Last month I decided to listen to a fair cross section of Celi's performances both on EMI and DG. I listened to the Brahms, Ravel, Debussy, Strauss, Respighi, Haydn, most of the Beethoven and Bruckner as well as the Russian set. Celi is obviously a conductor of genius, as the Bruckner and Brahms 4th recordings make clear. However, Celi uses the same interpretive exaggerations on Haydn or Beethoven as he does on Stravinsky, Strauss or Bruckner. These interpretive exaggerations begin to homoginize the composer’s works and unacceptable blur their compositional uniqueness.
The key for me is does an interpretive exaggeration (a noticeable and audible deviation from the clear markings in the composers published score) tell me something significant about the music, (as is frequently the case with Furtwangler, Klemperer or Bernstein), or is it just a willful exaggeration that tells us more about the conductor. After my listening sessions, often with a score, in my opinion, Celi is, for the most part, about the latter.
On a more affective note and listening without the score, only the Bruckner 4th performance totally engrossed me as a great performance of any of these works should. Here, it is certainly a matter of personal preference. That’s why Celi IS a cult conductor
If you can read music are interested in these issues I recommend the composer Gunther Schuller’s book called the Complete Conductor. He compares, bar by bar, several hundred recordings of such major works such as the Beethoven 5, Brahms 1 and 4, Tchaikovsky 6 and Strauss’s Till to the printed score. Celi’s Bruckner interpretations have little to do with the various editions. For an analysis of the 8th and its various editions, I recommend Korstvedt’s book on the 8th.
BTW the Nikisch recording of the Beethoven 5th is a powerful interpretation showing virtuoso control of the orchestra but the sound is extremely primitive
