Goodbye, Claudio Abbado. You helped us glimpse eternity

Fellini’s credo ‘the visionary is the only true realist’ could also be applied to the life of Claudio Abbado, who died earlier this week in Bologna at the age of 80. It would be wrong to think of Abbado as a dreamer, for conducting at the angelic heights to which he ascended is a matter of serious thought, but he had the gift, rarer than is commonly supposed, of liberating musicians. Being liberated, they gave performances of such beauty and emotional power that those who heard them will consider their lives enriched; in many cases transformed. Milan-born, Abbado grew up musically in Vienna, where he studied with Hans Swarowsky, and where, three decades later, he became music director of the State Opera before his appointment as the city’s director of music, a kind of honorary knighthood. By then he had also held principal posts at La Scala, the celebrated opera house in his native city, and the London Symphony Orchestra.