change. When I took the orchestra, my purpose was not to destroy the past but to continue the chain."
Ormandy, it is true, held on too long, and the Philadelphia musicians have embraced Muti so warmly in part because he is not Ormandy. But an edifice that took more than four decades to erect should not lightly be dismantled. For all the talk of versatility, it ought to be remembered that the two best orchestras in the world, the Berlin Philharmonic and the Vienna Philharmonic, have an instantly identifiable signature that distinguishes every note they play. Should Muti ultimately find a way to merge Ormandy's legacy of a personalized voice with his own formidable strengths, then the chain will truly be continued.