Claudio himself is known for having a famous anecdote about how when he was just eleven years old he wrote "Viva Bartók" on a local wall which caught the attention of the Gestapo and sent them on the hunt for the culprit.

[4] During his youth his musical interest developed, attending performances at La Scala[3] as well as orchestral rehearsals in Milan led by such conductors as Arturo Toscanini and Wilhelm Furtwängler.

[2] The following year, he studied conducting with Hans Swarowsky at the Vienna Academy of Music,[11] on the recommendation of Zubin Mehta.

[11] Abbado and Mehta both joined the academy chorus to be able to watch such conductors as Bruno Walter and Herbert von Karajan in rehearsal.

[2] That summer, he won the international Serge Koussevitzky Competition for conductors[11] at the Tanglewood Music Festival,[2][12] which resulted in a number of operatic conducting engagements in Italy.

[3] During his tenure, he extended the opera season to four months, and focused on giving inexpensive performances for the working class and students.

He began to work more extensively with the Vienna Philharmonic (VPO) after 1971,[18] which included two engagements as conductor of the orchestra's New Year's Day concert, in 1988 and 1991.

[16][22] During his Berlin tenure, Abbado oversaw an increased presence of contemporary music in the orchestra's programming, in contrast to Karajan who had focused on late Romantic works.

Subsequent medical treatment led to the removal of a portion of his digestive system,[13] and he cancelled his conducting activities for 3 months in 2001.

[27] In 2004, Abbado returned to conduct the Berlin Philharmonic for the first time since his departure as chief conductor, for concerts of Mahler's Symphony No.

[30] In addition to his work with long-established ensembles, Abbado founded a number of new orchestras with younger musicians at their core.

Abbado worked with both these ensembles regularly as well and was artistic advisor to the COE, though he did not hold a formal title with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra.

One week later, in tribute to him, the orchestra "Filarmonica della Scala", conducted by Daniel Barenboim, performed the slow movement of Beethoven's Symphony No.

3 (Marcia funebre: Adagio assai in C minor) to an empty theatre, with the performance relayed to a crowd in the square in front of the opera house and live-streamed via La Scala's website.

[35] Abbado's mortal remains were cremated and an urn with a part of his ashes was buried at the cemetery of the 15th-century chapel of Fex-Crasta in the Val Fex.

A planned Eighth in Lucerne (the intended culmination of his traversal of the symphonies there) had to be cancelled owing to his ill health.

for his interpretations of modern works by composers such as Arnold Schoenberg, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Giacomo Manzoni, Luigi Nono, Bruno Maderna, György Ligeti, Giovanni Sollima, Roberto Carnevale, Franco Donatoni and George Benjamin.

[19] Clive Gillinson characterised Abbado's style as follows: "...he basically doesn't say anything in rehearsals, and speaks so quietly, because he's so shy, so people can get bored.

"[14] In performance, Abbado often conducted from memory,[43] as he himself noted: "...it is indispensable to know the score perfectly and be familiar with the life, the works and the entire era of the composer.

"[19] Abbado recorded extensively for a variety of labels, including Decca, Deutsche Grammophon, Columbia (later Sony Classical), and EMI.

[44] Abbado received the 1997 Grammy Award in the Best Small Ensemble Performance (with or without conductor) category for "Hindemith: Kammermusik No.

1" and the 2005 Grammy Award in the Best Instrumental Soloist(s) Performance (with Orchestra) category for "Beethoven: Piano Concertos Nos.

In 2012, Abbado was voted into the Gramophone Hall of Fame that April, and in May, he received the conductor prize at the Royal Philharmonic Society Music Awards.