When a fine artist dies, we hear that it is a major loss to art. This is usually gross exaggeration: when Mozart died short of 36 years age, just as his career was really taking off, that was a great loss to art. Ditto for Schubert’s demise at 31 or when Juan Crisóstomo Arriaga died days short of his 20th birthday, with so much promise of future greatness.
But when an accomplished and celebrated artist dies in the autumn of their years, with great accomplishments behind them, not that much ahead of them, and often after they have retired or passed their artistic peak, it isn’t in any meaningful way a loss to the greater community. (Though it certainly is one to friends and family). Instead, one should react with gratitude and joy for having been given so much by the artist, and amazement at how much these women and men were allowed to touch our lives—living on in the memories and legacies, recollections of ours and influences on us.
Claudio Abbado, who died on January 20th, aged 80, falls right between the tragic loss and life-fulfilled templates. Still active until recently, he conducted his latest orchestral ‘baby’, the Orchestra Mozart, with aplomb and success. His eager involvement in the Lucerne Festival was one of the attractions that put the Swiss town squarely on the classical music map again, over the last decade. In those concerts, as in those for which he was re-united with his former orchestra, the Berlin Philharmonic, Abbado achieved moments of transcendence and a magnificent musical Indian summer after recovering from grave illness. But Claudio Abbado had also had the opportunity to say about as much about music as any conductor before or likely after him, well documented on record for every willing and lucky listener to enjoy. He was, by informed guesstimation, the most recorded living conductor before he died, now surpassed only by Leonard Bernstein and Herbert von Karajan, who preceded him at the Berlin Philharmonic. This gives cause to celebrate his achievements much more than bemoan the loss of what-might-have-beens.
In breadth of repertoire Abbado might also have been second only to Karajan: Italian opera and the Germanic symphonic repertoire were his primary hunting grounds, but he also dabbled in baroque, he explored contemporaries, and surveyed the vast concerto repertoire with the finest collaborators. He was mainly associated and recorded with Milan’s La Scala Orchestra, the Vienna Philharmonic, the London Symphony Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Berlin Philharmonic, and four orchestras he was instrumental in bringing into existence: The European Union Youth Orchestra (1978), the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester (1986), the Lucerne Festival Orchestra (2002) and the aforementioned Orchestra Mozart (2004).
Claudio Abbado could keep a concert hall spellbound to the last seat and well beyond the last note reverberated—something that American audiences got to enjoy only rarely, after Abbado’s brief stint as deputy to Sir Georg Solti with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Some of his recordings are ear-opening and jump off the polycarbonate plastic (or vinyl or USB stick). But it’s also fair to say that not everything he touched turned gold, and there are routine and less involving recordings in the mix. There’s an inherent subjectivity to this, and even the least successful recordings in these authors’ ears have found enthusiastic takers elsewhere—especially at the time of issue where (we would suggest) susceptibility to hype and status are greatest. Abbado’s recordings of the Mendelssohn Symphonies with the London Symphony Orchestra don’t begin to convey what others (Dohnányi, Decca; Karajan, DG) have elicited from them. Though Abbado was a skilled Tchaikovskian, his Tchaikovsky cycle with the Chicago orchestra (Sony) was a contractual obligation, and often sounds it. Not even all his famed Mahler is universally appealing: A Sixth Symphony with the Berlin Philharmonic (DG), initially praised to the skies by a lot of critics, remains oddly underpowered and does not find many enthusiasts among Mahlerians that we know of.
But for every rare dud, there’s an even rarer gem. This is a list of our choices among them—and those of some other musicians and critics who know Abbado’s output well:
[The entire list on Amazon (on CDs) can be found here and as mp3s here. The complete-as-possible Spotify playlist here.]
Classical Building Block
Ludwig van Beethoven
Symphony No.9
live from Salzburg
Berlin Philharmonic, Eric Ericson Chamber Choir
J.Eaglen, W.Meier, B.Heppner, B.Terfel
(Sony)
Amazon CD & mp3 | Qobuz | Spotify | iTunes
Claudio Abbado’s 1996 performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony from Salzburg might be one of his more overlooked recordings, but it’s an ideal basic building block of any classical collection. The Berlin Philharmonic, the Eric Ericson Chamber Choir, and the soloists Jane Eaglen, Waltraud Meier, Ben Heppner, and Bryn Terfel are a veritable dream-cast. Better yet: the sense of occasion on this live recording is palpable which animates the occasionally staid Abbado. Marginally on the broad side at 72 minutes, this is a ‘universal’ interpretation: Instead of any particular, strong interpretive flavor, it gives all due and deference to Beethoven’s genius and this comes through with terrific force. It’s possibly Abbado’s finest Beethoven recording amid many very fine Beethoven recordings.
