I have by now reviewed
a number of discs in this series,
with music ranging from Haydn to Debussy.
I have commented more than once on
the paradox that Celibidache, the
sworn enemy of the recording studio,
spent most of his career working with
radio orchestras and others that recorded
all their concerts – and often all
their rehearsals too – as a matter
of course. In reality Celibidache
may be one of the most-recorded conductors
in history. His career could be reconstructed
almost in its entirety from the various
radio archives. Of course, only a
small amount of this material has
so far been released and it is doubtful
whether the whole of it ever will
be. Nonetheless, we may wonder if
Celibidache was affected by the knowledge
that his every note was being set
down for posterity. What we have here
seems in some way, not just a lesson
to the orchestra on how to play the
overture to "Figaro", but
a deliberate lesson to posterity on
how to conduct the most complete,
most exhaustive possible rehearsal
of it.
His work on the opening
pianissimo phrase spills over onto
the second disc. Tirelessly, he seeks
out the timbres, the balances, the
minute adjustments of expression within
the phrase which, it becomes evident,
are not just there in his mind’s ear,
but have to be adapted to the peculiar
conditions of the hall, the temperature,
the humidity, the mood of the moment
and the players’ own instruments.
All matters, which, as he explains
at length, will change again entirely
with an audience present, with the
result that, at the end of all this
fanatical preparation, they will have
to improvise at the concert itself.
Celibidache is scrupulous
in explaining in detail what he wants
the orchestra to do. To most of our
common mortal ears the numerous repetitions
of the phrase will have ceased to
sound remotely different long before
he’s halfway through, but his are
not common mortal ears and we can
witness his gradual satisfaction as
he achieves some sort of celestial
plane far beyond our earthly ken.
The second CD is
much concerned with the exact way
to attack the forte outburst in the
wake of the whispered opening. By
the end of CD 3 he’s reached the second
subject and things are beginning to
go almost dangerously well. However,
there’s no music at all on CDs 4-6.
Here Celibidache gives free rein to
his vast erudition as he analyzes
the significance of the opera in the
light of Buddhist and Zen philosophy,
oriental transcendental traditions
and correct dieting.
The music picks up
near the beginning of CD 7. Much of
the music in the second half of the
overture is identical to what came
before, if partly in a different key.
A lesser artist would be tempted to
consider his work done. Celibidache
takes just as much time on the recapitulation
as he did before. Indeed, around the
middle of CD 9, with the final sprint
in sight, tools are downed once more
while he explains just why, although
the music looks and sounds the same,
it is actually totally different,
occupying a completely unrelated area
of the cosmos. Towards the end of
this CD the paternal voice breaks
off. After a puzzled silence he repeats
his previous sentences in a slightly
peeved tone. Holy Moses! He’s made
a joke and nobody laughed because
the players were all asleep, every
man-jack of them, as I was myself.
The second time round – I won’t spoil
the joke by repeating it here, but
it’s actually quite funny – the orchestra,
refreshed by its snooze, makes handsome
amends. Roars of laughter and cat-whistles
of mirth break out, several voices
join together to bawl out "Bravuuuuuu
Sergiuuuuuu!", the trombonist
cavorts around braying glissandos
and the football rattle merrily envelops
the entire company. In case you wonder
what these latter were doing at a
rehearsal of the "Figaro"
overture, the same programme also
included "Till Eugenspiegel"
and Celibidache naturally expected
all players, for the good of
their spiritual development, to attend
all rehearsals.
After this jolly
interlude the end is easily reached.
As so often after rehearsals of this
kind, the performance itself is a
catalogue of things that go almost
but not quite as well as
before.
The set comes with
full text and translations into four
languages in what can hardly be called
a booklet, since my copy of "War
and Peace" is somewhat slimmer.
This timeless, timely and time-consuming
tribute to a great conductor is completed
by an engaging tit-bit, a Boult recording
that got lost. A few minutes were
left over at the sessions which produced
the coupling of Mozart’s "Haffner"
and "Jupiter" Symphonies,
but LP side-lengths and a full clutch
of repeats meant that "Figaro"
never got used. Boult’s rehearsal
is only about 50% longer than the
performance itself. He repeats the
opening phrase a couple of times to
get a proper pianissimo, then, having
established the trajectory of the
performance, he proceeds without comment
till nearly the end, when a patch
of bad ensemble provokes a barked
injunction to "keep it clean".
He probably did not even intend to
stop the orchestra, but the players
collapse in an outburst of giggles
while the elderly conductor can be
imagined biting his moustache and
wondering tetchily what on earth the
silly young asses are finding so funny.
Or did he do it deliberately? Intentional
or not, the rest of the rehearsal
and the performance itself go with
a swing which had eluded it before.
Christopher
Howell
Munich Philharmonic Orchestra/Sergiu Celibidache*
