Thus spoke Tony Duggan:

>Yes, mesmerizing is a good word for some of them.  I am sure Dr. Mesmer
>would have found use for them on some of his patients.  What Bruckner would
>have thought is another matter.  I have heard a Bruckner 7 by Celi that was
>slow beyond all belief or reason.  How the orchestra's brass players didn't
>suffocate I do not know.

Here is a short fragment from MTO 4.5:

   4] "It meant very hard work," recalls Joerg Eggebrecht, who plays
   first Cello at the Munich Philharmonic orchestra, where Celibidache
   conducted from the early eighties until his death.  "His way of
   rehearing put enormous pressure on us.  If I study the score as
   closely as Celibidache, if I make it my life's work to play Bruckner
   as Bruckner meant us to play him--with great calm and quiet--then
   this means a great effort especially for the wind instruments.  Some
   of my colleagues had actually taken up yoga in order to fulfil Celi's
   breathing technique requirements.  The release of the CDs will show
   that our brass players play completely different than anything we
   have previously heard of Bruckner

   [5] Eggebrecht recalls that the wind instruments were required to
   precisely dosage of their breath.  "To keep up this enormous peace
   and quiet all through the symphony was a great strain" he explains,
   adding: "but it means that our Bruckner performances were completely
   lacking in violence.  Every note could be born at its own pace, all
   sound had its own space.  Nothing was swallowed up.  It was possible
   to hear every minute aspect of the music and comprehend what Bruckner
   had meant to bring across.  It was like a moment of truth, and the
   musical space expanded beyond the orchestra, into the audience

The whole article could be found at the following address:

http://boethius.music.ucsb.edu/mto/issues/mto.98.4.5/mto.98.4.5.james.html

Doru Ionescu