Celibidache and the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Modest Mussorgsky, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Label: EMI
Magazine Review Date: 2/1998
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 0
Catalogue Number: 556516-2
Tracks:
| Composition | Artist Credit |
|---|---|
| Romeo and Juliet |
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Composer
Munich Philharmonic Orchestra Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Composer Sergiu Celibidache, Conductor |
| Pictures at an Exhibition |
Modest Mussorgsky, Composer
Modest Mussorgsky, Composer Munich Philharmonic Orchestra Sergiu Celibidache, Conductor |
Composer or Director: Béla Bartók, Ludwig van Beethoven, Maurice Ravel, Franz Schubert, Joseph Haydn, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Richard Wagner, Modest Mussorgsky, Claude Debussy, Robert Schumann, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Label: EMI
Magazine Review Date: 2/1998
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 737
Catalogue Number: 556517-2
Tracks:
| Composition | Artist Credit |
|---|---|
| Symphony No. 103, 'Drumroll' |
Joseph Haydn, Composer
Joseph Haydn, Composer Munich Philharmonic Orchestra Sergiu Celibidache, Conductor |
| Symphony No. 104, 'London' |
Joseph Haydn, Composer
Joseph Haydn, Composer Munich Philharmonic Orchestra Sergiu Celibidache, Conductor |
| Symphony No. 40 |
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Composer
Munich Philharmonic Orchestra Sergiu Celibidache, Conductor Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Composer |
| Symphony No. 92, 'Oxford' |
Joseph Haydn, Composer
Joseph Haydn, Composer Munich Philharmonic Orchestra Sergiu Celibidache, Conductor |
| (La) Mer |
Claude Debussy, Composer
Claude Debussy, Composer Munich Philharmonic Orchestra Sergiu Celibidache, Conductor |
| Images, Movement: Ibéria |
Claude Debussy, Composer
Claude Debussy, Composer Munich Philharmonic Orchestra Sergiu Celibidache, Conductor |
| Symphony No. 4 |
Ludwig van Beethoven, Composer
Ludwig van Beethoven, Composer Munich Philharmonic Orchestra Sergiu Celibidache, Conductor |
| Symphony No. 5 |
Ludwig van Beethoven, Composer
Ludwig van Beethoven, Composer Munich Philharmonic Orchestra Sergiu Celibidache, Conductor |
| Symphony No. 6, 'Pathétique' |
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Composer
Munich Philharmonic Orchestra Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Composer Sergiu Celibidache, Conductor |
| (Die) Meistersinger von Nürnberg, '(The) Masters, Movement: Prelude |
Richard Wagner, Composer
Munich Philharmonic Orchestra Richard Wagner, Composer Sergiu Celibidache, Conductor |
| Parsifal, Movement: Good Friday music (concert version) |
Richard Wagner, Composer
Munich Philharmonic Orchestra Richard Wagner, Composer Sergiu Celibidache, Conductor |
| (Der) Ring des Nibelungen: Part 4, 'Götterdämmerung', Movement: Siegfried's funeral march |
Richard Wagner, Composer
Munich Philharmonic Orchestra Richard Wagner, Composer Sergiu Celibidache, Conductor |
| Siegfried Idyll |
Richard Wagner, Composer
Munich Philharmonic Orchestra Richard Wagner, Composer Sergiu Celibidache, Conductor |
| Tannhäuser, Movement: Overture |
Richard Wagner, Composer
Munich Philharmonic Orchestra Richard Wagner, Composer Sergiu Celibidache, Conductor |
| Symphony No. 3, 'Rhenish' |
Robert Schumann, Composer
Munich Philharmonic Orchestra Robert Schumann, Composer Sergiu Celibidache, Conductor |
| Pictures at an Exhibition |
Modest Mussorgsky, Composer
Modest Mussorgsky, Composer Munich Philharmonic Orchestra Sergiu Celibidache, Conductor |
| Boléro |
Maurice Ravel, Composer
Maurice Ravel, Composer Munich Philharmonic Orchestra Sergiu Celibidache, Conductor |
| Symphony No. 9, 'Great' |
Franz Schubert, Composer
Franz Schubert, Composer Munich Philharmonic Orchestra Sergiu Celibidache, Conductor |
| Concerto for Orchestra |
Béla Bartók, Composer
Béla Bartók, Composer Munich Philharmonic Orchestra Sergiu Celibidache, Conductor |
Author:
Regular readers of Gramophone may be surprised to encounter ‘official’ CDs featuring a conductor who compared making records with canning peas and who, for most of his life, flatly refused to enter a recording studio. Sergiu Celibidache believed that sound could only be lived or experienced in real space, though I would have thought that with modern technology reproducing a near-realistic curve of aural dynamics (not to mention fairly accurate spatial information), that sort of objection lost credibility years ago. Still, there’s no accounting for musical philosophies and we can only be grateful to Celibidache’s family – and to EMI – for making this fascinating recorded material available to a wider public.
