Claudio Abbado

Claudio Abbado made his debut in 1960, at the Teatro alla Scala in his home city of Milan, and was music director there from 1968–1986. He also served as music director of the London Symphony Orchestra from 1983–1986. Having conducted the Vienna Philharmonic for the first time in 1965, he became music director of the Vienna State Opera from 1986–1991, and in 1987 Generalmusikdirektor of the City of Vienna. In 1988 he initiated the “Wien Modern” Festival. Claudio Abbado has always taken great interest in young musicians: as founder and music director of the Youth Orchestra of the European Union and the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra, artistic director of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, and founder and principal conductor of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra. He has recorded for Deutsche Grammophon since 1967, amassing a discography that includes the entire symphonic works of Beethoven, Brahms, Mahler, Mendelssohn, Schubert and Ravel and more than 20 complete opera recordings. His recordings have won innumerable awards, including Gramophone and Echo Awards, Grammy®, Diapason d’or and Record Academy Award, Tokyo.

Claudio Abbado’s numerous honours and awards include the Gran Croce, the highest honour bestowed by the Italian Republic, the Cross of the Legion of Honour from the French Minister of Culture and the Grosses Verdienstkreuz des Verdienstordens (the highest honour awarded by the Federal Republic of Germany). In 1973, the Vienna Philharmonic awarded him the Ring of Honour, and in 1980 the Golden Nicolai Medal. In 1985, he received the Gold Medal of the International Gustav Mahler Society in Vienna; in 1994, the Ernst von Siemens Prize, Germany’s most prestigious music award; in Düsseldorf in 2004, the Kythera Award for his “innumerable services to musical culture”. He was named an honorary citizen of Lucerne in 2005. Claudio Abbado holds honorary doctorates from the universities of Aberdeen, Ferrara and Cambridge, and is an honorary member of Vienna’s Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde and Konzerthausgesellschaft.

1989

Elected permanent conductor and artistic director of the Berliner Philharmoniker until 2002

1990

Wagner’s Lohengrin at the Vienna State Opera. Release of Mussorgsky’s Khovanshchina

1991

Release of his first Mahler recording with the Berliner Philharmoniker (Symphony no. 1)

1992

Janácek’s From the House of the Dead at the Salzburg Festival. Releases: complete Brahms cycle with the Berliner Philharmoniker; Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande

1993

Tour to Israel and the US with the Berliner Philharmoniker. Release of Verdi’s Requiem

1994

Artistic director of the Salzburg Easter Festival. Conducts Mozart’s Figaro with the Wiener Philharmoniker; Boris Godunov at the Salzburg Festival. Release of Lohengrin and Mahler’s Second Symphony

1995

Elektra at the Salzburg Easter Festival.Releases: Figaro and Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder with the Vienna Philharmonic, and Mahler’s Eighth with the Berliner Philharmoniker

1996

Otello at the Salzburg Easter Festival; Elektra at the Florence Maggio Musicale

1997

Bach’s St. Matthew Passion at the Salzburg Easter Festival; Wozzeck at the Salzburg Festival

1998

Boris Godunov at the Salzburg Easter Festival; Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde in Berlin. Release of Mozart’s Don Giovanni

1999

Wagner’s Tristan and Bach’s B minor Mass at the Salzburg Easter Festival; tours with the Berliner Philharmoniker to Moscow, London, Paris and the USA

2000

Simon Boccanegra at the Salzburg Easter Festival; concerts with the Berliner Philharmoniker in South America and Japan

2001

Verdi’s Falstaff at the Salzburg Easter Festival; the work is recorded in Berlin. Wagner’s Parsifal in Berlin

2002

Farewell performances as artistic director of the Salzburg Easter Festival (Parsifal). Simon Boccanegra at the Maggio Musicale. Releases: The Berlin Album and Mahler’s Symphonies nos. 3, 7and 9, all with the Berliner Philharmoniker

2003

Releases include orchestral music by Debussy and Wagner, both with the Berliner Philharmoniker, and Schubert lieder in orchestral arrangements with Anne Sofie von Otter and Thomas Quasthoff

