Claudio Abbado: a beacon of sincerity and truth

Our classical music critic Barry Millington remembers conductor Claudio Abbado, who died yesterday at the age of 80
21 January 2014

While not unexpected — he had been ill for some months and only narrowly survived a brush with stomach cancer in 2000 — the death of conductor Claudio Abbado at the age of 80 has hit the musical world hard. In an age of charismatic, image-conscious maestros, their credentials burnished by record companies, Abbado was a beacon of sincerity.

Though courted by the world’s major orchestras — and during his long career he had conducted many of them — in his last years he preferred to play with hand-picked musicians with whom he could create music on a transcendental level. His Lucerne Festival Orchestra, which he founded in 2003, consisted of some of the finest players in the world, and the mutual respect with which they made music was evident.

Fingertip precision and the quality of listening allowed them to explore the spiritual truths of symphonies by Bruckner and Mahler with an emotional profundity that made his interpretations unforgettable. He would have been the first to admit, however, that the interpretations were a collegial act.

Abbado was a familiar figure in London, for he had held the post of principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra from 1979 and that of music director from 1984 to 1987, making many notable recordings with the orchestra.

Other notable collaborations included those with the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonic Orchestras and with opera houses in Milan, where he was born (at La Scala) and Vienna (State Opera).

But ultimately he may well be remembered not so much for these high-flying partnerships as for the inimitable calibre of his inspirational work with his players in Lucerne.

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