Each CD booklet carries comments by Celibidache’s son on tempo, acoustics and the inherent dangers of recording (all mirror his father’s views) though none of them quite explains various eccentricities that crop up throughout the course of these involving and sometimes exasperating interpretations. The orchestral playing is largely first-rate. Celibidache had gradually transformed the Munich Philharmonic into a quality instrument; most members of the orchestra admired him and it is fitting that the very first ‘authorized edition’ of Celibidache’s live broadcasts should honour a memorable partnership in generally excellent sound. My advice is to make the Bartok Concerto for Orchestra rehearsal sequence your first port of call (go to track 12 on the relevant CD). “This economy ... ,” says the conductor (I quote EMI’s translation from the German), “ – apart from Bartok there was only Ravel who knew how to do it. To write so much music with so few notes. Remember, this man gave piano lessons in Budapest. He was not a professor of composition. And he died in New York owing the chemist 400 dollars ... ”. There is such feeling in the voice, such pathos, that it is impossible to doubt that the performance itself will be anything less than great (in the event, it is less than great). Celibidache’s persuasiveness holds us captive, even when tempos are unacceptably slow and detail is overstated. Temporary infatuation with the trance-like element of these recordings – or some of them – is more or less inevitable, though I do occasionally wonder whether there was a hidden agenda behind Celibidache’s abandonment of the recording studio, whether he actually knew that his performances would yield magic at a first hearing but lose it on repetition. True, the interpretative ideas are invariably revealing, orchestral execution is well drilled (a result of having maximum of rehearsal time) and the actual sound that Celibidache inspired finely controlled and carefully blended; but the energy field of these performances resides more in sonority than in taut musical argument, and it is that very lack of tension (as opposed to intensity) that tends, after a while, to give the impression of effects without justifiable causes. Also, one does rather tire of the same tricks being used in a wide variety of musical contexts: sooner or later, you learn to anticipate what is coming – not through familiarity with a particular performance, but by learning – or ‘getting used to’ – the broader principles of Celibidache’s interpretative formula.
Still, a single hearing could, on occasion, change your view of a piece for ever and the set is full of discursive revelations. In terms of repertoire, we start with Haydn – three symphonies, each with broad, individualistically moulded introductions (No. 92’s opening Adagio sounds quite gorgeous whereas the opening of No. 103 crawls desolately from note to note), stately Minuets and leisurely slow movements. No first-movement repeats are played (either here or elsewhere in the set), though Celibidache takes such enormous care over articulation, musical counter-material and internal balancing that repeats are, in a sense, rendered unnecessary – certainly for the ‘repeatable’ medium of recording. Mozart’s Symphony No. 40 features a well-paced Allegro molto development, a beautifully shaped slow movement and a relatively swift Allegro assai; Beethoven’s Fifth is notable for elastic (though mostly slow) tempos and a majestic finale, and the Fourth, a lovingly indulged Adagio (witness the entrancing clarinet solo from 3'26''), nicely drawn cello lines in the Scherzo and a sensibly paced Allegro ma non troppo finale. The Schubert Ninth is strongest in the central sections of the second and fourth movements, the former especially, with its furiously dialoguing horns and trumpets (i.e. at 9'29'' into track 3 – though the quiet pizzicatos and aching cello melody that follow mark an exaggerated point of contrast).
Celibidache’s Schumann is attentive, unhurried and soft-grained, with an epic 8'08'' Feierlich fourth movement in the Rhenish (as opposed to 5'37'' on at least one ‘unofficial’ alternative) and, in the Fourth, an oddly underpowered Scherzo followed by a hugely expansive transition into the finale. A disappointing Wagner programme includes a lumbering Tannhauser Overture and a fairly unexceptional account of Gotterdammerung’s Funeral Music, though the Siegfried Idyll and Meistersinger Prelude are, by comparison, virtually somnambulant and a detail-studded, all-Debussy disc – La mer (with optional horns in the last movement) and “Iberia”, seemingly ungenerous but that stretches beyond the hour – has “Les parfums de la nuit” linger for an astonishing 13'27''. Bolero takes 18'11'' to boil (the crowning peroration works well) and the strongest elements in Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition orchestration – the ‘sample’ disc and boxed set duplicate the one performance – relate to Ravel’s sonorous brass scoring.
