My Monday October 4, 2010 Chicago Sun-Times and Sunday October 3 suntimes.com story. See my review of Saturday's CSO gala concert above here.
Riccardo Muti and the CSO/Todd Rosenberg Photography
Muti cancels remaining fall season due to illness
Boulez, Fisch, and Bicket step up
BY ANDREW PATNER
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s new music director Riccardo Muti has had to withdraw from his remaining two weeks of fall concerts due to illness, the CSO announced Sunday evening.
The news comes in the midst of a whirl of concert successes at the start of the Italian conductor’s inaugural season as music director. Muti, 69, and normally in excellent health, fell ill Saturday afternoon shortly before he was to lead the CSO in a gala “Symphony Ball” concert. (Reviewed here.)
During an afternoon rehearsal he told the musicians that he was not feeling well and several of them said he appeared very pale. After much discussion behind the scenes, Muti and CSO management decided 20 minutes after the sold-out black-tie Orchestra Hall concert was to have begun Saturday evening that Muti would not go on and that the concert program would be revised to be played without a conductor.
In a statement Sunday, the CSO said that Muti is “suffering from extreme gastric distress.” A CSO spokeswoman said that Muti wanted to meet with his own doctors in Milan to assess his condition and possible treatment.
“I cannot express the depth of my regret that I am unable to complete this first residency as music director,” the CSO statement quoted Muti. “I have had the privilege of making marvelous music together with this great Orchestra, and I am confident that we will continue to do so when I return again.”
CSO Association President Deborah F. Rutter added, “While we are all very sorry, the most important thing is that Maestro Muti makes a complete recovery,” according to the statement. “This decision was a very difficult one for him to make.”
On extremely short notice, the CSO has engaged an impressive line-up of substitute conductors for its ailing leader, highlighted by the orchestra’s distinguished conductor emeritus Pierre Boulez, 85, leading four performances of the Mahler Seventh Symphony October 14 to 17. The Mahler replaces a program featuring Muti signature works by Cherubini and Hindemith as well as a commissioned world première by Chicago-based composer Bernard Rands.
Repertoire for the other scheduled concerts remains unchanged with top-flight British early music conductor Harry Bicket leading the last Mozart and Haydn program of the current subscription week on Tuesday night (October 5) and versatile Israeli Asher Fisch taking over the next set of three subscription concerts of works by Beethoven, Wagner, and Carlos Chávez October 7 to 9. Both Bicket and Fisch are engaged for major productions at Lyric Opera of Chicago this season as well.
An open rehearsal in the Pilsen neighborhood with the CSO’s Civic Orchestra of Chicago scheduled for Saturday October 9 will be rescheduled as will the Cherubini, Hindemith, and Rands works. Muti's next CSO residencies are slated for February, April, and May 2011.
In the statement, bassist Steve Lester, chair of the CSO players’ union, added, ”The health of our music director is our first concern and we wish him a full and speedy recovery. The first concerts with our new music director have been extraordinary and we look forward to his return. The musicians of the Orchestra would like to thank the public for their unprecedented support for the Orchestra and our new music director.”
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