Prokofiev: Suite from Romeo and Juliet, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, cond Riccardo Muti, review: 'outstanding'

Muti's way of phrasing and subtly manipulating the music’s ebb and flow gives these well-known numbers a renewed dramatic impulse, says Geoffrey Norris

Riccardo Muti: delivers a recording of outstanding presence Credit: Photo: EPA

This recording of selections from the two Prokofiev Romeo and Juliet orchestral suites, drawn from concerts given in Chicago last year, reveals Muti in full command of the Prokofiev idiom and of the music’s narrative perspective.

His way of phrasing and subtly manipulating the music’s ebb and flow – both in terms of rhythmic pacing and as regards the shading of dynamics – gives these well-known numbers a renewed dramatic impulse. The scenes spring vividly to life. The opening has a manly, striding menace; the romantic music for the two lovers floats ethereally and tenderly; the “Death of Tybalt” strikes its fatal blows with brutal finality.

The orchestra, with which Prokofiev was frequently associated, plays with a radiant spectrum of colour and with a refined balance of timbres and textures while understanding the sonorities that make Prokofiev’s orchestration at once so individual and so recognisable. This is an interpretation of outstanding presence.