School of Rock
Random article All articles A–Z
2 languages

Riccardo Chailly

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Riccardo Chailly is an Italian conductor, born on 20 February 1953 in Milan. He comes from a musical family. His father Luciano was a composer and administrator, among other things music director of La Scala. Riccardo studied composition with his father and at the conservatoires of Milan and Perugia, but then chose conducting, under Piero Guarino and Franco Ferrara. In his youth he also played drums in a free jazz group. From 1973 he was assistant to Claudio Abbado at La Scala, where he made his debut in 1978 with Massenet's Werther.

Music and breakthrough

He was chief conductor of the Radio-Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, of the Teatro Comunale in Bologna, of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra from 1988 to 2004 and of the Gewandhaus Orchestra from 2005 to 2016. He is now music director of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra and of La Scala. With the Concertgebouw Orchestra he played the standard works, in particular of Bruckner and Mahler, and greatly extended the small twentieth-century repertoire.

Influence

For thirty years he recorded exclusively for Decca. His recordings from the 1980s show his breadth: operas such as Il turco in Italia and Andrea Chénier, Carmina Burana in 1984, works by Prokofiev and Stravinsky, and Rossini's Guillaume Tell. He showed that a conductor who performs both old and new music can renew an orchestra.

Listening

Listening tip. Listen to his 1984 recording of Carmina Burana and notice the opening, where choir and orchestra begin with an enormous crash. Do you hear how the rhythms keep coming back?

Discography

Studio albums

Categories: Artists