For December, 2018, the CD of the Month features conductor Claudio Abbado.
Abbado’s long association with the Wiener Philharmoniker began when he first conducted the orchestra at Herbert von Karajan’s invitation in 1965. The orchestra was so impressed by what the young music director from La Scala achieved that they immediately invited him to conduct one of their subscription concerts in the season after next in the city’s Musikverein.
The program included Schubert’s “Unfinished” and Fifth Symphonies. Austrian Radio recorded the concert on the morning of Monday, 31 May 1971, but the recording lay untouched in the corporation’s archives until now.
Now, nearly fifty years later, this recording allows us to rediscover the maestro as we would rediscover a Vermeer painting with every fresh viewing.
Here is the Symphony #5 by Franz Schubert, conducted by Claudio Abbado:
