Chicago Symphony Orchestra Releases Fifth Recording with Riccardo Muti Today

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra's (CSO) fifth recording with Music Director Riccardo Muti on its own CSO Resound label, Berlioz: Symphonie fantastique and Lélio, will be released internationally via retail and download outlets today, September 11, 2015.

The two-disc set was recorded live in September 2010 at Orchestra Hall, during Riccardo Muti's first subscription concerts with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at the start of his tenure as music director.

"Symphonie fantastique was not intended to be a showpiece to end a concert. Instead, Berlioz meant it as the prologue to a deeper and more intense work. Audiences do not often hear these two works together, and I think it will be a revelation for them," said Muti.

French actor Gérard Depardieu narrates Lélio, which also features the Chicago Symphony Chorus, Duain Wolfe, director, as well as tenor Mario Zeffiri and bass-baritone Kyle Ketelsen.

A New York Times review of the performance in 2010 by Anthony Tommasini called the concert "imaginative, elegantly performed and enthusiastically received." John von Rhein for the Chicago Tribune praised the performance [of Lélio] saying that, "Muti drew out the radiant beauties in the score, performed with total commitment."

The album was produced by David Frost, a Grammy Award winner, engineered by Christopher Willis, and mastered by Silas Brown.

Muti and the CSO's first recording together-Verdi's Messa da Requiem with the Chicago Symphony Chorus, released in 2010-won two Grammy Awards. Their second, Verdi's Otello, also with the Chorus, was released in 2013, and won an International Opera Award. Muti's third and fourth recordings with the CSO, Riccardo Muti Conducts Mason Bates and Anna Clyne, and Prokofiev: Suite from Romeo and Juliet were both released in 2014.

The CSO's music director position is endowed in perpetuity by a generous gift from the Zell Family Foundation. Bank of America is the Global Sponsor of the CSO.

To post a comment, you must register and login.