Muti conducts the NY Philharmonic

I wouldn’t normally write about my interest in classical music, but Scriabin is such an overlooked composer and performances of his music so rare that I can’t help mentioning Muti’s great conducting at the NY Philharmonic Saturday evening.  He may be controversial in his dealings with some orchestras, as at La Scala, but he does have flare and brilliance.  The Poem of Ecstasy is one of Muti’s specialties and orchestra’s execution was flawless.  The piece itself could be described as symphonic psychedelia.  There was a great quote in the program notes from1960 when Henry Miller wrote in Nexus:

Scriabin’s music sounds like I think – sometimes.  Has that far-off cosmic itch.  Divinely fouled up.  All fire and air.  The first time I heard it I played it over and over.  Couldn’t shut it off.  It was like a bath of ice, cocaine, and rainbows.  For weeks I went about in a trance.  Something had happened to me.