Rehearsing an Orchestra: Sergiu Celibidache. Part VI. A Conducting Primer by Leonid Grin

Sergiu Celibidache

The third category of conductors described by Leonid Grin at his lecture/master at Neeme Järvi’s Summer Academy in Estonia is “the pedagogues.”

“Some of the best names belong to this category,” he said.  As an exemplar, he chose Romanian conductor Sergiu Celibidache (1912-1996).  (Kyril Kondrashin, one of Grin’s professors at the Moscow Conservatory, was another great pedagogue, he noted.)

“The marvelous charge of these conductors is being pedagogues of the orchestra.  They not only correct the orchestra, but by correcting, they teach the orchestra.  During rehearsal, they create a special kind of technique, even exercise, by explaining meticulously, passionately, the issues they are working on.  Seven times, ten times, a thousand times, they correct, teach and repeat.”

 Celibidache might ask the first bassoon to play with the fourth stand of first violins, for example, said Grin:  “’You play legato and you play staccato.  Now you play staccato and you play legato.’  Regardless of the speed, it should always be together.  The same thing with the oboe and the viola section.  Now with timpani.’  By doing that, he taught the orchestra.  He gave them exercises and brought an awareness of making music together.”

Musicians in different sections of the orchestra may not be aware of how they sound vis a vis other sections, how loud they are or how together they are, Grin said.  “They don’t make music together.  They play notes together.”

 When Grin works with an orchestra, he does this same kind of segmentation, he said. “Say, two stands of first violins and the last stand of celli.  Now the first stands.  Sometimes I say, ‘OK, you play alone.’  I just listen.  I don’t conduct.  Playing alone, musicians pay attention to the quality of their sound.”

To illustrate, Grin noted the differences in articulation of the wind section during a rehearsal of the Pärnu City Orchestra that had just taken place as part of the Summer Academy conducting sessions.  “The bassoons and the clarinets played different lengths.  There were three different colors in the horns and they cut off at different times.  They didn’t have ensemble.  My message is let’s make a chamber orchestra.  Any performance is chamber music philosophy.  All things should coordinate.”

It takes time and discipline to accomplish this, said Grin, noting another “phenomenal pedagogue,” George Szell, and also Loren Maazel (Szell’s successor at the Cleveland Orchestra).

To sum up his lecture on rehearsal techniques, Grin proffered this model:

“The best would be if we could combine the three rehearsal techniques of artistry (Bernstein), pedagogic intuition (Celibidache) and consciousness of mind in achieving perfection (Karajan).   If there can ever be a living conductor able to combine these qualities into one, that one will be the conductor of the Heaven Orchestra.”

In conclusion, Grin told his students this “beautiful joke” from the musicians of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra:

“God sends his angels to Earth to select a music director for the orchestra in Heaven.  He gives two names to his messengers, Bernstein and Karajan.  The angels come first to Bernstein and tell him that God has sent them to him as a candidate for music director of the Heaven Orchestra.  ‘Don’t waste your time,’ says Bernstein.  ‘I have the best cognac.  Have a good time and then go to your Father.’  The angels say afterward, ‘Thanks so much for your hospitality.  We have God’s task.  We have to visit Karajan, too.’

“They come to Karajan and tell him, ‘Our heavenly Father has asked us to figure out who will be his music director.  We visited Bernstein and now you.’  Karajan stays silent for a minute, two minutes, three minutes, then says, ‘You know, angels, I don’t remember giving you such a task.’”