The emeritus music director of the Chicago Symphony seems charmingly vague about his successor in an interview with Dennis Polkow. Or maybe he’s just kidding, with a touch of malice.
Excerpt:
“I didn’t want to take part in the search, so I was completely out of it. As I should be. So I didn’t even know the person that they chose.”
Muti did not know who Mäkelä was?
“No, because I do not keep up with what happens here or there with other orchestras in Oslo or in other cities.”
But Mäkelä conducted here in 2022 and 2023 before the April 2024 announcement was made.
“Si, but I was not here. [Artistic administrator] Cristina Rocca invited him.”
As music director, Muti couldn’t have offered an opinion?
“There are so many conductors that come through here so I was completely out of the decision. I didn’t make comments before they came to say, ‘This one is good, this one is not good. This one is okay, this one is not okay.’”
What seemed odd, if not unprecedented, was that in the announcement of his appointment, Mäkelä did not acknowledge his predecessor in any way. Reiner and Solti, yes. But not Muti. “I don’t know him. Maybe he doesn’t know me.
“I will say that I think it is very dangerous to have the orchestra be without a music director for three years. At a certain point, they needed a successor. But not a successor three years before.”
It doesn’t sound like he approves.
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