ArtsWatch

Riccardo Muti in 1989 standing in front of a newly unveiled billboard for the Venturi-designed Philadelphia Orchestra concert hall at Broad and Spruce that was never built. (Gerald S. Williams/Inquirer)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A few days ago in this space I wrote that "for Muti, having his name on the schedule and actually showing up to conduct are independent concepts."
Unfair? Riccardo Muti has now agreed to have his name on the schedule at the Chicago Symphony 10 weeks a year, plus tours. To read the coverage you'd think he's turned over a new leaf and will be where he says he'll be.
Regarding Chicago, Muti is speaking of getting out into the community, has apparently agreed to do fund-raising, and seems generally agreeable to the playing the part of the American music director - a scope of services he never exactly embraced when he was music director in Philadelphia (1980-1992).
Turning to music for a moment, one might reasonable expect great things from this partnership. Muti has an almost peerless stick technique - exacting, evocative and sophisticated. He likes a lean sound, which suits Chicago better than it did Philadelphia. He has a talent for choosing charismatic soloists.
Two things to look for in the Muti-Chicago relationship. First, he's not been there much. He led the orchestra for two weeks at home in September, and on one tour. That leaves a lot of composers unexplored. How does the Chicago Symphony feel about Martucci? How many times is it willing to program Scriabin's Poem of Ecstasy and Ravel's Bolero?
But the other red flag in Muti's past behavior is this. He canceled in Philadelphia a lot after he stepped down as music director. He never fulfilled his laureate title here.
And even in his new relationships, he can be a no-show. After much trumpeting that they were creating an older-man-younger-man model of leadership, the New York Philharmonic now finds itself short an older man. Muti was to lead the Philharmonic for multiple weeks a year plus tours - close to his number of weeks in Chicago. But now, Zarin Mehta, the Philharmonic’s president, said Muti "would not be back as a guest conductor once he took over the Chicago job," the Times reports.
The Times puts this aspect the Muti saga pretty far down in the article that started online Monday morning before evolving into Tuesday's piece:
Mr. Muti turned down the music director’s job at the New York Philharmonic in 2000. Last year he agreed to take on the position of principal guest conductor, in which he was expected to spend six to eight weeks a season with the orchestra and lead it on tours, beginning in 2009 (although he now says that he did not agree to a specific number of weeks).
Is the reversal Muti's doing? Mehta's? Or do both just understand implicitly that when a new podium presence in being established in one big city, to guest conduct in another is to blur the public message?
Mehta on Tuesday told me that Muti was never given a title with the Philharmonic.
"He was never principal guest. What we had agreed on was that he would appear multiple weeks in each season and the occasional international tour. That's the way we've been working. Now of course there is a change, and we'll have to sit down together and decide what the future is."
Will Muti in fact not conduct the Philharmonic once he becomes music director in Chicago?
Mehta continued: "This is a decision that he and the Chicago Symphony and we have to make. It's too early to tell how that will work out."
And what about Muti's four weeks already scheduled with the Philharmonic for next season?
Mehta says he does not "see any reason why not. Until I sit down and talk to him about what his obligations we have no reason to make any change for next season."
In any case, it appears Muti will not have a big Philharmonic presence - even before he's had a chance to start the job, title or no. That last appearance with the Philharmonic? He canceled.