Claudio Abbado and the Wiener Philharmoniker

He represents an entire era in the history of the Vienna Philharmonic: between 1965 and 1997 he
conducted 320 concerts and 27 opera performances at the Salzburg Festival. When we include the 173 performances that he gave at the Vienna State Opera, then he conducted us on well over 500 occasions and this figure does not include the many recordings that he made with us. From Bach to Ligeti, from Mozart to Boulez and from Schubert to Rihm – the range of a repertory that focused on Beethoven, Bruckner, Brahms, Mahler and Richard Strauss gives an idea of the extent to which his work with us broadened our horizons.

The seriousness of his engagement with art, to say nothing of his efforts to promote contemporary music and to encourage a younger generation, his unfailing attempts to achieve the very highest standards – Abbado set standards that no one can ignore. The story of our work together is a good example of this, for all that our association appears at first sight to be painfully incomplete. Following his serious illness, we made repeated attempts to invite him back, but in vain, and to that extent our links with him have a tragic aspect to them. But Claudio Abbado graced us with a whole series of wonderful moments by dint of his ability to abandon himself to the music and in that way to allow us to sense his sublimation of the loneliness and tragedy that accompany the lives of many great artists. In this sense the unfinished nature of our relationship is transfigured by the gratitude that accompanies our many memories of him.