As if emulating the narrator of Moby Dick, Claudio Abbado began his relationship with the orchestras he conducted with the same phrase: “Call me Claudio.” When he succeeded Herbert von Karajan as chief conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic in 1989 , he began his first rehearsal with a small variation that has also gone down in history: “I am Claudio: for everyone.” In a world that is more susceptible than almost any other to what is known in business law as “abuse of one “dominant market position”, and in which, on the other hand, the noun “teacher” is used unrestrained and manipulated to the point of disgust, the Milanese musicians always remained true to their political ideas and promoted work among equals, without hierarchies, with the podium as a simple stage instrument to ensure visibility, not to mark distances or confer privileges, and the baton as an instrument of precision, not power.
In this democratic and friendly way, he forged a very close relationship with the few orchestras that illuminated his career – the London and Chicago symphonies, the Vienna and Berlin Philharmonics, the title group of the Teatro alla Scala: There is nothing like him – or like himself encouraged to found a large pan-European youth orchestra, which he named after his beloved Gustav Mahler, the germ of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra. In his last years, as his body was plagued by stomach cancer, he realized the ideal of conducting almost exclusively in the circle of friends – world-class soloists, leading string quartets, first music stands of centenary orchestras – who made the pilgrimage to the festival year after year. from Lucerne to share with his friend Claudio the privilege of making what we might call symphonic chamber music. Since, despite his extensive international biography, he always behaved like an Italian and was one through and through, ten years before his death in his country he also founded the Mozart Orchestra, another plurinational project based in Bologna, which gave him a look into The world of the Mozart orchestra made historicist interpretation practices possible and expanded their repertoire towards baroque and classicism with more intimate instrumental models.
It was only in the 20th century that orchestra conductors became mass idols alongside singers and instrumentalists, and the name Claudio Abbado should not be missing from any shortlist of the greatest of our time. Whether Wilhelm Furtwängler, Otto Klemperer, Pierre Boulez, Carlos Kleiber or Sir John Barbirolli – everyone has sooner or later released their recording legacy in the form of Opera Omnia. On the occasion of his ninetieth birthday, a huge box set containing all of his recordings for Deutsche Grammophon and Decca was released, which reveals and documents the versatility of the director's career in terms of quantity (no less than 257 CDs and 8 DVDs) and quality. Italian in a repertoire that ranges from Bach, Vivaldi and Pergolesi to the still happily living György Kurtág, Wolfgang Rihm and Salvatore Sciarrino: no one can give more. A few days after ten years of a death that left many supposed orphans, this authentic flood of music, now within our reach, allows us to put in perspective the legacy of a director who always had two essential allies to ascend to Olympus. : an outstanding , a virtuoso, dazzling technique, the foundations of which were laid during his training in Hans Swarowsky's class in Vienna, but which he never stopped perfecting, and a personal appeal – championed by a relaxed, open and generous smile – that immediately captivated him. Fascinating instrumentalists, singers and audiences alike.
Using good judgment, Deutsche Grammophon has arranged the albums – recorded over a period of nearly half a century, between 1966 and 2013 – in alphabetical order by composer, from Bach to Wagner, leaving compilations or mixed programs last. Abbado naturally developed over the course of his career and did not always show the same affinity for all composers. His greatest achievements are probably concentrated on Mahler, with whom he always had a natural, organic connection, and on Verdi, whom he carried in his blood as a good Milanese. Several of his songs and all of his symphonies from the first are collected here, some in different versions, such as two from the first, three from the second and two from the third, one of which was recorded with the Vienna Philharmonic in 1980. Jessye Norman remains as a soloist incomparable monument. Something similar happens with his Macbeth or his Simon Boccanegra, the peak of his Scaligeri years and outstanding examples of Abbado's first maturity, when his name was synonymous with strength, verve and rhythmic precision, also captured in a handful of significant recordings of music by Béla Bartók (The Wonderful Mandarin, Portraits op. 5, Piano Concertos) and Sergei Prokófiev (Aleksander Nevsky, Lieutenant Kijé).
His time in Berlin, during which he succeeded in democratizing an orchestra accustomed to Karajan's dictatorial approach and, above all, to the 20th-century orientation of his repertoire, is amply represented in this edition. His version of Schönberg's Piano Concerto (with his friend Maurizio Pollini), two gems by Kurtág (Gravestone for Stephan and Stele) and Stockhausen's groups are already history. Another composer with whom Abbado seemed to identify on an equal level is Alban Berg, and many of his recordings made in Vienna (Wozzeck, The Wine, the Three Pieces for Orchestra, the Lulu Suite or the Altenberg Songs) combine again three of its greatest virtues: emotional intensity, transparent textures and rhythmic rigor. They are not enough to fly in the same way with the classics, especially Beethoven, who is amply represented with two complete symphonic cycles (in Berlin and Vienna) and a total of 22 albums. The Italian, of course, never disappoints and often delivers wonderful details or passages, but neither his Beethoven, nor his Brahms, nor his Bruckner reach the level of the above-mentioned composers, although the Austrian from Lucerne's Ninth is most similar to this one Will.
The soloists he has accompanied include all generations, from Serkin to Kissin, from Milstein to Mintz, from Brendel to Grimaud, from Accardo to Mullova, from Gulda to Pires, and with all of them he proves to be wise and generous and sensitive, as with his singers, many of whom triumphed with him, such as Teresa Berganza in Carmen and La Cenerentola at the Edinburgh Festival or Il barbiere di Siviglia in Milan. Abbado was very comfortable in the orchestra pit, he performed miracles in the temples of the Vienna State Opera and La Scala in Milan, and of the 21 complete operas included in this box set, one cannot help but praise his indescribably poetic Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande with intensity bleak From a House of the Dead by Janáček and an enthusiastic and irresistible Fierrabras by Schubert, a rarity which he defends with infectious conviction and energy.
He can also conduct opera and orchestral music on eight DVDs. Many of the recordings, especially in his final phase, were made live and a new tendency is perceived among the contemporaries of his illness to embellish the sound, perhaps excessively, to soften the sharp edges of bygone times, which could be understood as a refuge, a balm, the to alleviate or sweeten the suffering during the long years in which he had to live with pain and physical weakness every day. Almost all of a lifetime's devotion to music is summed up here: It requires hours of listening, yes, but the endless wonders contained in this magical box will more than reward it.
Claudio Abbado
257 CDs and 8 DVDs
You can follow BABELIA on Facebook and Xor sign up here to receive our weekly newsletter.
Subscribe to continue reading
Read without limits
_