Sergiu Celibidache

 

I met Celi twice. First I went to see him in Stockholm in the early '70s. He had invited me to a rehearsal. The Swedish Radio Orchestra was rehearsing a section from the Pastoral Symphony, 2nd movement (Scene by the brook) and after the interval the coda of the last movement of Dvorak's 'cello concerto - that's all.

I was astonished by the 'scene painting' of the Beethoven - I'd never heard anything like it. I approached Celi in the interval. he welcomed me graciously but said I should see him after the rehearsal because during the break he had to sit in the auditorium to be available to any player who might have a question for him. This he did and indeed a player or two came to talk to him.

After the rehearsal, he spoke to me in his dressing room. I asked him under what conditions he would give a concert in London. He said that London was a black mark on the map because 'you could have had the greatest orchestra in the world but chose to have 5 instead.' I am normally tongue-tied in the face of such statements but on this occasion I thought of a good response: 'And that's why we need you, maestro.' I still remember his struggling with this 'incontrovertible argument.' Finally he said he would think about it and we should meet again in Paris later.

This we did. I remember well his flat on the Avenue Victor Hugo where again he received me kindly. We had an interesting conversation in which he stated

1. Bucharest had been a beautiful city before the war. Justifiably known as 'Klein Paris' but all that was finished now and he thought he would never go back.
   
2. He ruled out the USA saying with a dismissive wave of his hand and a grimace 'This America.' (He only ever worked with students there - see below).
3. He said he began where other conductors left off. He said the orchestra was a giant machine with 100 moving parts which had to be synchronised and formed into a whole. No other conductor did this. Strangely enough he said only Beecham had any idea of this.
   
4. He said he would need 8 rehearsals for a normal programme and if he was to conduct The Rite of Spring, 10 rehearsals for that alone plus 2 for the rest of the programme.
5. The programme with the fewest rehearsals would be the Verdi Requiem - 6 rehearsals with the orchestra but 3 weeks with the chorus. Soloists should either be Freni, Cossotto, Pavarotti and Ghiaurov, failing which 'students.'
   
6. He said he would need a clause in his contract giving him the right to send any players he didn't like away but they should be paid anyway. Players he did like should replace them.
7. He said his fee was not exorbitant; only £2,000 I think. He was not in it for the money.

Of course I pursued the Verdi Requiem idea and suggested the Albert Hall. He said he hadn't been there since the acoustics had been changed and he asked me to send him an 'acoustic plan' of the building.

That's where our conversation ended. I actually did have a meeting with Ken Shearer, the original BBC acoustician who installed the 'mushrooms' but I never sent Celi any acoustic plans because I realised that even with 'only' 6 rehearsals the cost would be more than I could aver recoup from a full house and given the fact Celi was all but unknown in London that was unlikely.

A few years later the LSO began a very fruitful collaboration with Celi. They even toured to Japan with him (see You Tube). It was said that Celi reduced the number of rehearsals he needed especially because the LSO were so quick on the uptake but they still lost money. I attended quite a few of these concerts at the RFH and count them as some of the greatest I have ever heard. I'm not a fan of Debussy but 'La mer' played like that is another piece altogether. His infinitesimal gradations of dynamics in Rossini's overture to La Gazza Ladra was the very personification of the famous 'Rossini crescendo' etc.

 One remarkable thing about Celibidache was the number of students and acolytes he had. remarkable because not one as far as I am aware ever seemed to have copied him or indeed ever amounted to anything. He was once asked about this and agreed that nothing had come of his infinitely patient mentoring or teaching. Asked why he did it he said it was because he had been helped in his youth and saw it as his duty to help others. 

One of these 'ames damnées' was a conductor called Brian Brockless who came to visit me in my office. I forget how that came about. Maybe thanks to Celibidache? Anyway, Brockless was a sweet guy who had spent on his own admission far too many years as a Celibidache student and follower. He said this had probably cost him his career but he was grateful for the time he had spent with him. I remember him explaining to me that his surname probably meant 'breech-less' or trouserless (sans-culottes?). That rather summed him up I thought unkindly.