/ world today news/ The famous Italian maestro Claudio Abbado canceled the performance of the spectacular Eighth Symphony by Gustav Mahler. This is happening at one of the most prestigious festivals in the world – the Lucerne Festival, which apparently changes its program on the fly.
Instead of Mahler’s monumental Symphony No. 8, the performance of which was announced for August 8, 10 and 11, the conductor Claudio Abbado decided to present another program: Beethoven’s Egmont Overture and Mozart’s Requiem. The change has been officially announced on the Festival’s website and it has caused a wave of outrage among music lovers who have already bought their tickets for the specific events. “I bought three tickets for all three performances, and now it turns out that I spent almost 1,000 francs on an uninteresting program,” complained one of those who wanted to hear Mahler’s Eighth Symphony in Lucerne. “I planned a 12-hour flight from Asia, sacrificing important meetings, and now they’re announcing that I did all this because of Mozart’s Requiem?” – outraged another fan of the symphony, who also bought tickets for all three of its performances… People’s displeasure is obvious and they ask: “Why are we, the concertgoers, so magnanimous? If you ordered a home theater and they brought you a refrigerator, would you treat it with the same understanding?” The official answer from the organizers is that the change was necessary “for artistic reasons”. But the real reason for this, according to many musicians, lies in the health of the 79-year-old conductor Claudio Abbado. And most likely, the maestro felt that he would not be able to carry the weight that the performance of Mahler’s Eighth Symphony, known as the “Symphony of the 1000th”, required. Claudio Abbado is recognized as the greatest of all living conductors, a statement made recently by the BBC Music Magazine based on a recent survey. He is also recognized as one of Mahler’s most sensitive interpreters, as a conductor who, better than anyone else, knows how to delve deeply into the Austrian composer’s scores. Abbado is also a longtime devotee of Mahler’s music, which is another reason why the interest in these concerts in August in Lucerne is so great, and also goes beyond the borders of Europe. Now the audience is divided in its opinions, because after the participation in the festival, the maestro should later conduct in Russia. On September 19, Abbado’s schedule should take him to Moscow, again with the Lucerne Orchestra /this program also foresees the pianist Maria Joao Pires, as a soloist in Mozart’s 17th Piano Concerto and the performance of Bruckner’s Ninth Symphony/, but the fate of that an upcoming music event remains in question. In fact, the decision to change the program of the August festival in Lucerne was most likely announced by Claudio Abbado after the two unfortunate incidents with his older colleagues – 84-year-old Kurt Mazur and Colin Davis /”What dangers hide performances on stage”/. Mazur had to cancel all his engagements until September of this year, as a result of his fall from the stage, and as medical examinations established, the maestro suffered a fracture of his shoulder. Thus, his long-awaited debut in St. Petersburg, announced for May 16, is cancelled. And as for Sir Colin Davies – he also suffered a nasty accident recently, falling at work and only the railing of the conductor’s podium in the Semperoper hall, Dresden, saved him from serious injuries. But do the changes to the 2012 Lucerne Festival line-up cast a real shadow of doubt over Abbado’s health? This is still a question without an official answer.
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