Italian conductor
Music Director at the Vienna State Opera (1986-1991).
Has recorded all of Beethovens Overtures with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.
Italian-born conductor, best known for his work as Music Director for La Scala (1971 - 1986), then Music Director of Vienna Philharmonic (since 1971) and Vienna State Opera (1986 - 1991), London Symphony Orchestra (LSO, 1979 - 1987), and Berlin Philharmonic (1989 - 2002, and 2004 - present).
Fathered a son, named Mikhael (born in 1991), with Russian violinist Viktoria Mullova , who was 30 years younger when she worked and lived with Abbado in London and in his Vienna penthouse for 5 years. Abbado left Mullova when she was on the 7th month of her pregnancy. Abbado pays maintenance for his son.
Music Director of La Scala Opera House in Milan, Italy (1968-1986).
One of the most renowned conductors in contemporary music, his fame is also due to a rich discography. He is considered by some to be one of the greatest interpreters of German Romantic composers, as he recorded the complete cycle of the symphonies of Beethoven (twice), Mahler (twice), Mendhelssohn,Schubert, Brahms, Bruckner...all for the prestigious Deutsche Grammophone label. In his youth his work was more focused on the field of contemporary music (Hindemith, Schoenberg, Prokofiev) and the Opera (Verdi and Rossini mainly).
In 2000 was diagnosed with stomach cancer and later had surgery to remove a portion of his digestive system.
Fathered a son, named Mikhael (born in 1991), with Russian violinist Viktoria Mullova.
Brother of composer Marcello Abbado.
As a child during WWII, he scrawled "Viva Bartok" on a public wall; the contemporary Hungarian composer was one of his musical idols. During the war, graffiti was often used in Italy for political expression. The authorities saw the foreign name and assumed Bartk was an anti-Fascist activist. They came to Abbados house, wanting to know who this fellow Bartok was. Abbado showed them a musical score by Bartok, and they left.
I never made politics. Unless you consider culture as politics: I think,we must sustain modernity. And, simply, I tried to open the doors of,the theaters to anyone, not only in Milan. We cut the prices for the,students, then I conducted La Scala Orchestra in the factories. And in,Reggio Emilia, at the "Musica e Realt" festival, we arranged meeting,opened to anyone during the performance. There was people that not,only, never listened to the music of Luigi Nono before, but neither the,music of Beethoven.
Musical history does not end with Puccini.
A conductor must consider himself first and foremost a musician. The,whole idea of the conductor as some sort of god or dictator is absurd -,especially as the age of the autocrat is now finished. [in an interview,with The Scotsman newspaper].
