L'Inachevée achevée...

In the summer of 2013, Claudio Abbado's last concert at the Lucerne Culture and Convention Center (KKL) left a lasting impression on the public, who felt privileged to experience this legendary conductor's final collaboration with "his" Festival Orchestra in the performance of Bruckner's Ninth Symphony. He was renowned for knowing and appreciating each member individually; indeed, at his request, musicians were asked to call him by his first name. In this way, everyone felt personally inspired by the intense, demanding work of "Claudio", who, despite his frail health, gave of himself unstintingly. The very choice of this symphony unfinished is poignant, as if he were trying to postpone the inevitable death of his beloved chef, who died of cancer a few months later...

The purpose of this article, for once relating to a "historical" recording, is to point out to readers of the Musical review the recent release by Accentus of this vitally important double CD. The sound quality is faithful to the acoustics of the KKL, and one feels the audience held in deep respect. The two recordings - of the Ninth Symphony in 2013 and of the First the year before, in Abbado's preferred version from Vienna, composed in 1890-91 - will forever remain examples of sobriety, fervor and inner conviction.

The excellent, beautifully illustrated booklet is highly evocative of the event, and Julia Spinola's remarkable text (in three languages), as well as numerous press reviews from the period, underline the unanimity of enthusiasm. What strikes me personally, listening to Abbado towards the end of his life at the helm of Europe's greatest orchestras, is that he lets the music breathe even more freely than before. Bruckner's last symphony, for example, emerges from a telling silence and evolves very gradually, without any banality. Every moment contributes to building the architecture, far from any demonstrative effect. This strength of conviction is omnipresent in the passages cantabileinfinitely flexible and liquid, in the tutti ffor in the famous Brucknerian silences, as if the music were still in the midst of composition...

In the First Symphony, the timpani sound a little buzzing, but the recording remains admirably detailed. In the Ninth, the image is even more spacious - perhaps thanks to the KKL's variable acoustic settings. The suppression of the applause - frenetic, if we look at the photographs in the booklet - is certainly a choice, but it's true that the silence leaves us in Bruckner's dream... Our two CDs would have allowed the inclusion of Schubert's Unfinished, with which Claudio Abbado opened his last concert in Lucerne. But let us instead be grateful for the golden gift that this fine release offers us!

Anton Bruckner: Symphony I & IX. Recorded live 2012/13. Lucerne Festival Orchestra, Claudio Abbado. Accentus Music ACC 30489 (2 CDs)