Claudio Abbado (1933–2014) R.I.P.

The Italian conductor Claudio Abbado has died at the age of 80. He had been suffering from cancer for a number of years. One of the finest musicians of recent decades, Abbado was equally at home in Mozart, Mahler or Musorgsky, directing consistent benchmark performances, whether live or on disc. I cherished his Viennese DG recording of Pelléas et Mélisande throughout my late teens, I first heard him live conducting a revelatory performance in 2002 of Bartók, Ravel and Debussy with Martha Argerich and the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester – an orchestra founded by Abbado in 1986 – and have recently bowed down to his peerless interpretation of Mahler 9 from the Lucerne Festival and his exemplary conducting of Beethoven and Berg's Violin Concertos with Isabelle Faust. The classical music world has lost one of its most mindful yet instinctive musicians.  

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