Chris Bonds:

>I guess I prefer the "old" Celi to the young firebrand.

So do I.  But the set of Brahms symphonies that he recorded with the
Stuttgart Radio Symphony in the mid-70s is very good indeed.  He must have
drilled that orchestra comatose to get the result he did.  (Incidentally,
the set includes a full side of Celi rehearsing the 4th, in addition to
the performance of the same work in concert.) It's a Deutsche Grammophon
production that came out fairly recently.  Compared to it, his Munich
Philharmonic Bruckner (almost-) set, EMI, which trickled together about a
half-generation later, is better still.  For my taste, Celibidache along
with Horenstein are the most persuasive Bruckner interpreters of the LP/cd
period--though Bruno Walter and Furtwaengler, both of them of the preceding
conducting generation, probably deserve not just respect, but even awe.

Denis Fodor                     Internet:[log in to unmask]