When the ORFEO label was established in Munich forty years ago, surely no one with the music scene back then would have predicted that the record company would develop into a firmly established player on the classical music market. One of the label’s main priorities in the early years was vocal music, with opera rarities top of the list and since the mid 1980s the re-use of historic tape recordings. Big names featured on the label’s own productions, while ORFEO also developed into a talent factory by discovering and nurturing young artist. This “Legendary Conductors” 10 album set for the anniversary of 40 years of ORFEO label history presents a selection of outstanding recordings with legendary conductors in the true sense of the word.
Liszt: Les Preludes; Ravel: Left-hand Concerto; Brahms: Symphony No 1 / Celibidache
Orfeo
CD
$16.99Mar 26, 2013
Recorded live at the Wiener Konzerthaus on October 30, 1952.
Sergiu Celibidache was one of the truly unique, unconventional conductors of the 20th century. When Furtwängler was banned from conducting after the Second World War, Celibidache restructured the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and conducted it until Furtwängler’s return. However, after Furtwängler’s death in 1954 and the subsequent appointment of Herbert von Karajan as his successor, Celibidache’s relations with the orchestra were broken off. Over the ensuing years, up to the moment that he took on the Munich Philharmonic in 1979, Celibidache never tied himself to a single orchestra for any length of time. Instead he led a truly nomadic existence as a restless artist. He seldom travelled to musical centres such as Vienna. His concert with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra from October 1952, now released in its entirety by Orfeo thus offers interesting insights into a time when Celibidache still seemed to be weighing up his options. In Brahms’s First Symphony he comes across as more urgent in his tempi than was the case with the conductor we know from later years and from his later recordings. However, he was already outstanding in his sense of tone colour and in his ability to get his orchestral musicians truly to listen to one another. This is evident in 'Les Préludes'at the beginning of the concert, and above all in the 'Concerto for the Left Hand', played by none other than Robert Casadesus. With his pianistic refinement, French clarity and aristocratic command, it was not surprising that Casadesus became the interpreter of this work. In his collaboration with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra under Sergiu Celibidache, he succeeded in exemplary fashion in maintaining the tension throughout that is characteristic of this concerto, and in making the most of the grotesque nature of many of its episodes. A fascinating encounter between two great musicians.
Mussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition - Cherubini: Symphony
IDIS
CD
$16.99Jan 08, 2016
The legacy of the conductor Sergiu Celidache is honored with a re-release of a 1965 live performance with the Orchestra e Teatro "La Fenice" di Venezia. With a program that included winning performances of Mussorgsky's "Pictures At An Exhibition", along with the not usual inclusion of Cherubini's "Symphony in D" and the then premiere of a work by Swedish composer, Sven Erik Back, the maestro Celidache's reputation as an iconoclast among conductors with his programming choices is evident with this collection. With exception technical and sound quality, this live recording presents a significant opportunity towards a reappreciation of Celidache.
Among the great conductors of the second half of the 20th century Sergiu Celibidache is without a doubt the most unusual personality. Even his fierce opponents hardly deny that he was exceptionally gifted as a musician and conductor – a gift he had consciously developed to absolute perfection. However, opinions differ where his creative activity during his late Munich years (1979–96) and his person in general are concerned, though negative judgements are often based on incorrect or insufficient information. Anyone who takes an interest in this conductor will quite soon come across an abstruse film document in which a musician talks about her demotion by Celibidache: Within her group she was downgraded from the contractually agreed first position to the second position in concerts Celibidache conducted (her salary remaining the same). Unfortunately, the whole story is never reported coherently. After intrigues on the part of the orchestra she did not follow the advice to discuss face to face with Celibidache the situation that had meanwhile escalated, but risked an angry outburst in the canteen in front of everyone, resulting in the situation escalating even more. Finding a viable solution to the conflict would have required all parties “to overcome their inhibitions”. This did not happen and all that remained were bitterness and incomprehension.
