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Articles tagged with: Rudolf Buchbinder

Balm for a winter weekend, Mozart’s Requiem casts warming glow in hands of Muti and CSO

Feb 21, 2015 – 11:16 am
Mozart, detail of plaster relief of wood engraving by Leonard Posch  (Wien Kunsthistorisches Museum)

Review: It was a sad time for Chicago’s musical community, which had lost two respected musicians within days of each other. By astonishing coincidence the scheduled program, dedicated to their memory, included the Requiem by Mozart, whose own life slipped away from him as he wrote it. A bit of the Lacrymosa is the last passage in Mozart’s own hand.

Vienna Aisle: Happily in tune with CSO, Muti nixes idea of position at Vienna State Opera

Nov 3, 2014 – 3:43 pm
Chicago Symphony rehearses Verdi Requiem at Vienna Musikverein Oct. 31, 2014 (Todd Rosenberg)

Report: When Riccardo Muti says that the Chicago Symphony Orchestra is one of the greatest orchestras in the world – as he did before 300 adoring guests in an intimate recital space at the famed Musikverein – the Viennese simply take it in stride. Out of politeness and affection alone they would give him that. Muti has been a favorite in the Austrian musical capital for decades. Curiosity about Muti’s Chicago orchestra was high during the CSO’s weeklong visit capping a five-country European tour. So was speculation whether he might be interested in the biggest music directorship in Vienna, suddenly open. But Muti says Chicago’s enough for him.

Muti, CSO extend his directorship to 2019-20; next season accents French, Russian music

Feb 3, 2014 – 6:15 pm
Vienna's Musikverein at night (Wiki Commons)

Report: Riccardo Muti has agreed to a five-year extension of his contract as music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra through the 2019-20 season, the orchestra announced Monday. Word of the new pact, concluded only Monday morning, came unexpectedly at a press conference to announce the CSO’s season plans for 2014-15, the final year on Muti’s current agreement. The 72-year-old Italian maestro expressed delight at the extension, noting with a wry grin that at its conclusion he will not yet be 80. “The older I get, the more homesick I feel,” he said, “but these musicians and the city of Chicago have made me feel like this is my second home.”