Simplicity and Carnal Grief
Ludwig van Beethoven, Alban Berg
Violin Concertos
Orchestra Mozart
Isabelle Faust (violin)
(Harmonia Mundi)
Amazon CD & mp3 | Qobuz | Spotify | iTunes
Isabelle Faust’s 2012 recording of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto with Claudio Abbado and his Orchestra Mozart made a rightful splash: It stripped away years of interpretive gunk from the warhorse concerto with its simple, toned-down, honest orchestral ways. It’s the least affected, most touching new recording since Thomas Zehetmair and Frans Brüggen’s. In a way even more impressive is the Berg Concerto: The saturation of Faust’s tone, slightly roughened like seductive sandpaper, gives it a quality that marries the poignantly disturbing with the felt; harshness with yearning beauty and cumulates in a kind of carnal grief for which Faust and Abbado come together.
Michael Haefliger’s Choice: Birth of an Orchestra
Gustav Mahler, Claude Debussy
Symphony No.2, La Mer
Lucerne Festival Orchestra
Eteri Gvazava (soprano) Anna Larsson (mezzo)
(DG)
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Claudio Abbado’s third recording of Mahler’s Second Symphony—with soprano Eteri Gvazava and especially mezzo-soprano Anna Larsson as his singers and the Lucerne Festival Orchestra (‘the world’s best pick-up band’)—is also his finest. Asked to pick a favorite Abbado recording, Michael Haefliger, Executive Director of the Lucerne Festival since 1999 and a close friend of Abbado’s, chose this one: “The recording of Mahler’s Second Symphony and Debussy‘s La Mer with the Lucerne Festival Orchestra in its first performance in 2003. The reason I personally like it so much that it is basically a live recording with only few adjustments made and the live character is felt throughout and adds tremendously to the listening experience!” Indeed, the hushed qualities, the relief and redemption, the sense of a momentous occasion are tremendously well captured in the Mahler and Abbado’s magisterial and totally committed performance casts a unique spell. Just as beguiling is the disc-mate, Debussy’s lithe, shimmering, glistening La Mer, played as well as Debussy has ever been played.
Seductive Dissonances
Alban Berg
Seven Early Songs, Three Pieces for Orchestra op.6, Der Wein
Anne Sofie von Otter (mezzo)
Vienna Philharmonic
(DG)
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Abbado, who had a knack for making Tchaikovsky refreshingly unsentimental, was equally adept at casting the lure for the beauty of Alban Berg wide: He recorded the Three Pieces for Orchestra and the Lulu Suite several times. Of these, his earlier London recording has more bite than his Vienna re-make, and not necessarily less appeal (thanks to the coupling with the young Margaret Price’s Altenberg Lieder), but it doesn’t manage the same amount of suave lyricism that he went for in the latter recording, which makes it so particularly seductive.
Dancing like a Scythian
Sergey Prokofiev
Alexander Nevsky, Lieutenant Kijé Suite, Scythian Suite
London Symphony Orchestra, London Symphony Chorus, Chicago Symphony Orchestra
(DG)
Amazon CD & mp3 | Qobuz | Spotify | iTunes
As the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s principal guest conductor from 1982 until 1985, Abbado recorded extensively with them. One highlight of that collaboration is his powerful brasstastic recording of Prokofiev’s early, Technicolor Scythian Suite and the Lieutenant Kijé Suite, coupled with a striking rendition of the score to Sergei Eisenstein’s film Alexander Nevsky, courtesy London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus.
Crepuscular in Spades
Gustav Mahler
Symphony No.7
Berlin Philharmonic
(DG)
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Claudio Abbado’s Chicago recording of Mahler’s Seventh Symphony (DG Gold) has seemingly always been the Gramophone Magazine’s top choice for that work. Because or despite of this, it is held in high regard. Sure enough, it is well played and much appreciated by these ears, but rather firm and straight-laced. His more recent recording, live with the Berlin Philharmonic (DG), however, is a work of wonder. Those middle movements have never sounded better; the nightscape of movements two and four has never been evoked more realistically, tenderly, movingly—not even by Bernstein. There is much more mist over that midnight lake and the tempi are steadier. This supreme perception of the misty atmosphere doesn’t make the strange work easier to understand, but it helps considerably to get lost in Mahler’s soundscapes.
It would be easy to load up any such list with late Abbado Mahler recordings from Lucerne and Berlin; all but a couple are marvelous and more. This one makes a particularly worthy stand-in for this late productive phase in Abbado’s career.
Classically in Love
Sergey Prokofiev
Romeo and Juliet (excerpts)
Berlin Philharmonic
(DG)
Amazon CD & mp3 | Qobuz | Spotify
This disc of Sergey Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet only contains excerpts, one might grumble, but so expertly put together and ravishingly played is this de facto “Best of Romeo and Juliet Suite”, that it must be one of the most compelling, luscious recordings Abbado ever made. And it shows off his Berliners soft side in style.
