Claudio Abbado, Buon Compleanno!
Evening Music | May 6, 2010
It’s the birthday of one of the 20th century’s great conductors, Claudio Abbado (1933). His accomplishments and awards are too numerous to mention, so let’s just listen...
A quick teaser starts us off, with Abbado leading the Vienna Philharmonic in the Brahms “Hungarian Dance” No. 3. Later, we hear him with the Berlin Philharmonic. Beethoven’s “Pastoral” Symphony, recorded live in the Berlin Philharmonie, exemplifies what The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians calls “his concern to develop a leaner, more transparent orchestral sonority— in contrast to Karajan’s opulence—in Classical and Romantic repertory,” after he took over as chief conductor in 1990.
Throughout his career, Abbado has encouraged young musicians and cross-cultural collegiality, exemplified by his association with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, in which musicians from at least 15 nationalities participate. That extraordinary group blossoms under his leadership this evening, as we hear Schumann’s only Piano Concerto, Maria João Pires at the keyboard.
A quick teaser starts us off, with Abbado leading the Vienna Philharmonic in the Brahms “Hungarian Dance” No. 3. Later, we hear him with the Berlin Philharmonic. Beethoven’s “Pastoral” Symphony, recorded live in the Berlin Philharmonie, exemplifies what The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians calls “his concern to develop a leaner, more transparent orchestral sonority— in contrast to Karajan’s opulence—in Classical and Romantic repertory,” after he took over as chief conductor in 1990.
Throughout his career, Abbado has encouraged young musicians and cross-cultural collegiality, exemplified by his association with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, in which musicians from at least 15 nationalities participate. That extraordinary group blossoms under his leadership this evening, as we hear Schumann’s only Piano Concerto, Maria João Pires at the keyboard.
