In the year of Abbado’s 80th birthday (26. June), this album celebrates a true legend of the world of classical music. Claudio Abbado’s interpretation of the Second Symphony is his first recording of a Schumann symphony for DG. The noble “Genoveva” and stirring “Manfred” overtures are exalted additions to this album. About his Second as performed at the Lucerne Easter Festival, the Neue Zürcher Zeitung extolled Abbado’s reading as of “the purest beauty”, while Berlin’s Der Tagesspiegel found Abbado’s way with the symphony “liberating”.