Luogo e data di registrazione		Philharmonie am Gasteig, München (Germania): - 19 & 20 marzo 1987 (Symphony No. 3) - 16 ottobre 1988 (Symphony No. 4) - 14 & 16 febbraio 1993 (Symphony No. 5) - 29 novembre 1991 (Symphony No. 6) - 10 settembre 1994 (Symphony No. 7) - 12 & 13 settembre 1993 (Symphony No. 8) - 10 settembre 1995 (Symphony No. 9) & 4-7 settembre 1995 (Excerpts) - 6 & 9 marzo 1990 (Mass No. 3) Lukaskirche, Mariannenplatz, München (Germania): - 1 luglio 1982 (Te Deum)
	Registrazione: live / studio		live recordings
	Recording engineers		Torsten Schreier, Gerhard von Knobelsdorff, Lydia Schön (No. 3) Michael Kempff & Wolfgang Karreth (Nos. 4, 5) Gerald Junge (Nos. 6, 7, 8, 9) Michael Kempff & Wilfried Hauer (Te Deum) Hervé Poissonnier (Excerpts No. 9) Torsten Schreier & Gunter Heß (Mass No. 3)
	Prime Edizioni CD		EMI Classics - 5 56689 2 - (1 CD) - durata 66' 42" - (p) 1998 - ADD - (No. 3) EMI Classics - 5 56690 2 - (1 CD) - durata 79' 11" - (p) 1998 - ADD - (No. 4) EMI Classics - 5 56691 2 - (2 CD's) - durata 48' 03" & 41' 50" - (p) 1998 - DDD - (No. 5) EMI Classics - 5 56694 2 - (1 CD) - durata 65' 46" - (p) 1998 - DDD - (No. 6) EMI Classics - 5 56695 2 - (2 CD's) - durata 54' 24" & 60' 00" - (p) 1998 - DDD (No. 7) - ADD (Te Deum) EMI Classics - 5 56696 2 - (2 CD's) - durata 38' 35" & 68' 53" - (p) 1998 - DDD - (No. 8) EMI Classics - 5 56699 2 - (2 CD's) - durata 47' 39" & 65' 40" - (p) 1998 - DDD - (No. 9 & Excerpts) EMI Classics - 5 56702 2 - (1 CD) - durata 77' 16" - (p) 1998 - DDD - (Mass No. 3)
	CD Coffret		EMI Classics - 0 85578 2 - (12 CD's) - (c) 2011 - ADD/DDD
	Note		This recordings has been processed using Spectral Design AudioCube technology.

As Time Goes By, or "The Case of Sergiu Celibidache" ‘The appearance is not dissociated by the observer but rather swallowed up and entangled with his own individuality' (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe) He was said to be difficult, a non-conformist, one ‘whose radicality was polarizing... creating either respect and admiration or mistrust and rejection’, a man who caused distress and wore people down, and who issued a legendary, strict repudiation of any form of recording. (The few exceptions from his early years as well as the studio performance of his own composition Der Taschengarten that he conducted as a benefit for UNICEF are not under consideration here.) Ultimately, they served only to increase his own value as a rarity on international concert platforms, a more or less enigmatic oddity of the music scene, to whose successive places of activity only his most devoted followers flocked. Thus was Sergiu Celibidache presented to outsiders over the course of decades. The most knowledgeable of critics were at loggerheads over his controversially slow tempos, which one faction perceived as plumbing unprecedented depths, and the opposition, perceiving a desecration of their household gods, worked themselves up to scurrilous utterances, while a third, somewhat neutral, camp, was savouring the hullabaloo indulged in by their otherwise respected colleagues. All the while there sat the object of the controversy himself, relishing it and happily fuelling the fire. It is as though all these critics had picked out particular aspects of the universe created by Celibidache in line with their own discretion, taste and motives, and in doing so produced a puzzle whose pieces, once removed from the whole picture, became clichés that no longer fitted together. This was already the situation prevailing on 14 August 1996 when the heart of the ‘controversial`, ‘different’ maestro stopped beating in the hospital at Nemours. At his home in La Neuville-sur-Essonne, southwest of the forest of Fontainebleau, he had been in the midst of preparing his next musical projects for Munich’s Gasteig Philharmonie, his artistic residence of long standing. The heart attack could not really be called unexpected - some years earlier he had had a pacemaker implanted as a precautionary measure - and yet it came as a surprise: here was someone who dealt as self-confidently with the phenomenon of time as anyone, who exuded an aura of immortality even when physical symptoms told a different story. The notion that ‘one day he would no longer be there’ never crossed anyones mind. Writing now just before the 15th anniversary of Celibidache's death, the situation has altered fundamentally. Appearances, as our privy councillor Goethe rightly concluded, are not dissociated from us observers. And if we want to comprehend them we must not lose our way in two-dimensional reproductions, received prejudices or others' judgments, which only serve to increase our own inability to see clearly. The honourable assignment of writing