Live On Music

The Prize Goes To Chicago

“In a classical music world of diminishing grandeur, the orchestra has hired one of the last lions of podium glamour, Riccardo Muti, as its music director and in so doing is lending a sheen to the city’s cultural profile. At the same time Mr. Muti’s embrace of a cold city on Lake Michigan — which he diplomatically likens to the Mediterranean waters off his native Italy — dampened spirits at the New York Philharmonic, which failed to lure him at least once and, by some accounts, including his own, possibly twice.”…