Riccardo Muti (Part 4)
Q. Why did you select Bates and Clyne as composers in residence?
A. Even being so different one from the other, they both use the orchestra with personal language — but not forgetting that they have to express feelings. Even using a modern language and trying to invent new possibilities of timbre and harmonies and counterpoint in the orchestra — even doing that, they don’t forget that the purpose of music is to touch people, not just to make noise.
Q. Many people don’t really “get” what a conductor does. Can you describe the essence of conducting?
A. I come from a school where we don’t learn the art of conducting without learning deeply the music. I started the violin first, and I had a degree in piano, and then I studied composition for ten years. And then when by accident I discovered that I had some qualities to be a conductor. I went to Milan, where I studied with Antonino Votto, who had been an assistant to Toscanini in the ’20s.
