ROME – Claudio Abbado, 80, renowned Orchestra Conductor and Senator has died in Bologna. He was recently nominated Senator for life by Italian President Giorgio Napolitano, and had taken part in parliament. However the Maestro had been in an unstable health situation. According to sources close to Abbado, he had lately expressed concern that he might not be able, due to his health, to maintain his commitment as Senator.

 “The death of Claudio Abbado is reason for great commotion and pain for me personally and of profound grief for Italy and its cultural weight,” said the president, expressing his sorrow. He also stated that the conductor had sustained long-standing health concerns with extraordinary force.

 The media and musical world defines his death as an end of an era. The musical director is considered one of the “giants” of the musical podium and was a “genuine hero for music lovers.” Stomach cancer discovered in 2000 had left him lean but it didn't affect his music, rather it made it deeper. It was few years ago, after a section of his digestive system was eliminated that he told Sir Simon Rattle, his successor at the Berlin Philharmonic, “My illness was terrible, but the results have not been all bad: I feel that somehow I hear from the inside of my body, as if the loss of my stomach gave me internal ears. I cannot express how wonderful that feels.”

 Abbado was devoted to the instruction of young musicians and conductors and also founded a school in Lucerne, Switzerland. In his native city, Milan, Abbado made his debut in 1960 at “La Scala,” one of the major Italian Theatres. The orchestra director had taken part as a principal guest conductor in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, at the Vienna State Opera, the Berlin Philharmonic, and the London Symphony Orchestra. The abilities that most distinguished the Milanese conductor were not only his musical passion and knowledge, but his ability to conduct without scores. On the site of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, where he conducted from 1990 to 2002, they wrote they were mourning “an extraordinary musician and person.”

 The Telegraph defined him as “a man of few words” and it is probably because his words were spoken through his musical interpretations. Furthermore, modern technology allows for music to abide for future generations to hear and Abbado’s interpretations are sure to endure, expressing the words he never spoke.