2004

Beethoven and Hindemith at the Lucerne Festival. Releases include Mahler’s Symphony no. 2 and Debussy’s La Mer with the Lucerne Festival Orchestra; Beethoven Piano Concertos with Martha Argerich, and opera arias with Anna Netrebko

2005

Die Zauberflöte in Baden-Baden and Italy with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra. Releases include Mahler’s Symphonies nos. 4 and 6 with the Berliner Philharmoniker

2006

Conducts the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in Caracas and Italy. At the Lucerne Festival he leads the Festival Orchestra in Mozart (arias with Cecilia Bartoli), Mahler, Martin, Brahms (Piano Concerto no. 2 with Pollini) and Bruckner. Performances and recording of Die Zauberflöte with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra. Also released: The Mozart Album featuring Deutsche Grammophon’s star singers

2007

Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos with Carmignola and the Orchestra Mozart in Italy; with the Festival Orchestra in Lucerne and at the BBC Proms. Releases include Schumann’s Cello Concerto (Gutman) and Brahms’s Serenade no. 1 with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra; highlights from Die Zauberflöte; and the re-release on DVD of Peter and the Wolf and the 1991 New Year’s Concert with the Vienna Philharmonic

2008

Beethoven’s Fidelio with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra; Ravel, Debussy, Berlioz, Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky and Rachmaninov with the Lucerne Festival Orchestra. DG celebrates Claudio Abbado’s 75th birthday with numerous releases: Beethoven’s Nine Symphonies (based on Rome recordings February 2001); Mozart’s Violin Concertos (Carmignola) and the Sinfonia concertante, and Symphonies nos. 29, 33, 35, 38 and 41 with the Orchestra Mozart; a compilation of Marches and Dances; Beethoven’s Piano Concertos with Pollini and the Berliner Philharmoniker; on DVD: Abbado in Concert

2009

Conducts the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela in Caracas; the Orchestra Mozart and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra in Italy; the Berliner Philharmoniker with a Schubert, Mahler and Debussy programme; the Lucerne Festival Orchestra in Mahler’s Symphonies nos. 1 and 4, and with Yuja Wang performing Prokofiev’s Third Piano Concerto and Magdalena Koženà singing Mahler’s Rückert-Lieder at the Lucerne Festival; in September he leads the Festival Orchestra in Beijing. Audio releases include Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater, Salve Regina and Violin Concerto with Giuliano Carmignola and the Orchestra Mozart in celebration of Pergolesi Year 2010 and the re-release of Haydn’s 7 “London” Symphonies with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe to celebrate the composer’s 200th anniversary: on DVD: A Russian Night from the 2008 Lucerne Festival with Hélène Grimaud playing Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto no. 2, Stravinsky’s Firebird, and Tchaikovsky’s The Tempest

2010

Beethoven’s Fidelio (concert performances and live recording) at the Lucerne Festival; also at the festival Mahler 9 with the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, followed by performances in Madrid and Paris;concerts with the Berliner Philharmoniker in Berlin, the Simón Bolívar Orchestra in Lucerne (with soprano Anna Prohaska), the Mahler Chamber Orchestra in Ferrara and Reggio Emilia, including performances of Rachmaninov piano concertos with Yuja Wang; the Orchestra Mozart in Rome, Bologna, Ferrara and other Italian cities, including performances of Mozart and Bach Violin Concertos with Giuliano Carmignola. This year’s releases include two further albums of Pergolesi’s sacred works with soloists, the Orchestra Mozart and the Italian Swiss Radio Chorus

2011

This year’s plans include concerts with the Berliner Philharmoniker (with Maurizio Pollini and Anna Prohaska), the Lucerne Festival Orchestra (with Hélène Grimaud), the Mahler Chamber Orchestra and the Orchestra Mozart. Audio releases to include Rachmaninov’s Second Piano Concerto and Paganini Rhapsody with Yuja Wang and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra; with the Orchestra Mozart, Bach’s Six Brandenburg Concertos, two albums of Mozart wind concertos, and Mozart Piano Concertos nos. 19 and 23 plus concert arias with Hélène Grimaud and Mojca Erdmann. The 2010 recording of Fidelio from Lucerne with Jonas Kaufmann is scheduled for release on Decca Classics in summer