Sergiu Celibidache

Sergiu Celibidache lived from 1912 to 1996 and ranked among the twentieth century’s most exceptional and electrifying conductors, renowned equally for his exacting artistic criteria and his painstaking approach to rehearsals.

Raised in the Romanian town of Iaszi, he displayed pronounced musical ability once piano instruction began in childhood. In 1936 he entered the Berlin Hochschule für Musik to work with Walter Gmeindl and Fritz Stein, while simultaneously attending Friedrich Wilhelm University, where philosophy and musicology formed the focus of his studies and where Zen Buddhism first captured his attention.

A sequence of unexpected circumstances placed him, at only thirty-three, in the music directorship of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra in 1945. With the orchestra’s performances halted at the close of World War II and Wilhelm Furtwängler barred from the podium until formally exonerated of Nazi associations, Celibidache filled the role until Furtwängler’s reinstatement in 1952.

Thereafter he avoided long-term appointments for many years, cultivating instead a reputation through guest appearances that earned near-mythic status for performances fusing the structural discipline acquired in his German training with an impassioned temperament. He served as chief conductor of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra in Stockholm from 1964 to 1971, essentially reconstituting the ensemble. Comparable leadership roles followed with the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra (1971–1977) and the Orchestre National de France in Paris (1973–1975).

In 1979 he became artistic director of the Munich Philharmonic and general musical director of the City of Munich. Between 1983 and 1984 he also conducted the student orchestra of Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute of Music.

Early in his career Celibidache developed an aversion to audio recording, so his legacy survived chiefly through live concert documents, many of them made without authorization. Later he discovered an appreciation for combined video and audio work and took part in several such projects featuring music by Prokofiev, Brahms, Schumann, Tchaikovsky, and Bruckner.