Claudio Abbado's death marks the end of an era His serious brush with stomach cancer in 2000 - and the removal of half his digestive system - left him gaunt and of reduced physical stature, but when he returned to work, his interpretations had gained in spiritual depth. In recent years, most of his performances had an memorably intense luminosity, making the last period of his career unquestionably an Indian Summer in which several facets of his art came together as never before. In Abbado's hands, even the biggest works acquired a sense of intimacy, but then with him everything was about listening intently. The musical silences in Bruckner and Mahler have seldom sounded more searing. A few years ago he told Sir Simon Rattle, his successor at the Berlin Philharmonic, "My illness was terrible, but the results have not been all bad: I feel that somehow I hear from the inside of my body, as if the loss of my stomach gave me internal ears. I cannot express how wonderful that feels. REVIEW: Bruckner: Symphony No 1 Lucerne Festival Orchestra, cond. Claudio Abbado, review It was typical of Abbado that he should have bowed out quietly: he was a man of very few words. He never gave speeches and disliked talking unnecessarily in rehearsal. Few great artists were so famously uncommunicative - indeed, arranging an interview with Abbado was likened to getting a papal audience. There is no reason why great artists should be good conversationalists - surely music's point is that it says things and touches emotions words cannot - but most bring lively opinions to discussion of their work, and a few offer profound insight. Not Abbado, who let music do the talking for him. In interview he was charming - in a quiet way he was as charismatic in private as he was on the podium - yet hard to read: if you asked him why he had devoted most of his career to a particular composer the reply might be "Because he's great," accompanied by a disarming grin or shrug. A more contentious question would make him change the subject to football or look absent-mindedly out of the window. OBITUARY: Claudio Abbado It was not only journalists who were frustrated by this diffidence. The recording executives, managers and promoters who used regularly to beat a path to his door also found him hard to pin down, but then Abbado was an enigma, a shy man who was one of the most powerful communicators in music. When he inherited the chief conductorship of the Berlin Philharmonic from Herbert von Karajan in 1989, he held what was probably the top job in music. He had also won many other of the musical world's trophies, yet remained the opposite of the dictatorial bighead that top-flight maestros are supposed to be. Abbado was never a man for limitations. When he didn't get his way, he either stood his ground impassively and won, or he quit, leaving those spoiling for a fight deflated. That was the case in 1991 when he left the Vienna Staatsoper, playing the politics of passive aggression after differences of opinion with the management. His decision to give up the Berlin Philharmonic was also unprecedented, given that Karajan had regarded the post as a job for life and stayed for 34 years until shortly before his death. But perhaps it was Abbado's ability to always do things his way that gave us some of the greatest musical performances of our day.