Tchaikovsky provides the only work included that Celibidache also recorded in the studio, though EMI’s 1991 Fifth Symphony is notably broader than its 1948 Decca predecessor (2/49 – nla) – especially in the coda of the finale. Best here is the Andante, with its expressive horn solo and finely drawn accompanying string lines, though the “Valse” is full of felicitous touches. We are told that Celibidache made an immense impression with the Pathetique Symphony in post-war Berlin and one can well believe it on the evidence of this Munich performance, or most of it. The 25-minute first movement erupts for a rhetorically protracted central climax, though there are some irritating mannerisms en route – especially the imploring staccato semiquaver figures from 16'23'', marked fortissimo but which Celibidache alternates, ‘echo’ style, between mezzo forte and piano – a trivial and distracting cosmetic gesture, metaphorically akin to powdering your nose beside a loved one’s death bed. The rest of the performance slips back on course; its cumulative effect is very powerful, not unlike an equally expansive Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture issued on the single sampler CD.
The Bartok performance is available only as part of the boxed set (other titles will, one hopes, be separately reissued in due course). Again, ‘sound’ is more of the essence than energy or rhythmic bite, with the nightmarish Elegia as the central point of focus – both in the performance and the rehearsal sequence. True, the Giuoco delle coppie is on the slow side and there are one or two eccentric tempos in the finale, but as a listening experience the performance works – once, perhaps twice. The trouble is that full price is expensive for a living-room concert that you might not want to revisit.
Applause tracks are included, mostly at the beginnings and at the ends of pieces, something I found incredibly irritating (although, being separately tracked, you can at least programme them out) – though I can understand the ‘as-live’ principle behind retaining them. Celibidache achieved something resembling cult status even before he died, and I can understand that, too: interpretative extremes invariably inspire some measure of approbation, though whether these particular readings will hold their own in a crowded market remains to be seen. I was very glad to hear them but, thinking long-term, I have my doubts.'
Each CD booklet carries comments by Celibidache’s son on tempo, acoustics and the inherent dangers of recording (all mirror his father’s views) though none of them quite explains various eccentricities that crop up throughout the course of these involving and sometimes exasperating interpretations. The orchestral playing is largely first-rate. Celibidache had gradually transformed the Munich Philharmonic into a quality instrument; most members of the orchestra admired him and it is fitting that the very first ‘authorized edition’ of Celibidache’s live broadcasts should honour a memorable partnership in generally excellent sound. My advice is to make the Bartok Concerto for Orchestra rehearsal sequence your first port of call (go to track 12 on the relevant CD). “This economy ... ,” says the conductor (I quote EMI’s translation from the German), “ – apart from Bartok there was only Ravel who knew how to do it. To write so much music with so few notes. Remember, this man gave piano lessons in Budapest. He was not a professor of composition. And he died in New York owing the chemist 400 dollars ... ”. There is such feeling in the voice, such pathos, that it is impossible to doubt that the performance itself will be anything less than great (in the event, it is less than great). Celibidache’s persuasiveness holds us captive, even when tempos are unacceptably slow and detail is overstated. Temporary infatuation with the trance-like element of these recordings – or some of them – is more or less inevitable, though I do occasionally wonder whether there was a hidden agenda behind Celibidache’s abandonment of the recording studio, whether he actually knew that his performances would yield magic at a first hearing but lose it on repetition. True, the interpretative ideas are invariably revealing, orchestral execution is well drilled (a result of having maximum of rehearsal time) and the actual sound that Celibidache inspired finely controlled and carefully blended; but the energy field of these performances resides more in sonority than in taut musical argument, and it is that very lack of tension (as opposed to intensity) that tends, after a while, to give the impression of effects without justifiable causes. Also, one does rather tire of the same tricks being used in a wide variety of musical contexts: sooner or later, you learn to anticipate what is coming – not through familiarity with a particular performance, but by learning – or ‘getting used to’ – the broader principles of Celibidache’s interpretative formula.
