Barenboim was a close friend of Claudio Abbado and joined him on stage at La Scala when Abbado made his comeback in 2012 after a bout of ill health.

The tribute will see the orchestra perform Beethoven’s funeral march from his Symphony No. 3 to an empty house, a tradition dating back to the death of Arturo Toscanini in 1957.

Taking place this coming Monday evening, the performance will be relayed live outside the opera house so that well-wishers may also see it.

In a heartfelt tribute to Abbado written earlier this week, Barenboim said: “We have lost one of the great musicians of the last half-century and one of the few musicians who had a particularly close relation with the spirit of the music, and one that went beyond the boundaries of musical genres.”