A Rare First
Anton Bruckner
Symphony No.1 (1891 “Vienna” version)
Lucerne Festival Orchestra
(Accentus)
“Abbado uncovered the radical nature of [this Symphony]” wrote Die Welt after the 2012 Lucerne Festival performance. Unlikely: Abbado wasn’t so much a man for musical insights and un-coverings, than simply top-notch execution. The surprise-effect isn’t what Abbado did with this one of the four stepchildren among Bruckner’s 11 Symphonies, but that he played it much at all. Everything typical for Bruckner is already in this work (here performed in the 1891 “Vienna” revision); much sounds like a pre-echo of the more famous symphonies to come, but altogether more impetuously and pithy. With the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, Abbado gives the work the loving and big-name treatment that helps propel the easily overlooked gem to our deserved attention.
Lightly Sparkling Magic
Wolfgang Amadé Mozart
Die Zauberflöte
Mahler Chamber Orchestra
Dorothea Röschmann, René Pape, Hanno Müller-Brachmann, Erika Miklósa et al.
(DG)
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In his Indian Summer, Abbado conducted only bands he felt particularly drawn to… which is to say: the Berlin Philharmonic and those orchestras he founded. With the Mahler Chamber Orchestra he performed and recorded Mozart’s Magic Flute, which surprised and delighted. It is a brisk, joyous, even youthful performance, tightly and tidily presented, that gives lie to the notion that conductors get slower with age. Abbado is supported by wonderful singers: There is Dorothea Röschmann’s charming Pamina because she never whines, Christoph Strehl’s young, serious, noble Tamino, the ever stalwart Sarastro of René Pape’s, and Hanno Müller-Brachmann’s fresh, never pandering Papageno. Erika Miklósa’s Queen of the Night offers stellar singing, but must content with lower marks for her awkward German. To hear Abbado so fresh and sparkly and artless may not strike as the most typical memory of his art, but it’s a side of his I cherish especially.
Tim Page’s Choice: Imaginative, Majestic, Strange
Gioacchino Rossini
La Cenerentola
La Scala Orchestra and Chorus
Frederica von Stade, Francisco Araiza, Paolo Montarsolo, Claudio Desderi, et al.
(DG / Unitel DVD)
Tim Page is a humble icon of classical music. The Pulitzer Prize Winner and long-time chief classical music critic of the Washington Post and Newsday has seen the business from nearly every side, as artistic advisor for the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, as executive producer for the probing BMG Catalyst label, and now as a professor of journalism and music at the University of Southern California. One of his choices, that of Richard Strauss’ Four Last Songs with Margaret Price and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, taped live in 1981, seems only available on YouTube which is a shame. But he also loves Abbado’s conducting of Gioacchino Rossini’s Cenerentola for the wonderful film production of Jean-Pierre Ponnelle’s staging (originally created for the San Francisco Opera). This is “Rossini in all of his majesty, imagination and strangeness.”
Supersized Schubert
Franz Schubert
Songs with Orchestra
Anne Sofie von Otter (mezzo), Thomas Quasthoff (baritone)
Chamber Orchestra of Europe
(DG)
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Early and not-so-early music conductor Mark Minkowski, a wizard with everything from George Frideric Handel to Joseph Haydn and beyond, immediately thought of Schubert when asked about a favorite recording by Claudio Abbado. He couldn’t quite decide on the spot, but we can: The rather unconventional orchestration of Schubert Songs. Seasoned composers had their hands at these, which helps: From Hector Berlioz, Johannes Brahms, Benjamin Britten, Franz Liszt, Jacques Offenbach, Max Reger to Anton Webern, the list is as impressive as the results are ingenious refractions of the originals. Operatic in the Erlkönig, pale and haunting in “Der Wegweiser” from Die Winterreise. In less tasteful hands, who knows what might have happened. But with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe as graceful as can be, and with gritty performances from Anne Sofie von Otter and Thomas Quasthoff, it becomes a gentle triumph.
Alex Ross’ Choice: Unconventionally Contemporary
György Kurtág, Karlheinz Stockhausen
Stele, Grabstein für Stephan, Gruppen
Berlin Philharmonic
(DG)
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Giuseppe Verdi
Simon Boccanegra
Piero Cappuccilli, Mirella Freni, Nicolai Ghiaurov, José Carreras et al.
La Scala Orchestra and Chorus
(DG)
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Alex Ross, music critic of The New Yorker since 1996 and author of the wildly successful The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century immediately plumps for less conventional, expectedly unexpected choice: “Favorite Abbado? I would have to say György Kurtág‘s Stele, even though it's not the most characteristic.” When Kurtág was the Berlin Philharmonic’s composer-in-residence, he wrote Stele for Abbado and his band. It’s slow and effective and appealing, a dark and wailing work, coupled with Stockhausen’s Gruppen and Kurtág’s Tombstone for Stephan.
“If I were to make a more ordinary choice”, Ross adds helpfully, “it would be the Simon Boccanegra.” That Giuseppe Verdi opera is also a splendid pick, because the way Abbado and a stupendous cast bring this thoroughly revised opera to life turns it into a Verdian triumph on record.
