The second movement's ''Allegretto'' is slowed almost to a funeral march. The opening tempo in Franck's Symphony takes ''Lento'' to its extreme, but it is very effectively done by the Swedish orchestra. The Stuttgart players are pushed to the wall by fast tempos, but there are listeners who will revel in the excitement. Mozart's ''Haffner'' Symphony opts for (and achieves) excitement over all else. The performances here are heavy with import. But 20 for the best professionals? Most great interpreters let performances happen as much as they impose their will on them. His prosperity seems not to have suffered under the Nazis during the war years, but let us move on from that.ĬELIBIDACHE'S frequent requests for 20 rehearsals might have had a ring of authenticity when he was dealing with semicompetent musicians. The Swedish and German players perform on a relatively high level here.Ĭelibidache began conducting at the top, falling more or less into the top post at the Berlin Philharmonic, which he shared with Wilhelm Furtwängler from 1947 to 1952. People still talk of his concerts with the Curtis Institute in the mid-1980's. This was a man who could work wonders with second-class, or young and impressionable, orchestras. Once, a reporter, suspicious of Celibidache's laments and regrets over a 1983 videotaping, went to the program's producers, who made clear that the conductor had meticulously and enthusiastically cooperated with all the retakes and lighting adjustments required. It was not the first time that Celibidachian word and deed had collided.
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The conductor, who died in 1996, once said that hearing electronically a concert that had already happened was like ''sleeping with a picture of Marilyn Monroe.'' Yet these events took place with full knowledge that they would be transcribed and broadcast. The nine CD's in that set and in another, devoted to Mozart and Bruckner, are by the Swedish Radio Symphony and the Stuttgart Radio Symphony: standard repertory pieces from concerts played some 20 to 30 years ago. Conducting offers enticements in that direction, but most practitioners have the sense of when to draw back.Ĭelibidache publicly rejected recorded performances, yet his recorded performances are everywhere. Here was a man of enormous gifts pretty much destroyed by the monstrousness of his ego.
Heap riches of attention on the conductor's throne, and they will gradually descend on composers. At the bottom of the box's back cover in three languages: ''The Celibidache Edition: The Recording Legacy of a Musical Genius.''Ĭlearly this is the trickle-down theory of economics transferred to music. The packaging of a new boxed set from Deutsche Grammophon tells us most of what we need to know: ''Celibidache'' in large letters at the top ''Dvorak, Sibelius, Franck, Hindemith, Richard Strauss, Shostakovich'' in significantly smaller type. And no conductor contradicted loudly stated personal principles with more sublime presumption. He acted like no other musical actor before him.
Then we have the Celibidaches, who cast their heavy spell on the musical public but who, on closer examination, evanesce into negligibility.Ĭelibidache (pronounced cheh-lee-bee-DAH-keh), played the theater of self-effacement to grandiose effect. We have bright young men who make good music and interest musicians but who exhibit the stage presence of gym teachers. The job in this country is famous for its multitasking: upholder of tradition, forger of the future, manager of fractious work forces, stage actor, glad-hander, fund-raiser. WITH so many people talking about what American orchestras should look for in a music director, please note the fortuitous arrival of recorded material from Sergiu Celibidache.
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