In answer to your question of Celibidache's visit to our home, I can only say that I do not know what his habit was of visiting persons in general. I do not know anything about his private life other than what has been reported by students and musicians. Yes, he did sometimes visit people, for example a musician who was sick. He cared for the musicians and had a cordial relationship with many of them, they say, helpful and cooperatrive. The visit in our home had nothing to do with that. Celi did not know us prior to that simple coincidence:
Celibidache was on his way to pick up the pianist Walter Gieseking for a concert. Gieseking lived in a hotel very close to our house in Berlin Wannsee. Celi came by car to pick him up. It was an old car -- I don't think it was even his. He might have borrowed it -- or maybe it was his. Anyway, right in our street, his car stalled and he needed water for the car's radiator. My brother, 2 years older than I, was in the street and saw Celi get out of his car and RECOGNIZED him! In other words, we had already been to several of his concerts to know what he looked like and to recognize him without his tuxedo. So my brother brought him into our house to get water. Since he was not in a hurry, he visited with us a while. He talked with my brother about his piano practice time - told him an hour a day (for a 13 year old boy) was much too short - talked with my mother about his reiligion. Then he asked my brother whether he was coming to hear Walter Gieseking play, and my brother said,"Sorry, I don't have a ticket." We were quite poor at the time, and when we did not get those free tickets from my relative, we could not go to the concerts. Celi said, "I have one for you" and gave him one. It later turned out that he had given my brother his own ticket, because when they got to the concert, they moved a chair into the aisle next to my brother's seat for Celibidache!!
That's the kind of guy he was. He also was very attractive - very graceful, slender, curly haired -- and full of music in his movements. And his music sparkled. Also, his repertoire had so many pieces of "new music" -- not simply the known classics. How can I separate the person from the music? I can't. Now I am 62 and love especially the combination of spirituality and his music, the way he needs to "empty himself" in order to be fully present for the music he is going to conduct. He fascinates me know more than ever.
Karen S. Carter