Who is that fellow in that picture up there? He’s Riccardo Muti, the music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. In fact, he is just winding down his tenure there. He has been the music director since 2010. He has also been the music director of the Philadelphia Orchestra; La Scala, Milan; and other noted institutions. He has conducted the Vienna Philharmonic for 53 — count ’em, 53 — straight seasons.
Anyway, he is one of the most venerable musicians in the world, and a very interesting guy — a superb conversationalist. I had a wide-ranging conversation with him after a recent concert, and I have written about it, here.
A few more photos, if I may. The founder of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra was Theodore Thomas, born in Germany in 1835. He came to this country as a boy. He led the CSO from its founding in 1891 to his death in 1905.
In Grant Park, across from Orchestra Hall, there is a tribute to him: The Spirit of Music, erected in 1924.
An inscription on the wall behind the sculpture reads,
Scarcely any man in any land has done so much for the musical education of the people as did Theodore Thomas in this country. The nobility of his ideals with the magnitude of his achievement will assure him everlasting glory.
Jump forward now to the great, and fearsome, Fritz Reiner, who led the CSO from 1953 to 1962. He turned it into a world-beater, really. Here is a bust of Reiner in Orchestra Hall:
Well, one excellent and fearsome Hungarian-born conductor deserves another — and this is Sir Georg Solti, again in Grant Park, who led the orchestra from 1969 to 1991:
Will there be a monument of some kind to Muti in Grant Park? I would like to see it.