Claudio Abbado

When Abbado was in London (96/12/28)

Abbado I was living in London in 1979 when Claudio Abbado became the principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO). As you may know, he is now the principal conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, a successor of late Herbert von Karajan.
The inaugural concert for Abbado as principal conductor was held on Sept. 30, 1979 in London's Royal Festival Hall and I went to listen to it. I was then a member of the LSO club and so I was able to listen to their rehearsal session as well. The program was as below:
"La terre est un homme" was a modern piece of music with lots of cacophony which I didn't appreciate. It was the first performance in London, but well, as with most modern music performances, I could not figure out any musical taste from the piece.
The Piano Concerto was beautiful. At that time, I did not know who Zimerman was although he had won first prize in Chopin Competition back in 1975. However, my first impression was "hmm, this pianist is a hell of a good pianist. I wonder who he is...". So I was able to judge the pianist's quality without a prejudicial information. Thinking back at this, he was only 23 when he gave this wonderful performance - indeed a prodigy.
Among many of the people who sent messages to Abbado (autographed on the program) were conductors such as Bernstein, Bohm, Muti as well as soloists Pollini, Domingo and Carreras. Their musical grounds were quite sound even 20 years ago.
Copyright (c) Jun Honda

Back to front page