What are you listening to?

[Seán]

Overall, Claudio Abbado is also the greatest conductor of Russian music alive, yes, greater even than Gergiev.
His Stravinsky with the LSO is just marvelous, his Tchaikovsky too, but most especially his Mussorgsky.

I couldn't agree more.

[Seán]

Claude Debussy
La Mer
Lucerne Festival Orchestra
Claudio Abbado - conducting.

This is a magnificent performance by the LFO.

One cannot possibly do justice to Claudio Abbado's contribution to symphonic music without mentioning his magnificent Mahler output, particularly his work with the BPO and CSO and more recently with the LFO.

Gustav Mahler
Symphony No. 2
Lucerne Festival Orchestra
Eteri Gvazava soprano
Anna Larsson contralto
Claudio Abbado - conducting.

[Seán]

This weekend's tribute to the GREAT Claudio Abbado concludes with



Gustav Mahler
Symphony No. 5
Lucerne Festival Orchestra
Claudio Abbado - conducting.

I didn't get to watch all of this performance this evening but I must say that it is wonderful.

Tomorrow evening I shall resume with more of the Maestro's recordings, so Monday will be an Abbadoday.

[Jose Echenique]

While many conductors just decided to ignore the period instruments movement, dear Claudio rethought the whole thing and concluded, that after all, yes, they are right.
He has recorded Mozart symphonies with the LSO and the Berlin Philharmonic, big band, traditional readings, here he reformulated everything, relearned everything, and even if his readings lack the aplomb of let´s say a Frans Brüggen, one can only admire a glorious conductor who in his 70´s still was eager to learn and understand. Bravo Claudio!!!!

[DonKC]

Home town band does Britten:

Sinfonia da Requiem
Peter Grimes Sea Interludes and Passacaglia
Variations on a Theme of Purcell aka Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra

Michael Stern Kansas City SO

Reference Recordings RR120 for some reason OOP

[DonKC]

Overall, Claudio Abbado is also the greatest conductor of Russian music alive, yes, greater even than Gergiev.
His Stravinsky with the LSO is just marvelous, his Tchaikovsky too, but most especially his Mussorgsky.

I couldn't agree more.

Agree 100% on the Stravinsky...but been a while since I heard the others... will have to dig them out!

[Seán]

While many conductors just decided to ignore the period instruments movement, dear Claudio rethought the whole thing and concluded, that after all, yes, they are right.
He has recorded Mozart symphonies with the LSO and the Berlin Philharmonic, big band, traditional readings, here he reformulated everything, relearned everything, and even if his readings lack the aplomb of let´s say a Frans Brüggen, one can only admire a glorious conductor who in his 70´s still was eager to learn and understand. Bravo Claudio!!!!

Dear Claudio Abbado never fails to impress, he is ever ready to explore new ideas, there is no other way to describe him other than to use that much used and abused expression: 'the man is a genius' and thankfully he has a massive discography for us and the generations that follow us to remember him by.

[Seán]

Today is another Abbadoday



Gustav Mahler
Symphony No. 7
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Claudio Abbado - conducting.

Claudio Abbado is the greatest Mahlerian of this or any other generation. Whether it is with the LFO, CSO or BPO he never fails to produce magic. This performance of Mahler's magnificent Seventh Symphony competes favourably with Solti's earlier recording of the Seventh with the CSO for my affections.
What an extraordinary Symphony this is, and the more often I listen to it the more convinced I am that the Seventh was probably Mahler's most accomplished work.

[fergus]

Oh, another Magnificat, one can never have too many of them, do you like it Fergus?

I have been off air for a while Seán so I am a bit late responding to this one.

This CD is a bit of a mixture to be honest. The particular Magnificat is under the direction of Rilling who is not one of my favourites but this is a passable effort.

The Vivaldi works are under the direction of Malgoire who is a conductor in a different league and it shows with two wonderful performances.

[fergus]

While many conductors just decided to ignore the period instruments movement, dear Claudio rethought the whole thing and concluded, that after all, yes, they are right.
He has recorded Mozart symphonies with the LSO and the Berlin Philharmonic, big band, traditional readings, here he reformulated everything, relearned everything, and even if his readings lack the aplomb of let´s say a Frans Brüggen, one can only admire a glorious conductor who in his 70´s still was eager to learn and understand. Bravo Claudio!!!!

What you say Pepe is very interesting because it perhaps explains something for me. I did not want to be a party pooper and spoil the Abbado adoration but my experiences with him have been somewhat different, somewhat mixed. I can only go by what I personally have heard from the performances of works that are very important to me in my own collection.
Abbado’s Mahler 10 CD cycle is undoubtedly the best overall cycle that I have heard and some individual performances in that set are among the best that I have heard. It is an indispensible set in my collection; no question about that.
Interestingly, as you mentioned Tchaikovsky, I was not convinced by Abbado’s Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 6. This is a work that I have been listening to since I was in my teens and I have over a dozen versions of it.
Neither was I convinced by his Mozart Requiem (I have ten versions) and I actually dislike his Die Zauberflote (of which I own a mere six versions).
I think that I would be known for my liking of JS Bach and I have over twenty versions of the Brandenburg Concertos and I have to be honest and say that the Abbado is the worst of the bunch; it is appallingly poor.

So, as a result of these less than convincing versions of some of my personal favourite works I stopped buying performances by this undoubtedly eminent conductor. He was not a conductor that I would actively seek out when I was building my collection. But perhaps you have explained why for me in your post above but as a rule Abbado just never did it for me and perhaps I was just unlucky to choose some of his dud performances (and every conductor has these); they just happen to be those performances of works that mean a lot to me personally. Perhaps, as you say, his best work lies in his opera performances and I may try one or two of those in the future.