Maestro: Abbado conducts the Lucerne Festival Orchestra
In my hot youth, to borrow from Byron, the palm (or should it be baton?) for the title of most legendary living conductor undoubtedly belonged to Sergiu Celibidache. The Romanian had given up the job of principal conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic in 1952, never recorded, rarely performed, demanded immense rehearsal time, increasingly adopted strikingly slow tempi, and was famous for cancelling at the last minute. The only time I ever saw him conduct he appeared, appropriately, with that other legendary recluse and last-minute canceller, the Italian pianist Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli.
When Celibidache died in 1996, the legend’s baton passed to Carlos Kleiber, a conductor who increasingly could not bring himself to conduct at all, but whose occasional performances, latterly more often in the opera house than the concert hall, are held as peaks of musical experience by those fortunate enough to have attended. Consider this anecdote, told to me by Simon Rattle. He was in a Kleiber rehearsal in London in the 1980s when Bernard Haitink turned to him and said: “I feel as though my studies of the art of conducting have only just begun.”
Kleiber, who would have been 80 this year and whose recordings (many recently reissued) are some of the few essentials in any collection, died in 2004. Since then, no one has worn the crown in the same unchallenged way; the closest thing we have is surely Claudio Abbado, now 77, both in terms of his infrequent performances and legendary status. In 2002 he gave up the chief conductor’s post in Berlin on health grounds; soon after, he was treated for stomach cancer, and almost overnight he turned from an unusually youthful man into a distressingly frail one. On his return, he cut back his schedule to a tiny handful of dates which draw audiences from around the globe.
For the past few years, Abbado has focused his energies on two projects. One is the Orchestra Mozart, based in Bologna, where he has two concerts scheduled in November. The other is the Lucerne Festival Orchestra (founded by Toscanini in 1938), which he revived in 2003 after a decade-long hiatus and conducts each August in Switzerland. This year he also takes that orchestra on tour for a single date in Paris and two in Madrid.
This summer I attended the last of Abbado’s four Lucerne concerts, a performance of Mahler’s 9th symphony. I have been to many Abbado concerts, starting in 1966 with one in Leeds Town Hall with the Hallé Orchestra and Martha Argerich as soloist. When I heard the Lucerne Festival Orchestra’s Mahler’s 3rd, conducted by Abbado, at the 2007 Proms, it felt quite simply as if it was the best concert I had ever been to, by anyone. But this summer’s Mahler’s 9th was even more extraordinary.
The 9th is a more complete work than the 3rd, which partly explains this impression. So, in part, does the Lucerne orchestra, dotted with principals from some of Europe’s most distinguished orchestras, as well as soloists such as cellist Natalia Gutman and clarinettist Sabine Meyer. So, of course, does Abbado’s illness, which echoes Mahler’s own health travails before he wrote the symphony in the summer of 1909.
The main reason, though, was not just the superlative musicianship, but the clarity with which Abbado seemed to resolve the inner tensions of the final slow movement. Starting with an unforgettable Otto Klemperer 9th in the 1960s, I have heard implacable last movements, tragic ones, sentimental ones, enigmatic ones and unresolved ones. All these are possible because they are all strands in Mahler’s imagination. Sometimes, it should also be added, Abbado’s music making has an enigmatic side too, reflecting his well-defended personality.
What Abbado did on this occasion, however, was to give all these strands their place but finally to allow the symphony to come to rest as a reconciled statement about the relationship of life and death. Anyone who has studied Mahler’s life in 1909 will know that this is as it should be and that the 9th is not a dirge. As the music dissolved slowly into nothingness, Abbado held the hall in complete silence for around two minutes before the first almost apologetic but intense applause emerged.
Abbado is likely to bring this peerless orchestra to London in autumn 2011 for two concerts in the Festival Hall. One programme is likely to contain Bruckner’s 5th symphony; the other possibly Brahms, an essential Abbado composer. It was hoped they would include Mahler’s Lied von der Erde, with Jonas Kaufmann singing. Sadly, he is unavailable and Abbado is unwilling to perform the work without him—quite a tribute. To hear Abbado’s Mahler you must travel abroad, but on the basis of this summer in Switzerland, it will be worth every penny.
