Yes, I dearly loved Celibidache.
I got acquainted with him (personally) when I was eleven. I grew up in Berlin, Germany. Celi became conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic after Leo Borchard was accidentally shot by Allied soldiers (in the car of a british officer who took him home because it was past curfew time!!!) Because of an uncle who was in the Kultursenat of Berlin, our family frequently got free tickets for Celibidache concerts (and other events).
I don't recall going to a concert until 1946. Celi also came to our home through a coincidence, and I recall the conversation between him and my mother about Buddhism -- the first Buddhist I ever met. I attended many, many concerts between 1946 and 1954 (when Celi left Berlin, to our deep regret) -- as a teenager I was infatuated with him! I was 19 when he left Berlin.
In 1959 I immigrated to the US and have not been able to hear him until the early eighties when I returned to Germany for a year of studies at the University of Tuebingen and heard him in Berlin -- then a grey haired gentleman, much more spiritual and centered than I had remembered him. I loved him all over again. Although the concert took place in the building of the Berlin Philharmonic, it was not the Berlin but the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra he conducted. Most people who know Celibidache's history would know that when he left Berlin in 1954 he NEVER conducted the Berlin Philharmonic again --- until about 1993, when he finally gave in to the persuasive efforts of then Bundespraesident von Weizsaecker to give a benefit concert in Berlin with the BPO.
Karen S. Carter