Still, a single hearing could, on occasion, change your view of a piece for ever and the set is full of discursive revelations. In terms of repertoire, we start with Haydn – three symphonies, each with broad, individualistically moulded introductions (No. 92’s opening Adagio sounds quite gorgeous whereas the opening of No. 103 crawls desolately from note to note), stately Minuets and leisurely slow movements. No first-movement repeats are played (either here or elsewhere in the set), though Celibidache takes such enormous care over articulation, musical counter-material and internal balancing that repeats are, in a sense, rendered unnecessary – certainly for the ‘repeatable’ medium of recording. Mozart’s Symphony No. 40 features a well-paced Allegro molto development, a beautifully shaped slow movement and a relatively swift Allegro assai; Beethoven’s Fifth is notable for elastic (though mostly slow) tempos and a majestic finale, and the Fourth, a lovingly indulged Adagio (witness the entrancing clarinet solo from 3'26''), nicely drawn cello lines in the Scherzo and a sensibly paced Allegro ma non troppo finale. The Schubert Ninth is strongest in the central sections of the second and fourth movements, the former especially, with its furiously dialoguing horns and trumpets (i.e. at 9'29'' into track 3 – though the quiet pizzicatos and aching cello melody that follow mark an exaggerated point of contrast).
Celibidache’s Schumann is attentive, unhurried and soft-grained, with an epic 8'08'' Feierlich fourth movement in the Rhenish (as opposed to 5'37'' on at least one ‘unofficial’ alternative) and, in the Fourth, an oddly underpowered Scherzo followed by a hugely expansive transition into the finale. A disappointing Wagner programme includes a lumbering Tannhauser Overture and a fairly unexceptional account of Gotterdammerung’s Funeral Music, though the Siegfried Idyll and Meistersinger Prelude are, by comparison, virtually somnambulant and a detail-studded, all-Debussy disc – La mer (with optional horns in the last movement) and “Iberia”, seemingly ungenerous but that stretches beyond the hour – has “Les parfums de la nuit” linger for an astonishing 13'27''. Bolero takes 18'11'' to boil (the crowning peroration works well) and the strongest elements in Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition orchestration – the ‘sample’ disc and boxed set duplicate the one performance – relate to Ravel’s sonorous brass scoring.
Tchaikovsky provides the only work included that Celibidache also recorded in the studio, though EMI’s 1991 Fifth Symphony is notably broader than its 1948 Decca predecessor (2/49 – nla) – especially in the coda of the finale. Best here is the Andante, with its expressive horn solo and finely drawn accompanying string lines, though the “Valse” is full of felicitous touches. We are told that Celibidache made an immense impression with the Pathetique Symphony in post-war Berlin and one can well believe it on the evidence of this Munich performance, or most of it. The 25-minute first movement erupts for a rhetorically protracted central climax, though there are some irritating mannerisms en route – especially the imploring staccato semiquaver figures from 16'23'', marked fortissimo but which Celibidache alternates, ‘echo’ style, between mezzo forte and piano – a trivial and distracting cosmetic gesture, metaphorically akin to powdering your nose beside a loved one’s death bed. The rest of the performance slips back on course; its cumulative effect is very powerful, not unlike an equally expansive Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture issued on the single sampler CD.
The Bartok performance is available only as part of the boxed set (other titles will, one hopes, be separately reissued in due course). Again, ‘sound’ is more of the essence than energy or rhythmic bite, with the nightmarish Elegia as the central point of focus – both in the performance and the rehearsal sequence. True, the Giuoco delle coppie is on the slow side and there are one or two eccentric tempos in the finale, but as a listening experience the performance works – once, perhaps twice. The trouble is that full price is expensive for a living-room concert that you might not want to revisit.
Applause tracks are included, mostly at the beginnings and at the ends of pieces, something I found incredibly irritating (although, being separately tracked, you can at least programme them out) – though I can understand the ‘as-live’ principle behind retaining them. Celibidache achieved something resembling cult status even before he died, and I can understand that, too: interpretative extremes invariably inspire some measure of approbation, though whether these particular readings will hold their own in a crowded market remains to be seen. I was very glad to hear them but, thinking long-term, I have my doubts.'
Mussorgsky Pictures at an Exhibition. Tchaikovsky Romeo and Juliet
Celibidache and the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra
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