Sergiu Celibidache - a global anniversary

29 juin 2012

Sergiu Celibidache - a global anniversary

(Photo source) Yesterday saw the centenary of the wonderful, reclusive and legendary Romanian-born conductor and composer, Sergiu Celibidache (1912-1996). In his honour, UNESCO has declared 2012 the 'Global Anniversary of Sergiu Celibidache'.

Sergiu Celibidache was born in 1912 and spent his early life in Iasi. He was a dancer as well as a dance teacher before learning to play the piano, after which he studied music, philosophy and mathematics in Bucharest and then in Paris. Between 1945-52, he studied music and composition at the Hochschule für Musik in Berlin, where he played the piano in a jazz bar to make a living.

In 1945 at the age of 33, after winning a conducting competition organised by Berlin Radio, he was appointed conductor of the reconstituted post-war Berlin Philharmonic, where he became known for his tempestuous style. He toured with the orchestra to the British and American sectors of occupied Germany. In 1952 he shared the podium with the exiled Furtwängler, the Berlin Philharmonic's general music director, on a tour of the United States. Later that year when Furtwängler was cleared of allegations of being a Nazi sympathiser and returned to Germany, Celibidache's appointment with the Berlin PO was terminated.

(Photo source) On his rehearsals with Celibidache, first viola Helmut Nicolai said, "I had come from the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra under Karajan, wanting to work with Celibidache, but I had no idea what it meant. It meant four or five days' rehearsal, and each time we performed a symphony again we had to rehearse it as if it were the first time. He wanted a new experience to come out of the music with every performance. What I liked about him was that he always called us by our first names, not by our instrument. It made us feel human, but he wanted something in return. We were not just to play our own notes but to listen where our instrument stands in relation to the entire orchestra. We had to consider the music in its entirety, like the conductor, and he got mad when he found we were just playing notes."

From then on, the larger part of his career was with the radio orchestras of Stockholm (1964-1971), Stuttgart (1971-1977) and Paris (1973-1975) along with frequent work in Italy. Under his baton as Director, with his extraordinary ear for detail and passion for spacious tempos, the Munich Philharmonic gained international fame, touring Japan, the United States and Eastern Europe from 1979 until his death in 1996. One review of a concert from 1989 in the New York Times reads: "He understands, as Herbert von Karajan and Carlos Kleiber (...), that it is advantageous to play softly a lot of the time if you want a wide palette of expression and tonal beauty. He has a charismatic hold over his orchestra and his admirers."

(Photo source) Mr. Celibidache was widely known for refusing to visit sound studios because he so disliked recorded music - records, he said, were "singing pancakes", destroying "all the spontaneity of a music-making moment". Very few recordings of his early work exist but a number of later concerts were recorded (some unauthorised) and released posthumously by major labels such as EMI and Deutsche Grammophon with the consent and help of his family. Notable releases have been his Munich performances of Beethoven, Johannes Brahms, Anton Bruckner, Robert Schumann, Johann Sebastian Bach, Gabriel Fauré and a series of live performances with the London Symphony Orchestra and the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra. Please enjoy Dvorak's allegro from The New World HERE, Enescu's Romanian Rhapsody (1978) HERE, Beethoven's overture from Egmont (Berlin Philharmonic, 1950) HERE and THIS marvellous recording of Till Eulenspiegel (Berlin Philharmonic) of a very young, energetic and equally handsome Celibidache, all available on youtube (I wonder what he'd think of that!).

Despite the Maestro's strong dislike for recorded music, Allmusic by Rovi writes: 'Celibidache could not have asked for a better memorial than the current library of recordings, especially those in The Celibidache Edition, which includes lengthy rehearsal recordings (one lasts 45 minutes, complete with English translations). Deutsche Grammophon's selection is mainly from earlier recordings made with the Stuttgart Radio Orchestra. Proceeds from both labels are given to the Celibidache Foundation for the encouragement of young musicians and a humanitarian organization he set up to assist needy people in Tibet, Romania, and other parts of the world. His own compositions include four symphonies, a piano concerto, and an orchestral suite which he recorded for UNICEF with the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra.'

Mr Celibidache regularly taught at Mainz University in Germany and in 1984-85, taught at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia. Teaching was a major focus throughout his life and his courses were often open to all free of charge. Since his demands for extensive rehearsal time were impossible for most institutions to meet, he made very few guest appearances, a notable exception being a concert he gave with the orchestra of the Curtis Institute at Carnegie Hall in 1984. Inaccessibility, said the New York Times, seemed to enhance his mystique.

Nicolae Ceausescu, known for his aversion to the arts, refused to let Mr. Celibidache perform in his native land prompting him to say, ''How can I be tranquil, make music and conduct an orchestra among foreigners, but not in my own country?''

After the collapse of Communism in 1989, he was made honorary director of the Orchestra of Bucharest.

(Photo source: Ioana and Sergiu Celibidache in Rome, 1952) His wife, Ioana, took dance classes with a friend of mine in Bucharest at a little studio on str C.Milo. They met once again in Paris much later when Ioana was, by then, an established painter. My friend told me Ioana was a warm and lovely woman and a very gifted dancer. She was quite disappointed Ioana had given it up to concentrate on painting, for, said my friend, she could have been "a real hit!". She described the relationship between Celibidache (whom she had also known) and his wife as one of great fusion. Googling for more on Ioana, I read sadly that she died from a stroke in mid-January this year at the age of 87, here in Paris.

On the first anniversary of Sergiu Celibidache's death, the conductor García Asensio wrote an article which was published in Radio Clásica's monthly magazine (nr. 8, August 1997) entitled A year without Sergiu Celibidache. The reading of this article inspired Navarran composer Augstín Gonzákez Acilu to compose an orchestral piece, "Reflection" which was performed for the first time at the 7th International Contemporary Music Festival of Tres Cantos in Madrid on 23 September 2007. Antón García Abril composed "Celibidachiana" performed in Iasi in 2004 at a tribute festival to the great Maestro.

(Image source) This year's Sergiu Celibidache Festival began on 3rd May in Bucharest, and there is a week of concerts starting tomorrow until 7th July at the Ateneul Roman, 20h. On the programme, conducted by Cristian Mandeal, “Grădina de buzunar” - part of a suite in 13 parts composed by the Maestro in 1979 and first performed by the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra under his direction. Also on the menu - Tchaikovsky's Symphony number 5 (in E, op.64). For more on ticket sales and the programmation of concerts, please see HERE.