Claudio Abbado in 1982 (Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons)
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Judging from the notes in my diary, I was spending most of my working days late August and early September in Kenton, doing stuff for Laurie Krieger’s various enterprises, about which I have written a little elsewhere on Ogblog and no doubt will write more in the fulness of time.
As luck would have it, I was asked to return to the office that Thursday afternoon for the rest of the week. Luck, because Jilly, whom I had arranged to meet that evening, got a sudden compulsion to leg it over to the Royal Albert Hall to see the prom that night, as Claudio Abbado was to conduct the London Symphony Orchestra.
It’s Claudio Abbado. he’s the greatest. We’ve got to see him. We might never get another chance…
I was less sure than Jilly about this at the time. She was a budding music student of course, whereas I was still on the low foothills of appreciating classical music.
But I had heard of both pieces to be performed that night – here’s the BBC stub for that “show”:
- Ludwig van Beethoven, Piano Concerto No 5 in E flat major, ‘Emperor’
- Hector Berlioz, Symphonie fantastique.
Indeed, I even owned a recording of the Fantastique.
I remember queuing for quite a long time. I don’t remember whether we enjoyed this concert from the arena or the gallery. My guess is that it was the gallery as I don’t think we could have got there early enough to get in to the arena, but perhaps in those days “after work arrival” was good enough for the arena.
Of course it was very good indeed. Of course Jilly was right – I can now always say that I saw Claudio Abbado conduct.
Feeling envious that you didn’t hear the concert? Wondering whether you remember what orchestras and soloists (Emmanuel Ax on the piano for the Emperor Concerto) sounded like live under Abbado?
Fret no more. A website named pastdaily.com uploaded the recording of this concert as a tribute when Abbado died in 2014. Embedded below.
Thank you Jilly and thank you Past Daily.