Customer Reviews

CELIBIDACHE / Münchner Philharmoniker - Bruckner: Symphony No. 6

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I heard Bruckner for the first time at a Friday afternoon Boston Symphony Orchestra concert more than 30 years ago when this symphony was performed. No interpretaion of this symphony since then has been able to quite match the feelings I had then, when I was introduced to Bruckner with, for me, his most beautiful symphony. But when I listened to Celibidache's interpretation here on this CD, I knew I was listening to one of the greatest performances of Bruckner ever. This is truly a soul-stirring event. Celibidache knew how to perform Bruckner! For me, this is the definitive Bruckner 6th! A beautiful and truly mountain-top revelation of a performance.

This performance contains 3/4ths of the best Bruckner 6th (and indeed some of the very best Bruckner) I have ever heard.

The first three movements are, to my ears, perfection. In particular, Celibidache takes an enormous risk with the Adagio and makes it pay off. Who else would dare to stretch out this ethereal music to such lengths? The committed playing of the orchestra holds the movement together gloriously in what could have been a disaster in less commited hands. This movement alone is an experience.

Unfortunately, the 4th movement is not at the same inspired level of the first three movements. The playing is just as committed, but I think that the tempo is too fast, especially coming off of what he accomplished with the adagio. It's not that his timing is much quicker than other conductors here, in fact he is more leisurely than the norm. It's just that in comparison with the tension built up in the prior movements,the finale to my ears lets up a bit and is not the overwhelming majestic culmination one would hope for.

Regardless of my feelings on the finale, this remains one of my most treasured disks and I cannot possibly think of another performance that has so captured the essence and timelesness of Bruckner than the first three movements of this gem. I give it 4 out of 5 stars because it was one movement away from my ultimate Brucner experience.

I volunteered for many years at a non-profit classical radio station in Pittsburgh.In spite of being non-profit, they still had to get in their news headlines and announcements every hour. Therefore, music had to be programmed to allow for this. For that reason, our audience seldom got to hear Bruckner and virtually never Celibidache.What a shame. I would listen at the station's library to Celi's recordings of Bruckner with the Munich Philharmonic and could not believe what I had been missing. This man was a true genius and the foremost interpreter of Bruckner. He understood and could convey his feelings of every detail of the music to the orchestra. For some reason Bruckner's Sixth is not recorded as often as his other later symphonies, and yet, under Celibidache it could be considered by many to be the greatest symphony of them all. I have a DVD of Celi conducting the Sixth with the Munich which is virtually impossible to find, but you can appreciate the dedication of this orchestra. The phrasing is absolutely perfect and the sound emanating from the orchestra is so beautiful. To think of those reviewers who dare to critique Celi's recordings in comparison to other conductors simply based on the number of minutes for a particular movement repels me. If one is completely involved with the music time is of no consequence. It reminds me of those people attending a concert who are constantly looking at their watches. If you were to have heard Celi's Sixth first then all other versions would sound inferior. My half dozen other recordings of Bruckner's Sixth now sit and collect dust. A must recording by this true genius and very great human being

I first heard this piece performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra last year. I attended a pre-concert lecture about Bruckner and learned that he spent most of his life composing for and playing the Organ. Nothing is quite as inspiring as sitting in a cathedral listing to an Organ concert. Even knowing this could not prepare me for what I was about to hear.

Somehow Bruckner brought the power and inspiration of the Organ to this symphony. I wanted the orchestra to wait a few minutes while I and the rest of the audience had enough time to digest the first movement. By the end of the symphony, I was left in my seat, overwhelmed by what I had just heard.

I was left in the same condition after listening to this recording. My neighbors in my apartment building have become fans of Bruckner, due in part to me cranking up my stereo during the first movement.

I guarantee you won't be able to resist turning up your stereo either if you get this recording.

I have been a Bruckner fan since, when I was 17, I bought the DG Karajan/BPO version of the 3rd on a digital LP. A couple of years later I received the 6th and the 2nd with the same interpreters/label for Christmas and I was immediately "hooked" on the 6th, which I listened to VERY often. Nonetheless I was not completely satisfied with the Karajan version, because I felt he did not "get" the symphony completely (specially the last movement) although the 1st and 2nd movements were played quite movingly. So I went on a 'quest for a better 6th', and my first try was Gunter Wand (due to the great reviewers he was getting at the time) - I was somewhat disappointed because, even though it was more thoughtful, I felt they did'nt quite "get" it either. So discouraged from heeding the reviews I did not try another version till ~ 2 years ago when I came across this one by Celibidache -a conductor who I had only heard mentioned "in passing" and knew nothing about; yet there was a big buzz about him at the time. This time I hit the jackpot!! This is not only very interesting "episodic" music, like some of the other great conductors interpret it, it is a profound experience somewhat like the reading of an epic story, such as the Illiad or the Mahabaratha, but be warned you have to give it your FULL attention. In other versions, such as Karajan's, you can let the music go into the background at times and you will not loose the gist of it because he exagerates the climaxes and special episodes so that you are "forced" to get a good sketch of the Symphony. With Celibidache you have to sit confortably with a good long hour at your disposal and start "meditating" with the music. He approaches Bruckner with such respect, nay reverence, that on occasions you feel that the orchestra has become a gigantic church organ on which Bruckner is extempoirising a song of praise to God and the Universe!!

