Claudio Abbado è morto il 20 gennaio 2014. Ricordo l'eleganza del gesto, l'energia sprigionata nonostante la malattia e, soprattutto, il respiro con l'orchestra. Lascia una carriera esemplare che l'ha condotto a dirigere le più importanti orchestre del mondo, dagli anni milanesi alla consacrazione berlinese...

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Overture to "Les Vêpres Siciliennes" ("The Sicilian Vespers") by Giuseppe Verdi. The Berliner Philharmoniker, Emmanuel Pahud, flute, under the leadership of Claudio Abbado, Palermo, 2002

....................this was the last time in his twelve years as the orchestra's artistic director that Maestro Abbado conducted a European Concert. He had been through a major illness, and looks gaunt, although he sports a deep tan. There has always been something saintly about Abbado's appearance but that is enhanced here..........
Emanuel Pahud, the principal flutist, was only 23 when he joined, and of course he has now forged a huge career as a concertizing soloist as well: [ Ссылка ]

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The magnificent newly-restored Teatro Massimo in Palermo, one of Europe's most important opera houses, architecturally... one of the largest of Europe (the third after the Opéra National de Paris and the K. K. Hof-Opernhaus in Vienna), renowned for its acoustics. The exterior was designed in the high neoclassical style incorporating elements of the Greek temples at Selinunte and Agrigento. In 1974, the house was closed to complete renovations required by updated safety regulations, but cost over-runs, corruption, and political in-fighting all added to the delay and it remained closed for twenty-three years, finally re-opening on 12 May 1997, four days before its centenary... The opera season started again in 1999. In recent years, "charges of corruption and political meddling along with budget deficits and heavy debts" have plagued the house... [ Ссылка ]

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Claudio Abbado (1933-2014) was an outstanding Italian conductor. He has served as music director of La Scala, principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra, principal guest conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, music director of the Vienna State Opera, and principal conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic orchestra from 1989 to 2002, when he retired from the position for health reasons.
Born in Milan, Abbado was the son of the violinist and composer Michelangelo Abbado, who was his first piano teacher. He had the opportunity to attend many orchestral rehearsals in Milan led by such conductors as Arturo Toscanini and Wilhelm Furtwängler and has told interviewers that Toscanini's tyrannical and sometimes abusive manner towards musicians in rehearsal repelled him, and that he resolved to behave in the gentler manner of Bruno Walter. Abbado was known to exhibit a friendly, understated, and non-confrontational manner in rehearsal.
He made his début at La Scala in his hometown of Milan in 1960 and served as its music director from 1968 to 1986, conducting not only the traditional Italian repertoire. Abbado also founded the Filarmonica della Scala in 1982, for the performance of orchestral repertoire in concert.
Abbado conducted the Vienna Philharmonic for the first time in 1965 in a concert at the Salzburg Festival. He served as music director for the Vienna State Opera from 1986 to 1991, with notable productions such as Mussorgsky's original Boris Godunov and his seldom-heard Khovanshchina, Franz Schubert's Fierrabras, and Gioacchino Rossini's Il viaggio a Reims.
From 1979 to 1987 he was principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra, and from 1982 to 1986 he was principal guest conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
In 1989, the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra elected him as their chief conductor, to succeed Herbert von Karajan, a post he held until 2002.

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Macbeth - Preludio - Claudio Abbado - La Scala (1975):
[ Ссылка ]
Les Vêpres Siciliennes - Ouverture - Claudio Abbado (2002):
[ Ссылка ]
Un Ballo in Maschera - Preludio - Claudio Abbado (1986):
[ Ссылка ]

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