Riccardo Muti’s tenure with the CSO came to an end in June this year with three performances of Beethoven’s Missa solemnis, just shy of 50 years after the Italian first conducted the orchestra in July 1973.

Philip Glass’s association with the orchestra extends even further, albeit in a more indirect way. A recipient of the University of Chicago’s accelerated college programme, the precocious 15-year-old student attended several CSO concerts during the early 1950s, hearing Fritz Reiner in Bartók, Mahler and Bruckner.

The influence of Bruckner in particular is heard in the large-scale architectural sweep of Glass’s three-movement Symphony No 11 (2017). The first movement begins and ends with pulsing G minor chords in low brass and woodwinds heard against uncertain five-beat ostinato patterns in harp, piano and strings. A sense of suppressed energy is maintained throughout the lyrical second movement, while the symphony’s metric complexity is further ratcheted up in a powerful polyrhythmic finale that surges towards a dramatic three-note, fate-like climax on repeating B flats.

Muti and the CSO take a more measured approach than do Dennis Russell Davies and the Bruckner Orchester Linz. Muti makes less of the tempo changes in each movement, which enables him to better integrate the work’s block-like design. A neater balance is provided between the orchestra as a whole and the cameo roles for piccolo, E flat and contrabass clarinet, harp and a large percussion section. The military-style opening to the final movement is especially effective.

The album also features Max Raimi’s Three Lisel Mueller Settings, each song cleverly pairing Elizabeth DeShong’s deep mezzo-soprano respectively with solo clarinet, bassoon and double bass, and Jessie Montgomery’s promising Hymn for Everyone. Montgomery’s neatly constructed single-movement work opens with a hopeful rising and falling five-note melody, which hovers around the fifth of the scale before resting on a turn-like figure. The work culminates in an effective Coplandesque, fanfare-like ending.

Muti’s legacy with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra will most likely be remembered for his interpretations of more classical repertoire; but ‘Contemporary American Composers’ stands as testimony to the Italian master’s innate ability to bring out the best in almost everything he conducts.