Riccardo Muti is beaming at the end of the Christmas Concert in the Vatican at the end of which Pope Leo XIV presented him with the Ratzinger Prize, awarded every year to eminent personalities in the field of culture and art.
Muti conducted the Mass for the Coronation of Charles The performance was entrusted to the Luigi Cherubini Youth Orchestra, founded by Muti himself, and to the Siena Cathedral Choir “Guido Chigi Saracini”. Almost an hour of music, interrupted only after the Creed by the cry “bravo” and applause.
The 84-year-old maestro is happy for many reasons. He finally met Leo XIV (“I loved her from the first moments in which she began to express her intentions”, he tells him excitedly). Among other things, Muti is Director Emeritus for life of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, one of the most prestigious orchestras in North America and the world, founded in 1891 in the city where Robert Francis Prevost was born in 1955.
He also returned to conduct music in the Vatican in the presence of the Pope. He received an award named after a man of the Church with whom he had a relationship of friendship and mutual respect. He had the opportunity to see and greet old friends, such as the cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi (“we have known each other since the days when he was at La Scala and I at the Ambrosiana,” the cardinal tells us), the cardinal archbishop of Chicago Blase Cupic and monsignor Domenico Mogaverothe bishop emeritus of Mazara del Vallo who on several occasions accompanied Muti on his trips and concerts linked to the “Vie dell’amico” initiative.
After receiving the prize, Muti recalls his meetings with Benedict XVI, in particular the last one, at the end of which Ratzinger, after listening to Muti’s complaints about certain opera directions, said “let’s let that poor Mozart rest in peace”.
In his speech Pope Leo quotes Saint Augustine, recalling that “in his treatise on music, he calls it good modulating sciencei, connecting it to the art of guiding the heart towards God. Music is a privileged way to understand the very high dignity of the human being and to confirm him in his most authentic vocation”. Addressing Muti, he defines the Ratzinger Prize as a “sign of appreciation for a life entirely dedicated to music, a place of discipline and revelation”. Then he recalls that Pope Benedict “looked for the voice of God in the universe in music”. “In this itinerary of search for beauty, you, dear Maestro”, continued Leone, “have had the opportunity to meet Cardinal Ratzinger several times, starting when he attended concerts in Salzburg, in Munich, then in Rome. In the following years, Pope Benedict participated in your performances in the Paul VI Hall, where he presented you with the Grand Cross of Saint Gregory the Great. The Award that you receive today is a continuation of that relationship, of a dialogue open to mystery and oriented towards the common good, towards harmony”.
“Maestro Muti, his way of interpreting direction, the art of listening and responsibility, is also reflected in his natural inclination towards training. This is demonstrated by your connection with Italian conservatories and the practice of “open rehearsals”, offered as a form of sharing, where every gesture is an act of trust, an invitation rather than a command. The awarding of the Ratzinger Prize to those who have been able to safeguard what Benedict XVI has always considered the heart of art thus appears particularly coherent: the possibility of making a spark of God’s presence resonate through beauty”, added the pontiff.
Pope Leo wanted the award ceremony and the concert to also be an opportunity to raise awareness, commitment and solidarity regarding the educational emergency, with particular attention to school inclusion. In the world there are 60 million children and young people who are not included in any schooling process while 160 million minors do not access the secondary cycle of education. The concert was organized by the Pontifical Foundation “Gravissimum Educationis – Culture for education”, with the patronage of the Dicastery for Culture and Education of the Holy See. The main supporter of the concert is the “Galileo Foundation”.
