lack of substantiated criticism. The courts found in favour of Conant as Celibidache "could not justify his complaint with facts". An appeal on the decision failed, and Conant was paid the same as her male colleagues. Celibidache died at the age of 84 on 14 August 1996 at La Neuville-sur-Essonne, near Paris. He was buried in the Cimetière de Neuville sur Essonne. Performance style Celibidache's approach to music-making is often described more by what he did not do instead of what he did. For example, much has been made of Celibidache's "refusal" to make recordings even though almost all of his concert activity actually was recorded with many released posthumously by major labels such as EMI and Deutsche Grammophon with the consent of his family. Nevertheless, Celibidache paid little attention to making these recordings, which he viewed merely as by-products of his orchestral concerts. Celibidache's focus was instead on creating, during each concert, the optimal conditions for what he called a "transcendent experience". Aspects of Zen Buddhism, such as ichi-go ichi-e, strongly influenced his thinking. He believed that transcendental experiences were extremely unlikely to ensue when listening to recorded music, so he eschewed them. As a result, some of his concerts did provide audiences with exceptional and sometimes life-altering experiences, including, for example, a 1984 concert in Carnegie Hall by the Orchestra of the Curtis Institute that New York Times critic John Rockwell described as the best of his 25 years of concert-going. Celibidache was well known for his demands for extensive rehearsal time with orchestras. An oft-mentioned feature of many of his later concerts, captured in the live recordings of them, is a slower tempo than what is considered the norm, while in fast passages (especially in his earlier performances) his tempi often exceeded metronome markings by far. In Celibidache's own view, however, criticism of a recording's tempo is irrelevant, as it is not (and cannot be) a critique of the performance but rather of a transcription of it, without the ambience of the moment, for him, a key factor in any musical performance. As Celibidache explained, the acoustic space in which one hears a concert directly affects the likelihood of the emergence of his sought-after transcendent experience. The acoustic space within which one hears a recording of one of his performances, on the other hand, has no impact on the performance, as it is impossible for the acoustic