Mr. Manzoni’s “Atomtod” — a piece performed entirely in the dark — was an early success for Mr. Abbado when he conducted it at the Salzburg Festival in 1965, and he gave premieres and made first recordings of several other modern works. After he was made general music director of the city of Vienna, in 1987, one of his first projects was to establish the Wien Modern festival.

It was a point of pride for Mr. Abbado that he never actively sought the music directorship of any orchestra. But directorships came his way anyway.

In 1980, it was widely reported that the Chicago Symphony had tapped him to succeed Georg Solti in 1982. It didn’t happen that way; Solti remained on the podium for several more years. But in 1982 Mr. Abbado was named principal guest conductor in Chicago, a post he held until 1985.

In 1989 he was again the favored candidate of a top American orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, where he had been an assistant conductor early in his career. Just when negotiations reached the point where Mr. Abbado was reported to be looking for an apartment in Manhattan, the Berlin Philharmonic named him to succeed Herbert von Karajan as its music director. He held that position until 2002.

In interviews, Mr. Abbado was often guarded and succinct. But he had strong opinions on many subjects, and when he felt comfortable he would discuss them with the same incisiveness that he brought to his music making. About the relationship between politics and art, for example, he told a Times interviewer:

“In life every man has to take a position. When people say, ‘Oh, he is a musician, why should he talk about politics?’ this is stupid. I did a concert against fascism in Italy at La Scala. It was at the time of the election, and the fascists were very strong. In Italy, the opposition to fascism is communism, but it is not like it is in America.