Musical Style
Abbado has performed and recorded a wide range of Romantic works, in particular Gustav Mahler whose symphonies he has recorded several times. He is also noted for his interpretations of modern works by composers such as Arnold Schoenberg, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Giacomo Manzoni, Luigi Nono, Bruno Maderna, Thomas Adler, Giovanni Sollima, Roberto Carnevale, Franco Donatoni and George Benjamin.
Abbado recalls desiring to become a conductor for the first time as a child, when he heard a performance of Claude Debussy's Nocturnes. 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 is known to exhibit a friendly, understated, and non-confrontational manner in rehearsal.
In 1988, he founded the music festival Wien Modern, which has since expanded to include all aspects of contemporary art. This interdisciplinary festival takes place each year under his direction.
Abbado is also well known for his work with young musicians. He is founder and music director of the European Union Youth Orchestra (1978) and the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester (1986). He is also a frequent guest conductor with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe with whom he recorded a cycle of Franz Schubert symphonies to considerable acclaim. More recently, he has worked with the Orquesta Sinfónica Simón Bolívar of Venezuela.
Read more about this topic: Claudio Abbado
Famous quotes containing the words musical and/or style:
“A pregnant woman and her spouse dream of three babies—the perfect four-month-old who rewards them with smiles and musical cooing, the impaired baby, who changes each day, and the mysterious real baby whose presence is beginning to be evident in the motions of the fetus.”
—T. Berry Brazelton (20th century)
“Sometimes among our more sophisticated, self-styled intellectuals—and I say self-styled advisedly; the real intellectual I am not sure would ever feel this way—some of them are more concerned with appearance than they are with achievement. They are more concerned with style then they are with mortar, brick and concrete. They are more concerned with trivia and the superficial than they are with the things that have really built America.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)