Brahms, Schönberg, Beethoven – Claudio Abbado, Mihoko Fujimura & Lucerne Festival Orchestra

The Last Video Recording of Claudio Abbado

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
Tragic Overture, Op. 81

Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951)
Orchestral Interlude and “Song of the Wood Dove” from Gurre-Lieder

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
Symphony No. 3 in E flat major, Op. 55, Eroica

Lucerne Festival Orchestra
Claudio Abbado
Mihoko Fujimura (Alto)

With his very own “mysterious seductive power and legendary elegance” (Le Monde), Claudio Abbado opened for the last time the LUCERNE FESTIVAL in the summer of 2013. Only a few months later, the world had to bid farewell to a monumental artist, humanist, great conductor and orchestra founder. Even in the concert itself, documented here, lived a moment of farewell, as the three great works performed tell of the transience of life.

The centerpiece of the Eroica is the funeral march revealing “abysses of shattering dimension” – an “intense experience” (Neue Zürcher Zeitung). This record, the last audio-visual documentation of his work, captures once again the extraordinary atmosphere of “vibrant emotionality” that always emerged when Abbado created music with his “orchestra of friends”.

“…the concert itself is undoubtedly a precious document.” – Gramophone Magazine

“Most memorable, perhaps, is the Eroica Symphony, with all four movements more spacious than on any of Abbado’s previous recordings of the piece.” – BBC Music Magazine