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Rob
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Markand Thakar followed a course at Celi and this is an outline of his experiences in Munich: Music is nothing.
Sound could become music. The end must be in the beginning,
and the beginning in the end. I am here because i am not here. Music lives in the eternal now.
Music is the now becoming now. "No! Too flat. No! Too sharp. Ahh, yessss!! Just so." A conflict of intonation systems disintegrates;
the sounds join as if indivisible. "No! Too soon. Why so? Yes! Wonderful." A conflict of temporal
placement (ensemble) dissolves; again the sounds join as if indivisible. "Basses, No! You cover the
tenors. Why so? You didn't listen? Wake up! Bongiorno! Again. Aaaaahhh -- Yes!! It is so. Do you
hear?" They do. I do too. Another conflict -- this time of levels of intensity (balance) -- evaporates
as the basses structure their volume in a musical relation to that of the rest of the choir. The sounds
cease to be sounds. They join, they melt, into a celestial balance. And we who experience them lose
ourselvesour selves -- in them. There is for us no more consciousness of subject, and no more
consciousness of object (certainly the experience could not take place without subject and object, but
they are not present for us in our experience). There is only consciousness -- pure consciousness. In
the English language the only word for this transporting experience is beauty; beauty on the highest
level. Celibidache insists on no less than creating the conditions for this narcotic, celestial experience of
beauty without interruption in every piece. To create these conditions, we must present the sounds in
such a way that they are transcendingly beautiful; we must unfold the sounds so that the open listener
can, through focusing his attentive consciousness exclusively on them, have an experience
characterized by loss-of-self, an experience that is subject-less and object-less. The sounds must
be present so that the subject is not a necessary component of the experience: they are present in that
way when every attribute of every sound participates in a single entity -- a unity. Not that imaginary
emperors-new-clothes unity that is ascribed to a work if the main theme recurs from time to time,
but an experiential unity, an indivisible unity of experienced sounds. The rehearsal process is one of reducing multiplicities. The multiplicity of conflicting intonation
systems is reduced into a unity of intonation systems; and the multiplicity of temporal placement
systems is dissolved into a unity. With each multiplicity dissolved, I the listener am no longer needed
as an active component in the process. I am not needed to connect the out-of-tune tones; they come
to me pre-connected, already within their non-conflicting logical relationships, and I am left free --
free to experience more sounds. But I am also not needed to connect the tones that are not together;
they, too, come to me pre-connected, already in their non-conflicting relationships. Again I am free
to experience more sounds. This freedom comes to me as beauty. When I experience a momentary
fragment of exquisite beauty in musical performance, it is because the sounds have come to me in just
this pre-connected way, freeing me from actively participating in their connection. My sublime
experience is rudely snuffed out by the first sound that comes to me as unconnected -- for example,
the first out-of-tune tone, the first tone experienced as not together, or the first pedestrian structure
of balance. Celibidache strives to eliminate these conditions that put an end to this magical
experience. More enigmas fall. There is an almost durationless now-point that we experience as an immediate
now; it is past as soon as it arrives. There is also another vantage point from which we experience:
that is the extended present with which we experience temporally extended objects. For instance, the
sounding of the name CARNEGIE HALL has temporal extension; it has a measurable duration. But
we experience it all as a single, simultaneous, momentary event, all in the present. Although we do not
hear the sound C concurrently with the final sound L, the experience of the sound C is retained as part
of our experience in the now-point in which we hear the sound L. Likewise, although we dont hear
the sound L concurrently with the sound C, the sound L is part of the essence of the sound C. The
sound C would be essentially different without the context of the sound Lthe sound L is protended in
the immediate now-point in which we hear the sound C. The sounds C and L, and the entire
continuity of sounds in between, are experienced simultaneously in the experience of an indivisible
temporally extended object such as the sounding of the name CARNEGIE HALL. When we
experience a musical passage as beautiful, it comes to us in a similar way: simultaneously, and as
indivisible. (The difference is that I ordinarily would not have a loss-of-self experience through
listening to the sounding of the name, but, for a complex network of reasons, I do have it when the
experience of the musical passage leads to the highest beauty.) Thus, THE END MUST BE IN THE
BEGINNING, AND THE BEGINNING IN THE END. Only when the last note fully participates in
the first, and the first fully participates in the last, will I experience this highest form of beauty. MUSIC
LIVES IN THE ETERNAL NOW. MUSIC IS THE NOW BECOMING NOW. Music can happen
when the now-point experience -- in which the entire grouping occurs simultaneously as a
continuity of retentions, actual now-point experiences, and protentions -- is exchanged for a new
now-point experience -- in which again the continuity of the entire grouping occurs simultaneously
-- in an unboken continuum of such exchanges. Some say he is eccentric -- that he demands too many rehearsals. That is true, if you listen to the
relationship between the sounds and the score, or the difference between the sounds of the
Celibidache concert and those of the Toscanini recording. If you are willing to limit yourself to
ordinary musical experiences (as pleasant as they assuredly are), then it is quite reasonable to stop
rehearsing when the ensemble plays together, and in tune, and with a beautiful sound, and with a
certain excitement. If, however, you insist on the highest, spine-tingling, magical experience of
musical beauty that is available, then there is no choice but to rehearse until the oboe joins with the
other woodwinds -- until every tone joins with every other. Nor is that as impossible a task as it
seems. It is eminently achievable if the musicians play with that experience as their goal.
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