Classical Music for Aficionados

I never got the Celi cult.  All I can say is that his Munich concert goers must of had strong bladders to make it through his glacial performances.  

I cannot vouch for all his performance but Celi interpretation was always about time not as a passing rythm , like the seasons, but more about one instant where everything is enclosed...

We sometimes must learn to listen something, and for sure all is not for everybody...

I already posted a piece of Indian Sarangi, one of the most fascinating instrument of India, and a poster say to me that it got on his nerve...😁😊

We cannot like eveything at the same times and sometimes our preference are right in a way....

Our taste are also a miror of our own ongoing evolution.... It takes me time to appreciate jazz for example... I never got it young.... But i loved Bach at first chords...Nothing is wrong and right, only an evolution...

But the "cult" about Celi come from this concept of time, no other Conductor explored his way...

Celi express and give to everything the density of eternity...

Eternity can be boring so to speak ... 😊

Anyway some composers are more suited for this maestro "suspended" stick than some other...

Bruckner’s interpretation for example are certainly stupendous...It is here i catch his art and unique vision...

The greatest examples in the way to  use of time for me by conductors are Furtwangler and Celibidache...No one is able to imitate them perfectly though... They become myths...Or examplar of the art of conducting...Most maestros distributed themselves between these 2 ways to express time...

In Furtwangler: Music pass with his own beating time completely out of everyday time...

In Celibidache : Music dont pass, but surge directly from his timing eternal origin or source...

No one is right here or wrong , Celi. or Furt. only gods waiting for us to listen...

But we cannot got their specific way at the same time and the same day...

Our listening life is an evolution...

I never got the Celi cult. All I can say is that his Munich concert goers must of had strong bladders to make it through his glacial performances.

Bernstein is a genius between Celi and Furt...

His concept of musical  time is between these two...

Bernstein is one of the great maestro for me with these two...And some other few...

But here frogman you pick the young Celi , a better example of his musical original  time conception will be the Stuttgart 1976  more mature  version of Coriolan....

😊😊

I did not say here which one i prefer, it is not my goal... 😊

I think you meant “Egmont”, not “Coriolan” 😊.

Thanks for your comments. First, my choice of the young Celi was in great part for the visual element in that clip. I agree that it could be said that the 1976 Stuttgard version is “more mature”. However, the question must asked whether in this case “maturity” (of time conception), better serves the music’s intent. I’m not so sure.

The music was composed as the overture to incidental music for a play (Goethe) celebrating the life and heroism of a Dutch count (Egmont) in his country’s struggle for liberty against imperialistic Spain; culminating with the count’s execution. The music was composed while the Napoleonic wars were raging. All a pretty dramatic backdrop, I would say. Perhaps partly due to the more distant and less present sound of the 1976 recording, and certainly no intention on my part to diminish the wisdom of maturity, but the 1976 has, for me, less of the drama and angst which I think the historical setting would demand. Examples: the introduction, intended to represent “The Prison” and the feeling that imprisonment might convey seems to be better served by the young Celi’s version which gives me a stronger feeling of drama and tension. For me, the sometimes excruciatingly long rests (silences) in the 1976 detract from the drama and urgency. Likewise, in this version the first statements by the woodwinds give the music an almost pastoral feeling; not what I would expect given the circumstances to be conveyed. What is it they say, “mellows with age”? Not so sure “mellowing” fits in the context of war, imprisonment and execution. Bernstein, for me, strikes a more convincing balance balance in this regard; hence my choice.

Thank you for the clip and for your thoughts, mahgister; always thought provoking.