Claudio Abbado RIP

[akiralx]

Who can forget that stupendous BPO Mahler 9 at the 1994 Proms when the silence at the end stretched into eternity?
R.I.P Claudio Abbado

Thanks for confirming the year of this Prom which I attended, it was truly memorable - he also did another BPO Prom a day or so later which I attended in the arena, including I think, the Mussorgsky/Ravel Pictures - if anyone can confirm the programme, I would like to know.

[mercia]

if anyone can confirm the programme

http://www.bbc.co.uk/proms/archive/search/1990s/1994/august-26/11031

http://www.bbc.co.uk/proms/archive/search/performers/claudio-abbado/1

I guess he had always conducted without a score, this is 1968

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOeVamyHFM4

[Nick Armstrong]

I guess he had always conducted from memory, this is 1968
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOeVamyHFM4

Great clip, mercs, thanks

Richard's stories make him sound rather a capricious nightmare on occasion, certainly to work with...

[Karafan]

On R4 earlier Simon Ratlle gave an assessment of CA to Front Row and Mark Lawson. Quite a respectful and thoughtful eulogy. Don't know if this is on iPlayer or not, worth a listen if it is. Sir Simon's recommended best CA recording is of a live performance of Bruckner 5 at Lucerne. DVD only.

And BluRay too, Gordon (which is the version I have ). K.

[Karafan]

two prime Abbado stories that I remember, both as related by the former General Manager of the CSO

1) Approximately 6 hours before a concert scheduled at Orchestra Hall of the Verdi Requiem , C.A. calls him and says that
"Henry, this piece would sound great at Medinah Temple "(a since torn down hall that was at least 2 miles from Orchestra Hall).
Henry agrees and says, "Claudio, lets book it for 3 years from now." Abbado says now, he wants to do that evening concert there--in approximately 6 hours.
Fogel protests that there isn't enough time to arrange the switch. Abbado says no problem, have your people standing in front of Orchestra Hall with signs telling them where to go. He is dead serious and insistent.
Fogel puls out a ticket from his desk and tells C.A. "Claudio, i am holding a ticket in front of me that says Lower Balcony, Row 15, Seat 6. I have no idea if Medinah Temple has a lower balcony, A Row 15, etc. " Abbado loses his patience and tells him to do it somehow.
Fogel knows that C.A. will be checking to see if he has made every effort to accommodate him. He therefore calls the manager of Medinah Temple and tells that person, "NO matter what, you are to insist to me that Medinah Temple is not available in 5 hours for the CSO to perform Verdi's Requiem!" after a stunned silence, the manager of Medinah tells him that Medinah is not available that night.

#2

Abbado is conducting Mahler/2 at the Proms in the early 90s. Instead of having a second conductor lead the offstage orchestra, which is the usual custom with the offstage players somewhere behind the main orchestra, Abbado, on a whim, decides the day of the concert that he will put the second orchestra in the dressing room, which is equipped with TV monitors. He then will have a cameraman next to him during the concert and at the appropriate moment C.A. will conduct the offstage players via the camera.
5 minutes before offstage players are to play, a fire marshall in RAH sees the open door and tells all involved that the open door to the dressing area is a violation of fire code and demands that it be shut. Without a conductor of stature present to challenge the marshall the door is indeed shut. When C.A. gives the downbeat for the offstage players, not a sound from them can be heard in RAH. Abbado gestures into camera frantically for louder playing. The players start blowing for all they are worth, the tuba in particular almost faints from exhaustion. Still, no sound. C.A. becomes apoplectic, gesticulating wildly into the camera, to no avail.

Thanks Rfg

I rather dawdled over my hot milk last night to re-watch "Hearing the Silence" - the documentary on CA, in which Swiss actor (and close friend) Bruno Ganz* speaks eloquently on the Maestro. (*'Hitler' in the film 'Downfall').

[Prommer]

And BluRay too, Gordon (which is the version I have ). K.

As one or two of the more perceptive reviews pointed out, this was a great performance on many levels but a sign of it to me was Abbado suddenly but briefly holding down the orchestra almost at the end of the coda to reveal delightfully and playfully a line for four flutes tootling on up in to the stratosphere... magical touch.

[mercia]

the man from the Guardian's recommended recordings

http://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2014/jan/20/claudio-abbado-best-recordings

[Black Swan]

Mercia,


Thanks for the link. Do any boarders know the Stockhausen Groupen recording? It gets very mixed reviews from the River People.

[Orphical]

In Edinburgh during the late seventies and early eighties we were blessed with many performances by Abbado. Carmen by Bizet of course but also many Mahler Symphonies, the Berlioz Requiem, Verdi's Requiem (Price, Norman, Carreras and Raimondi as soloists!) Parsifal and The Magic Flute. This man was instrumental in forming my musical tastes and his loss is immense. For more Abbado anecdotes please try John Drummond's autobiography.

[Petrushka]

Inevitably when a great musician passes away we can see their career in it's entirety. Abbado's repertoire was immense, from J S Bach to Stockhausen, so perhaps we shouldn't regret the gaps too much. However, such a pity that he did not complete his Lucerne Mahler cycle with the 8th, a shame he did not tackle Shostakovich, Sibelius (though I heard him do the Violin Concerto in 1982 with Isaac Stern), or English music especially Elgar (a Cello Concerto at the Barbican opening concert his sole example, I think). Sad too that there was only one outing of Das Lied von der Erde and none of the Mahler/Cooke 10th Symphony.

What we have on disc is an immense corpus of work but my memories now are of the countless number of his concerts I attended from 1978 to 2011.

[jayne lee wilson]

Black Swan - Forget the idiots on Amazon, that Gruppen CD - which includes two stunning Kurtag works which I played in my Abbado memorial last night - is worth anyone's time and money. It's very well - shatteringly well recorded too. See AW's Gramophone review in 3/97.

Among all the Bruckner and Mahler, don't forget that Abbado was also a champion of new(er) music, including a marvellous account of one of Nono's finest pieces, Il Canto Sospeso. (c/w Kindertotenlieder to sweeten the pill, not that it needs it.)

** just looked on Amazon... all I can see is a lone, 5-star review... no bad crits there...
** ah, the carping was on US Amaz... Culver's comments on Kurtag are just ignorant, and the Abbado Stockhausen works very well here in 3-D Stereo, opulent but spacious with the orchestras differentiated enough to make sense. (It's not only about THAT after all). Sure it would be better in 5.1, but how many of us have that? And it's not as if recordings of any of these great pieces are thick on the ground is it?

[Alison]

I love the Ravel and Stravinsky recordings with the London Symphony Orchestra.

A quite marvellous set of live Beethoven symphonies of course.

RIP.

[Black Swan]

Jayne Lee Wilson,

Thanks for your endorsement, CD ordered.

J

[Orphical]

More memories from Edinburgh. An excellent Mahler 3 with Jessye Norman. Abbado failed to give the cue to chorus and soloist to take their seats so they remained standing during the vast last movement. St Matthew Passion with soloists including Jessye Norman, Margaret Price, Hermann Prey and Peter Schreier! He was also a great champion of new music and there is an excellent La terre est un homme with the LSO on You Tube but recording quality v.poor. He thought very highly of Brian Ferneyhough's music.

[Nick Armstrong]

perhaps we shouldn't regret the gaps too much. ...a shame he did not tackle Shostakovich, Sibelius

I agree with both those sentiments. Particularly interesting / strange that there was lots of Prokofiev (the 'Scythian Suite' an early calling-card in his career, and the unparalleled best reading of his First Symphony imho) but no Shostakovich