On Sunday, 6 April 2014, LUCERNE FESTIVAL will give a special memorial concert for Claudio Abbado, the founder and artistic director of the LUCERNE FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA. Abbado died on 20 January 2014. This “orchestra of friends,” as Claudio Abbado affectionately called his orchestra, convened inLucerne every year to participate in the Summer Festival’s opening week. To honor its late artistic director, these musicians will now gather together for LUCERNE FESTIVAL at Easter for a uniquememorial concert dedicated to Claudio Abbado. The concert will be led by Andris Nelsons, who will also conduct the LUCERNE FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA’s four concerts in the summer of 2014. As a deeply personal dedication to Claudio Abbado, the musicians of the LUCERNE FESTIVALORCHESTRA will perform the first movement from Franz Schubert’s Symphony No. 7 (Unfinished)without a conductor. It was this symphony that Claudio Abbado conducted in Lucerne during hisunforgettable final concert on 26 August 2013. On 6April Isabelle Faust will perform the solo part in Alban Berg’s Violin Concerto (which the composer dedicated “to the memory of an angel”).
The concert begins at 16.00.
The entire program is as follows:

Franz Schubert
(1797–1828)
from Symphony No. 7 in B minor, D. 759 Unfinished· Allegro moderato

Alban Berg
(1885–1935)
Violin Concerto (To the memory of an angel)

Gustav Mahler
(1860–1911)
from Symphony No. 3 in D minor· Finale: Langsam. Ruhevoll. Empfunden