In my hot youth, to borrow from Byron, the palm (or should it be baton?) for the title of most legendary living conductor undoubtedly belonged to Sergiu Celibidache. The Romanian had given up the job of principal conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic in 1952, never recorded, rarely performed, demanded immense rehearsal time, increasingly adopted strikingly slow tempi, and was famous for cancelling at the last minute. The only time I ever saw him conduct he appeared, appropriately, with that other legendary recluse and last-minute canceller, the Italian pianist Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli.
When Celibidache died in 1996, the legend’s baton passed to Carlos Kleiber, a conductor who increasingly could not bring himself to conduct at all, but whose occasional performances, latterly more often in the opera house than the concert hall, are held as peaks of musical experience by those fortunate enough to have attended. Consider this anecdote, told to me by Simon Rattle. He was in a Kleiber rehearsal in London in the 1980s when Bernard Haitink turned to him and said: “I feel as though my studies of the art of conducting have only just begun.”
Kleiber, who would have been 80 this year and whose recordings (many recently reissued) are some of the few essentials in any collection, died in 2004. Since then, no one has worn the crown in the same unchallenged way; the closest thing we have is surely Claudio Abbado, now 77, both in terms of his infrequent performances and legendary status. In 2002 he gave up the chief conductor’s post in Berlin on health grounds; soon after, he was treated for stomach cancer, and almost overnight he turned from an unusually youthful man into a distressingly frail one. On his return, he cut back his schedule to a tiny handful of dates which draw audiences from around the globe.
For the past few years, Abbado has focused his energies on two projects. One is the Orchestra Mozart, based in Bologna, where he has two concerts scheduled in November. The other is the Lucerne Festival Orchestra (founded by Toscanini in 1938), which he revived in 2003 after a decade-long hiatus and conducts each August in Switzerland. This year he also takes that orchestra on tour for a single date in Paris and two in Madrid.
This summer I attended the last of Abbado’s four Lucerne concerts, a performance of Mahler’s 9th symphony. I have been to many Abbado concerts, starting in 1966 with one in Leeds Town Hall with the Hallé Orchestra and Martha Argerich as soloist. When I heard the Lucerne Festival Orchestra’s Mahler’s 3rd, conducted by Abbado, at the 2007 Proms, it felt quite simply as if it was the best concert I had ever been to, by anyone. But this summer’s Mahler’s 9th was even more extraordinary.
The 9th is a more complete work than the 3rd, which partly explains this impression. So, in part, does the Lucerne orchestra, dotted with principals from some of Europe’s most distinguished orchestras, as well as soloists such as cellist Natalia Gutman and clarinettist Sabine Meyer. So, of course, does Abbado’s illness, which echoes Mahler’s own health travails before he wrote the symphony in the summer of 1909.
The main reason, though, was not just the superlative musicianship, but the clarity with which Abbado seemed to resolve the inner tensions of the final slow movement. Starting with an unforgettable Otto Klemperer 9th in the 1960s, I have heard implacable last movements, tragic ones, sentimental ones, enigmatic ones and unresolved ones. All these are possible because they are all strands in Mahler’s imagination. Sometimes, it should also be added, Abbado’s music making has an enigmatic side too, reflecting his well-defended personality.
What Abbado did on this occasion, however, was to give all these strands their place but finally to allow the symphony to come to rest as a reconciled statement about the relationship of life and death. Anyone who has studied Mahler’s life in 1909 will know that this is as it should be and that the 9th is not a dirge. As the music dissolved slowly into nothingness, Abbado held the hall in complete silence for around two minutes before the first almost apologetic but intense applause emerged.
Abbado is likely to bring this peerless orchestra to London in autumn 2011 for two concerts in the Festival Hall. One programme is likely to contain Bruckner’s 5th symphony; the other possibly Brahms, an essential Abbado composer. It was hoped they would include Mahler’s Lied von der Erde, with Jonas Kaufmann singing. Sadly, he is unavailable and Abbado is unwilling to perform the work without him—quite a tribute. To hear Abbado’s Mahler you must travel abroad, but on the basis of this summer in Switzerland, it will be worth every penny.
