ADDIO AL MAESTRO

Today the world of music mourns the conductor Claudio Abbado, who has died in Bologna at the age of 80. You may like to know that his mother, Maria Carmela Savagnone, a piano teacher and children's writer, was from Palermo and the maestro was very proud of being half Sicilian. He is fondly remembered here for bringing the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, of which he was then chief conductor, to Palermo's Teatro Massimo on the occasion of its reopening in 1997, four days before its centenary, after a 23-year closure for renovation work.

Here is Claudio Abbado at the Teatro Massimo in 2002:

G. Verdi - I Vespri Siciliani Overture: Claudio Abbado