Deborah York (soprano) & Stella Doufexis (mezzo-soprano)
Berliner Philharmoniker, Claudio Abbado
Berliner Philharmoniker · BPHR160081 · 95 minutes
There’s something almost unbearably tender about hearing Abbado close out his time with the Berliners on Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, music so full of lightness and mischief from a conductor everyone knew was running out of time. Deborah York and Stella Doufexis bring exactly the right silvery charm to their movements, never overplaying the poignancy that the occasion itself already carries. What gets me most is how unsentimental the playing actually is — Abbado never asks the orchestra to mourn in advance, and that restraint is what makes the whole thing land so hard.
Awards:
- International Classical Music Awards — 2017 — Winner – Symphonic
“The bonus documentary on Claudio Abbado’s first year with the Berlin Philharmonic is full of insights…[the last concert] gave the [Berliners] a chance to show in Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s…”
— BBC Music Magazine
Isabelle Faust (violin)
Orchestra Mozart, Claudio Abbado
Harmonia Mundi · HMC902105 · 68 minutes
Pairing the Beethoven with the Berg is a smart move, because you get to hear two completely different ideas of what a violin concerto can be, separated by a century but somehow speaking to each other about grief, memory, and consolation. Isabelle Faust plays the Beethoven with a lean, chamber-music sensibility that strips away decades of Romantic gloss, and then brings that same clarity to the Berg so its aching dissonances feel inevitable rather than shocking. Abbado’s Orchestra Mozart matches her stride for stride, especially in how they shade the transition from Berg’s anguish into that Bach chorale — it’s one of those moments where you just have to stop what you’re doing and listen.
Awards:
- Presto Recording of the Week — 13th February 2012
- Building a Library — October 2015 — First Choice
- BBC Music Magazine Awards — 2013 — Orchestral Finalist
- BBC Music Magazine — April 2012 — Disc of the month
“listening to these wonderful performances side by side is cathartic…The journey is vividly delineated from the outset of the Berg. With Abbado drawing sonorities from his first-rate orchestra,…”
— BBC Music Magazine
Lucerne Festival Orchestra, Claudio Abbado
Deutsche Grammophon · 4793441 · 63 minutes
Bruckner never finished this symphony, and there’s something almost unbearably fitting about hearing it as one of Abbado’s final recordings too — the Adagio in particular feels like a man staring straight at eternity without blinking. The Lucerne players, many of whom adored him deeply, give him a sound that’s translucent rather than monumental, letting the harmonic collisions in that last movement cut through with real pain instead of just weight. It swept the Gramophone Award for a reason: this is Bruckner stripped of bombast, left raw and searching.
Awards:
- Presto Recording of the Week — 7th July 2014
- BBC Music Magazine Awards — 2015 — Orchestral Award Winner
- BBC Music Magazine Awards — 2015 — Orchestral Finalist
- Gramophone Awards — 2015 — Recording of the Year
“Abbado in Lucerne radiates clarity, wisdom and vision, qualities that over the years one had come to expect of him.”
— Gramophone Magazine
Martha Argerich (piano)
Orchestra Mozart, Claudio Abbado
Deutsche Grammophon · 4791033 · 61 minutes
There’s something almost electric about hearing Argerich take on the D minor Concerto, because she’s never been an artist to smooth over Mozart’s darker edges — she leans right into that stormy, operatic drama rather than treating it as polite eighteenth-century wallpaper. Abbado and the Orchestra Mozart clearly know exactly how to breathe with her too, which makes sense given how many years they spent making music together by this point, and you can hear that trust in every phrase. It’s a pairing that reminds you Mozart wrote real psychological weight into these concertos, not just elegant surface charm.
Awards:
- BBC Music Magazine — April 2014 — Disc of the month
- Gramophone Magazine — March 2014 — Editor’s Choice
- Presto Recordings of the Year — Finalist 2014
- Building A Library — January 2022 — Recommended Recording – K466
“Thi is a really fine performance [of K503], with impeccably judged tempos in all three movements, and great playing from the Orchestra Mozart…[in the D minor Concerto] Argerich’s playing is…”
— BBC Music Magazine
Claudio Abbado (piano/conductor); Orchestra d’archi di Milano, Orchestra dell’Angelicum di Milano, Michelangelo Abbado, Alberto Zedda
Warner Classics · 9029541647 · 70 minutes
There’s something almost startling about hearing Abbado this young, before the podium presence and the decades of Mahler and Verdi that would define him — you get a conductor still figuring out what he wants to say, and the searching quality is genuinely moving. His father Michelangelo shows up here too, which adds a lovely family thread to the whole thing, like eavesdropping on a musical apprenticeship in real time. Seventy minutes go by fast, and you come away hearing the seeds of everything he became.
