CSO gala sans Muti: orchestra, Anne-Sophie Mutter go on when music director falls ill

Here is my Monday October 4 Chicago Sun-Times and suntimes.com review of the Saturday evening October 2, 2010 Chicago Symphony Orchestra gala concert.  Riccardo Muti subsequently withdrew from his remaining October CSO engagements as well due to illness.  See my news story below.

Anne-Sophie Mutter steps in to lead as well as play the Beethoven Violin Concerto.  Todd Rosenberg Photography.

Treasures to be found at CSO's Muti-free shop

REVIEW | Even with conductor out sick for gala, orchestra excels

BY ANDREW PATNER

What could have been an evening of embarrassment and misfortune turned into a display of artistic and civic community and solidarity Saturday night when Chicago Symphony Orchestra music director Riccardo Muti fell ill before the CSO's gala "Symphony Ball" and could not go on.

While a sold-out black-tie audience of about 2,500 -- who made the evening a $2 million fundraising success -- waited in its seats for half an hour, unsure what was causing the delay, CSO management and board leaders huddled with Muti and the players backstage to establish an alternative plan.

CSO board chairman William A. Osborn and president Deborah F. Rutter then explained that the concert would go on, sans conductor.  Guest soloist Anne-Sophie Mutter, making her first CSO Orchestra Hall appearance in 21 years, would lead the scheduled Beethoven Violin Concerto herself, no small undertaking.  And Mozart's C Major Symphony No. 34, K. 338, would be carried over from this week's subscription concerts with concertmaster Robert Chen leading the orchestra from his chair at the head of the first violin section.  Out were two Muti specialties, Rossini's William Tell Overture and Liszt's tone-poem Les préludes.

While no one could discount the initial air of disappointment in the Hall, particularly after the intense publicity focus on the launch of Muti's tenure as the CSO's 10th music director, the resilience of the orchestra itself soon made up for the temporary setback and offered attractions of its own.

With an empty chair on the podium, the Mozart reverted more to the genial and more breezy style that recent CSO principal conductor Bernard Haitink brought to the composer than the tighter control Muti exerts.  Haitink has frequently called Chen the finest concertmaster today, and his combination of buoyancy and authority with his colleagues did not contradict this endorsement.

Mutter's leadership of the Beethoven, a work that belongs squarely to the conductor-required era, was more problematic and certainly one of the longest performances of this much-loved work, with the slow movement in particular taking on the quality of a requiem.  But Mutter was a hero for even agreeing to go forward, and her always remarkable tone and fierce technique gave her fans and the rest of the audience much to cheer. 

The somewhat spontaneous encore that followed, with her and Chen leading the slow movement of the Bach Double Violin Concerto, allowed the accomplishment of the evening to sink in: A great orchestra came together to make music as a body regardless of circumstances.  This was indeed something to celebrate and an example of what made Muti take the Chicago position in the first place.