I noted earlier that Claudio Abbado would have been 90 today. While I do enjoy some of his recordings, I haven’t always found most of his interpretations to be all that interesting. That is to say, they haven’t always connected with me, personally.
Undoubtedly, there will be those who feel differently. As I mentioned in my previous post, I’ve got some Abbado recordings that I do like, but I don’t know that I would describe any of them as desert island material, except perhaps for his recordings with Argerich.
Granted, there is probably no conductor who has been equally successful at everything, and every conductor has an off-day. Also, music is tied to performance, so it’s always different. One night an interpretation will sing, and the next it will sink.
I’m curious, are there any other big-name conductors who, more often than not, hit you the way I describe? I know I’ve got a few.
And in case you are offended by what is, after all, merely my opinion, remember: Abbado has been adored by millions, and I’m just some schmo on the internet.
Claudio Abbado would have been 90 today. Funny, I still think of his appointment as chief conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic as being fairly recent. Seeing this video – obviously from video tape – makes me realize just how long ago it was! 1989! He certainly had some big shoes to fill, in the wake of Karajan. I don’t know that I ever entirely bought in to the marriage, though the first time Abbado conducted the orchestra was all the way back in 1966.
For me, and I imagine for most, his best, or rather his most consistent recordings, date from his London years, or at any rate before Berlin. That’s not to say he wasn’t still capable of great work. And I’m just going by the recordings I’ve heard. I never had the privilege to hear him live.
After years of ill health (he was diagnosed with stomach cancer in 2000), Abbado died in 2014 at the age of 80.
I don’t pretend to have heard everything, but here are some of my favorite Abbado recordings:
Debussy: Three Nocturnes; Ravel: Daphnis and Chloe Suite No. 2; Scriabin: Poem of Ecstasy (w/Boston Symphony Orchestra)
Debussy: La Damoiselle élue (w/soprano Maria Ewing and the London Symphony Orchestra)
Schubert: Rosamunde: Complete Incidental Music (w/Chamber Orchestra of Europe)
Prokofiev: Piano Concerto No. 3, etc. (w/Martha Argerich and the Berlin Philharmonic)
Mussorgsky works for orchestra and chorus (w/London Symphony Orchestra)
I am less well-versed in his recordings of contemporary works by Luigi Nono, Iannis Xenakis, Pierre Boulez, etc.
I am also not as familiar with many of his opera recordings (beyond Mussorgsky’s “Boris Godunov” and “Khovanshchina” and Schubert’s “Fierrabras”), but some of them are said to be very fine indeed. I would think Debussy’s “Pelleas and Melisande” is a safe bet, and Berg’s “Wozzeck” is regarded as a classic. But some of his Verdi recordings (“Macbeth,” “Simon Boccanegra”) have been ecstatically reviewed.
Some of the recordings I recommend are from after 1989, but of those, none of them are in Berlin. Even the one Berlin recording is from well before he was chief conductor there.
Great video of Argerich and Abbado, in all their glory, live in concert
WWFM – The Classical Network’s symphony marathon continues!
NOW PLAYING: Symphony No. 2 in D major (Vienna Philharmonic/Claudio Abbado)
Beethoven’s 2nd Symphony is distinguished by an energetic scherzo (replacing the standard minuet) and a finale full of musical jokes that ruffled the feathers of a good number of his contemporaries. One critic described it as “a hideously writhing, wounded dragon that refuses to die… writhing in its last agonies and, in the fourth movement, bleeding to death.”
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Today is the birthday of Franz Schubert (1797-1828), one of the greatest of all art song composers. Thomas Quasthoff and Anne Sofie von Otter recorded a fascinating album for the Deutsche Grammophon label a number of years back, with Claudio Abbado conducting the Chamber Orchestra of Europe in orchestrations of Schubert lieder by other notable composers, including Brahms, Britten, Liszt, Offenbach, Reger and Webern.
Here is Quasthoff performing two of Schubert’s most famous songs, “Erlkönig” (“The Erl-King”), as orchestrated by Reger, and “Ständchen” (“Serenade”), as orchestrated by Offenbach.
And Otter performing “Der Vollmond auf Bergeshöh’n” (“The Full Moon Shines on the Mountain Height”) from “Rosamunde,” in Schubert’s own orchestration, and “Die Forelle” (“The Trout”), as orchestrated by Britten.
Nothing can match the originals, of course, but I, for one, feel fortunate to be able to enjoy these fascinating arrangements.
