Public radio to broadcast this month all concerts conducted by Sergiu Celibidache in Romania

Radio România Muzical will broadcast, beginning November 13, eight recordings of the concerts conducted by Sergiu Celibidache in Romania.

The initiative comes in a month that also sees the release of the biopic The Yellow Tie, directed by the celebrated conductor’s son, and the launch of the volume Spațiul Celibidache (The Celibidache Space) by Stejărel Olaru.

Celibidache left Romania in 1938, at the age of 26, to study in Berlin. He returned to the country only 32 years later, in 1970, with the Swedish Radio Orchestra, where he had been the principal conductor since 1965. Five concerts with three different music programs were held at the Radio Hall in Bucharest in June 1970.

In January and May 1978, as well as in January 1979, he conducted the George Enescu Philharmonic Orchestra in a packed Romanian Athenaeum. The landmark recording of George Enescu’s Romanian Rhapsody op. 11 no. 1, an encore of the January 1978 concert, was produced at the time.

Celibidache also returned to Romania alongside the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra, immediately after the 1989 Revolution. Between February 14 and February 17, 1990, four concerts with two different programs were held. The conductor had also brought aid trucks.

The concerts, from the archives of Radio România, will air on Thursdays and Fridays, beginning at 15:30. They will also be available on the Radio România Muzical website. More on the program here.

(Photo: Stokkete | Dreamstime.com)