Caro Claudio Abbado, Who Died Today - Five Years Ago

Claudio Abbado's recorded legacy is already undergoing a more critical reception than it had been during his last decades and immediately since his death. The fawning subsides and even in polite society one can point out that he was capable not only of some truly thrilling peaks of interpretation but also of braod swaths of boredom. But on his fifth deathiversary, let's celebrate the good and the great and the marvellous by poiting back to this remembrance of George A. Pieler's and mine for Forbes.com:

The 13 Best Recordings of Claudio Abbado: A Remembrance

...and this portrait of Abbado's I made for the lovely but now defunct European edition of Auditorium Magazine.

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