Awards:
- International Classical Music Awards — 2019 — Nominee – Historic Recording
Jonas Kaufmann (Florestan), Nina Stemme (Leonore), Falk Struckmann (Pizarro), Christof Fischesser (Rocco), Rachel Harnisch (Marzelline), Christoph Strehl (Jaquino), Peter Mattei (Don Fernando)
Lucerne Festival Orchestra & Arnold Schoenberg Chor, Claudio Abbado
Decca · 4782551 · 1 hour 54 minutes
Abbado’s Lucerne Festival Orchestra plays this score like they’ve discovered something new in it, all that inner glow and translucence that reminds you Beethoven wrote symphonies alongside this opera. Kaufmann’s Florestan arrives half-broken and utterly gripping, while Stemme brings a steely warmth to Leonore that never tips into melodrama. It’s the kind of Fidelio that trusts the music’s humanity over its heroics, and Abbado’s touch throughout makes the whole thing feel freshly considered rather than reverently preserved.
Awards:
- Presto Recording of the Week — 20th June 2011
- Gramophone Magazine — September 2011 — Disc of the Month
- Presto Favourites — Recommended Recording
- Gramophone Awards — 2012 — Winner – Opera
“The real star of this performance…is the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, in whose hands the music seems to glow from within. The playing is thrilling throughout, with Claudio Abbado caressing…”
— BBC Music Magazine
Giuliano Carmignola (violin), Ottavio Dantone (harpsichord), Michala Petri (recorder) & Reinhold Friedrich (trumpet)
Orchestra Mozart, Claudio Abbado
Deutsche Grammophon · 4778908 · 91 minutes
Abbado gathered an absurd amount of talent for this one, and you can feel it in every bar — Carmignola’s violin has that effortless, singing quality, Petri makes the recorder sound like the most vital instrument in the room, and the whole Orchestra Mozart plays like they’re genuinely thrilled to be there together. What makes it special isn’t just the star power, though; it’s the sense of conversation between all these brilliant soloists, like they’re feeding off each other’s energy in real time. Bach wrote these as a kind of calling card, showing off every combination of instruments he could dream up, and this group treats that variety as pure delight rather than a technical exercise.
Awards:
- Gramophone Awards — 2011 — Shortlisted – Baroque Instrumental
“The excitement is palpable, reflected in smiling glances between the players, bodies swaying through musical suspensions, a sense of uninhibited joy… The playing is stylish throughout: ornaments…”
— BBC Music Magazine
René Pape (Sarastro), Erika Miklósa (Königin der Nacht), Dorothea Röschmann (Pamina), Christoph Strehl (Tamino), Hanno Müller-Brachmann (Papageno), Julia Kleiter (Papagena), Georg Zeppenfeld (Sprecher), Kurt Azesberger (Monostatos), Caroline Stein (Erste Dame), Heidi Zehnder (Zweite Dame), Anne-Carolyn Schlüter (Dritte Dame), Alexander Lischke (Drei Knaben), Frederic Jost, Niklas Mallmann (Soloists From Tölzer Knabenchor), Danilo Formaggia (Erster Geharnischter Mann), Sascha Borris (Zweiter Geharnischter Mann), Andreas Bauer (Erster Priester), Danilo Formaggia (Zweiter Priester), Tobias Beyer (Dritter Priester), Matthias Bernhold (Drei Sklaven), Martin Olbertz & Tobias Beyer
Mahler Chamber Orchestra & Arnold Schoenberg Chor, Claudio Abbado
Deutsche Grammophon · 4775789 · 2 hours 28 minutes
Abbado brings such lightness and air to this score that you almost forget how strange and ritualistic Die Zauberflöte actually is underneath all that charm. The Mahler Chamber Orchestra plays with chamber-music transparency, so every woodwind line in the Act One finale feels like it’s having its own conversation, and René Pape’s Sarastro has a warmth that never tips into pomposity. Röschmann and Strehl make Pamina and Tamino sound genuinely young and searching rather than just noble, which is rarer than it should be.
Awards:
- Gramophone Awards — 2006 — Finalist
- BBC Music Magazine — June 2006 — Disc of the month
- Record Review — December 2006 — Critics Disc of the Year
- Gramophone Magazine — June 2006 — Editor’s Choice
“This is certainly the most desirable version using modern instruments to appear since Solti’s second recording in 1990. That said, its characteristics are rather nearer William Christie’s 1995…”
— Gramophone Classical Music Guide