I find myself calling this live Bruckner Sixth from Nov. 1991, a must-listen, when I don't think I've ever had that feeling about any other celibidache recording. Unless you already buy into the mystique surrounding this mysterious figure, it's advisable to skip the comments about Buddhism (a Zen master said that Celi's conducting was 'free music through free hands"), and the semi-devotional notes from his son. The fact that the father forbade any commercial releases of his concerts makes it seem that the family's posthumous haste to profit from them after his death a bit, um, less than altruistic.

The fact is that EMI and DG rushed to release dozens of Celi recordings without much care about which were truly stunning. This one is. The Munich Phil. seems fired up, and for once the tempos are within reason, except for the extremely extended Adagio. But pace isn't the issue here. One senses immediately that the conductor "gets" this problematic work, infusing every bar with drama, surprise, and vibrant life. It's so rare to hear anything like a vibrant Bruckner performance that this one really lights up the sky.

My problem with Celibidache has been that he is monochromatic. Like Giulini, a greater conductor who also went into a draggy "spiritual" phase at the end, Celibidache applied one tonal color to everything, a static, rarefied, eyes-toward-heaven rapture (Zen heaven in this case, if that's possible). If you weren't part of his congregation, the whole thing seems to lack variety and color.

Such is eminently not the case here. Celi is alert to every possible change in mood and color, and in addition his reverential treatment of the Adagio works because the alertness remains -- extremely slow music can, and should, be just as vibrant as fast music. There's no sag in the phrasing; indeed, this feels like a genuine state of rapture, which I think was Bruckner's own state when he composed such sublime music. On the whole dynamics are louder and more forceful than usual with this conductor, but he never allows the brass to blare, and Bruckner's apotheoses aren't volcanic and jarring. Gott sei dank.

I have a short list of successful Bruckner Sixths: the classic Klemperer on EMI, Haitink on Profil (a late live recording), and surprisingly, Eschenbach on Koch International. As a curiosity, one might also check out a live Bernstein performance in an omnibus collection released by the New York Phil. But for sheer beauty, warmth, emotional impact, and "rightness," this Celibidache reading is in a class of its own.

An extremely mature and moving 6th. A testament to the uncanny ability of Celibidache to make â€~time stand still,’ as it were. The dark, dimly â€~lit from within’ central Adagio is alone, worth the price of the CD.

Perhaps it is a result of the typical bunker mentality of ardent Brucknerians, but the underappreciated and overshadowed 6th has always caused Brucknerians to protest its worth and demand a rightful place for it in the repertoire. When people do get a chance to hear a performance of the 6th, they are often left wondering why they don't hear it more often. Celibedache was a conductor whose recordings, as scarce as they are, I've always stayed away from. This is probably because his mystical/gnostic musical ideas are, well, just plain weird. In addition, having been weaned musically on recordings by Toscanini and Solti, to name two of my childhood favorites, conductors who reveled in creating a plodding Teutonic fog have rarely appealled to me. However, I was looking for a Bruckner 6th to augment my gorgeous Jochum/DG set. It was fickle of me, but I wanted a digital recording of the 6th. Having now heard some of the other Celibedachi/EMI recording of Bruckner, I can say that this is the most palatable of his Bruckner recordings. The tempos hear are on the slow side but aren't off the scale in the same way as his laughable and unrecognizable offerings of the 8th, 4th, and 9th, to mention the worst. This has sometimes been called Bruckner's "philosophic" symphony, Celibedache certainly conjures up stoic images successfully. Though the Adagio procedes at a glacial pace, I will drop my hardline stance to praise Celibedache's loving approach in which he squeezes every drop of profundity out it this movement. The scherzo, however, which ought to be a lively and foot-stomping affair, plods a bit. The tempos in the outer movements are certainly within reason and they make a compelling case for the approach. This is a good Bruckner 6th, but please don't make it your only Bruckner 6th. Jochum's more idiomatic approach will better acquaint one with what the composer probably had in mind. Back to the matter of Celibedache and Bruckner. We know that Bruckner tempos have slowed down over the 50 years. Slower tempos, then, are understandable in terms of a historical trend. With these Celibedache recordings, however, we have something entirely different on our hands. These recordings may be powerful, moving, and beautiful beyond description in many passages. Whatever they are, though, they are not Bruckner and they no more represent that composer's grand vision than the mutilated Shalk versions that were so prevelant for the first 35 years years after his death.