Please call me Claudio…

"I am Claudio - for all" quickly became a much-quoted quote from the maestro. Claudio Abbado empathised with his musicians. What particularly distinguished Claudio Abbado was his unpretentious, noble character, his democratic understanding of music-making and his gift for celebrating the live moment as such, without talking up the aura of a work in rehearsals. The documentary (on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of Claudio Abbado's death) takes a retrospective look at his life, his performances and recordings, gets close to him as a person; and shows what of Abbado still resonates today, even into the younger generation of musicians. Musicians such as Emmanuel Pahud and Albrecht Mayer, Abbado's daughter Alessandra Abbado and critic Kai Luehrs-Kaiser recount their memories of the decisive moment when Claudio Abbado took the stage at the Berlin Philharmonie on 27 January 2001 to conduct the "Missa da Requiem" on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the death of Giuseppe Verdi, Abbado stood at the conductor's podium, emaciated to the bone, and the audience fell into a shocked silence. The documentary follows the work of this great maestro from his work with young musicians, his musical reality, his collaboration with the great orchestras Berliner Philharmoniker and Lucerne Festival Orchestra to his social commitment and the Orchestra Mozart.