a new introduction to the present edition has had to be approached subjectively, resisting the temptation to dig out the old ‘clichés’ and ‘swallowing up and entangling’ the phenomenon of Sergiu Celibidache with one's own individuality - not so much for those who have already travelled along the path as for all those curious individuals who may be as bemused by the external appearances as Atreyu, the hero of Fantastica in Michael Ende’s Neverending Story, when confronted with the No-Key Gate, which opens only to those who approach it without any intention of entering. Space Fulfilled by Time - The Cosmos of Anton Bruckner ... a feeling for the truth and the ability to understand it are present in every human being. (Rudolf Steiner) When, after two and a half decades of professional wanderings, Sergiu Celibidache arrived at his last and longest music directorship, in 1979 in Munich, he immediately surprised his new orchestra with an unforeseeable innovation: ‘He assiduously saw to it that the sections sat as closely together as practicable in order for them to hear one another as well as possible. Then he had the experienced professionals tune section by section, first basses and cellos, then the violins and finally the violas, after the customary free-for-all had elicited his comment: “The best way not to tune!" How could that not be taken as a form of humiliation?’ This account- which comes from Harald Eggebrechts 1992 illustrated book Sergiu Celibidache and is headed ‘Nur der Freie kann Musik machen’ (‘Only the free person can make music’) - characterizes the ensuing 17 years of rehearsals and concerts under the merciless direction of the man with the lion’s mane. After three days, Celibidache’s conviction, ‘In the beginning lies the end’, was almost fulfilled in a manner that might be described as ‘human, all-too human`: "Celi" interrupts work on Richard Strauss's Death and Transfiguration because he detects muttering in the brass. Upon further questioning, he is informed: 'This passage has been played differently in the past.' What happened next has been so thoroughly documented in the press that we prefer to spread a cloak of silence and leave the reader to imagine the excruciatingly embarrassing, thundering theatrics, the dramatic debates and grovelling attempts at placation - or else to skip ahead to the eye of the storm: all that ranting and raving, storm clouds and lightning, the wild, fierce glances and words, the seemingly endless repetitions and polishing were not part of some large-scale harassment, as the defenders of democratic artistic practice or anti-authoritarian training methods suspected. No, they were the mimed, verbal and intellectual axe-blows of a galvanizing figure who sought to manoeuvre all those involved in his music-making - including concert audiences and attendees of his almost always open rehearsals - away from encrusted habits and mechanical routine and to take them along ‘to the other side’, where kindred spirits rub shoulders and where, as Ferruccio Busoni so indelibly formulated at the end of his New Aesthetic, there is only music sounding - not the strains of musical art. The few rehearsal excerpts included on CD 11 following the Adagio from Anton Bruckner’s Ninth Symphony serve as a passing confirmation of the preceding descriptions. They belong to the performance of that work that took place in the Munich Philharmonie on 10 September 1995, less than a year before "Celi" passed away - an 83-year-old who, after a lifetime with Bruckner, could still express childlike wonder: ‘Where else do you find something like this? The way it’s put together in harmonic terms alone - unbelievable!’ (Scherzo [6]). Invoking the biblical phrase ‘Seek and ye shall find’ as the strings bungle the Start of the slow final movement [7], he then keeps working on the first eruption until everyone is hearing each other again: ‘You're making noise, not music. Didn’t you hear the trumpet part? What notes were they playing, the trumpets? Of no interest to us. They don’t belong to us’ [7] (beginning c. 9.00). ‘Where is the human being? Those are just notes!’ [8]. And finally: ‘Ladies and gentlemen, no orchestra I know can do what you’re doing! No other orchestra could play like that. In the most terrible fortissimo an absolutely appropriate transparency! One can hear absolutely every part. However, it’s a somewhat different story with the audience, and therefore I recommend that you react to what you hear and not to what you know... With a full house it’s different, and the main thing is that you should recognize the functions that we’ve established in this rehearsal. At this point I accompany horns and transition them to the viola - that’s something you need to know. And when you work with that in mind, things can absolutely never turn dark. - It’s a special joy for me to conduct all of you. I continue to be astonished at how you keep summoning up the capacity to be stimulated; it's already the fourth rehearsal and we're playing on the same level and with the same intensity. Extraordinary! When I look back on my life, we did Bruckner in Berlin and I conducted his music throughout my entire career - I cannot recall a performance in which everything came together the way it has happened with you. Whether pro-Celibidache or anti-Celibidache, everyone is playing with their whole heart. That is so rewarding! I still believe that it’s a gift from providence to have lived in the period when Bruckner was still being discovered.' [11] · · · · · With his phenomenal memory, razor-sharp hearing and pianistic facility, Sergiu Celibidache must have dumbfounded many observers, including, on one occasion, five musicians who had just tackled Arnold Schoenberg's Wind Quintet Op.26. Not only did he proceed to play them the whole score from memory at the piano; he also reeled off all the inaccuracies in their rendition. This capacity for sponge-like absorption by no means interfered with his ability to learn: ‘Herr Doctor, how fast does that go?’ he once asked Wilhelm Furtwängler about a particular passage. The answer had unexpected consequences: 'Ah, that depends on how it sounds.' Later, Celibidache alluded to this laconic remark: ‘So, the way it sounds can determine the tempo! Tempo isn’t a reality per se, but a condition. If there are an enormous variety of factors working together, then I need more time in order to create something musical; if less is going on, I can move through more quickly.' This explanation must have been branded into him in red letters, much to the displeasure of those who railed over his ‘famous slow tempi' or, like the present writer, who until recently turned away in indifference. And with Anton Bruckner, of all composers! I can still hear myself saying: ‘I can live without a 90-minute Eighth!’ That may well be true when I’m sitting in front of my speakers and listening to a studio production, whose panorama, definition and tonal character are determined by the recording space as well as by my own playback conditions. There it is possible to rein in effectively the massive dimensions of a not exactly dainty score. And that's why I reject the idea of ‘unnecessary’ duration - if only there weren’t this strange pull, which seems to follow from a ‘feeling for the truth’: could all the applause showered on Celibidache and his Munich orchestra have been only sound and fury - an audible receipt for a monetary outlay which demanded approbation? Applause of that sort sounds different, and music that is rolled out only for the sake of being original or even didactic (‘Beethoven’s metronome was broken') cannot cast such a spell. As an experiment, I expand the parameters of my concept and suddenly ask myself: ‘Slow in relation to what?` (Only later did I discover that "Celi" asks exactly the same thing in rehearsals for the Ninth.) Slow in relation to the stopwatch with which some critics arm themselves in order to be able to file an ‘objective` report? In relation to the parking ticket that has been placed behind the windscreen for the traffic warden but will expire long before the concert ends? Is the babysitter sitting on pins and needles because he or she has an exam tomorrow? Do we bring nothing to the occasion but our previous listening experiences (‘We've heard this passage played differently in the past’)? Something from the outside always impinges. And yet: ‘When you go to a concert you must leave everything at home and hope. And then listen. You will discover that things develop - or don’t. If they develop, you are free. If you force them to develop, what develops is neither free nor does it come from within you. That’s hard for Europeans to understand. But music is nothing else.' And: ‘If you have the feeling it’s too long or too short, you’re already on the outside. Music doesn’t last in that sense’ (Celibidache). This doesn’t mean we have to squat in lotus position or mumble incantatory syllables. We aren’t even obliged to believe the wise words of others with rolled eyes simply because they've been hailed as wise. But when the great architectural structures breathe, when the blossoms open and close, when the space is saturated with 'fulfilled' time that abolishes itself and, in the final eruption of the Ninth, even approaches Alexander Skryabin’s 'Universe' - then the moment meets eternity: in the beginning is the end is the beginning... Eckhardt van den Hoogen (Translation: Richard Evidon)