The conductor Enrique García Asensio will give this evening at 7 p.m. at the Real Casino de Madrid (Calle de Alcalá, 15), the lecture My relationship with the maestro Sergiu Celibidache, organised by the Romanian Institute of Culture in the framework of the programme Romanian Symphonism in Spain.
Please confirm your attendance at the following e-mail address: icrmadrid@icr.ro or by calling 917 589 566.
The Romanian conductor and musicologist Sergiu Celibidache (Roman, 1912 – Paris, 1996) was one of the great conductors of the 20th century, if not the greatest. This Romanian conductor was the only one who hardly ever set foot in a recording studio. His position on this question, as on many others, was blunt: music is something to be heard live and any recording of it is always a fake. His bad temper was mythical, as was his demand for multiple rehearsals, which meant that few orchestras were willing to give him tenure, although from 1979 until his death he was associated with the Munich Philharmonic. Although his repertoire was vast, his famously slow tempo and innate maintenance of sonorous tension meant that he was at his best in composers such as Bruckner.
Sergiu Celibidache also composed several works, but refused to perform his compositions. He objected to vinyl records, as he felt they offered a lower quality version. He famously conducted Ludwig von Beethoven’ s Egmont Overture, which can be enjoyed in this video.