Glaudio Abbado

摘要

There was, said Claudio Abbado, a certain sound to snow. It did not come from walking on it. If you stood on a balcony, too, you could hear it. A falling sound, fading away to nothing, pianissimo, like a breath. You could hear it only if you listened to what some supposed was silence. He had learned that skill from his maternal grandfather, an expert in ancient languages. From a baffling alphabet, or a hieroglyph, his grandfather could draw out the hidden music. Together on holidays they would walk near the Matterhorn, the old man not speaking, the boy Claudio knowing that silence was expected. He walked the Alps again in adulthood, this time in the Engadin, specifically to test on the silence the orchestral scores that flowed, perfectly memorised, in his head.