You probably know whether or not you want this entry in EMI’s Great Conductors of the 20th Century series. Celibidache is a polarizing figure, mostly based on 1980s and 1990s performances that are often reviled as excruciatingly slow, mannered, and willful. They are that, but they also contain startling insights. Here we have a more orthodox Celi in live and studio recordings made between 1948 and 1970, by which time he refused to make records. The selections are somewhat skewed to the late-1960s when Celi worked extensively in Scandinavia, so we hear him in some relatively uncommon repertoire: Nielsen, Berwald, Rosenberg, and Johann Strauss, père et fils, with the Danish National Symphony Orchestra and the Swedish Radio Symphony. But it’s idiomatically done, with bubbly readings of Nielsen’s Maskarade Overture and Rosenberg’s Marionetter Overture. A fine Berwald Sinfonie singulière has a first movement poised between the dramatic and the pastoral; the Adagio offers a hushed stillness that commands attention and the finale moves along with élan. The 1970 Johann Strauss selections taken from the same concert as the Nielsen Overture stress dynamic and tempo contrasts, most strongly in the Die Fledermaus Overture
Two of the selections have long been admired. The oft-pirated live 1953 Berlin Philharmonic Mendelssohn Fourth gets its first “official” release. It has a vigorous opening movement, an easily flowing Andante with gorgeous sonorities, relaxed, natural phrasing in the third movement, and a Presto finale such as we never would expect from the later Celi. Two items from his truncated studio career also are well worth hearing. Mozart’s “little G minor”, the Symphony No. 25 K. 183, is well-paced, the first movement fresh-sounding, the Minuet neatly done, the lightness of its Trio a foil to the flanking heavily accented dance. Also from 1948 is a spirited Prokofiev “Classical” Symphony full of zest. A worthy novelty is the Hamlet Suite by Heinz Tiessen, a 1922 work recorded at a 1957 Berlin concert honoring the composer’s 70th birthday. Especially fine is its ominous Prelude, with a ghostly, wordless chorus lending a creepy “t’was a dark and stormy night” atmosphere.
EMI’s transfers are quite good. The Mendelssohn is detailed but with edgy massed violins. The later stereo live broadcasts are vibrant; the earlier ones and the 1948 studio recordings somewhat less so. In more lightly scored works, such as the 1948 London Philharmonic studio rendering of Nutcracker Suite excerpts, Celi displays a light touch, a dollop of humor, and the sonics are vivid and bright-sounding. This set could change how you think of this controversial conductor.
