Tchaikovsky had a relatively marginal
place in Furtwängler’s repertoire,
but he did make commercial recordings
of the 4th and 6th Symphonies and we
can hear his interpretation of the 5th
through a live performance with the
Turin Radio Orchestra which, in spite
of sonic and orchestral limitations,
is pretty enthralling. We also have
a later performance of the "Pathétique",
recorded live by the Berlin Philharmonic
in Cairo in 1951. This was first issued
by Deutsche Grammophon on LP and has
been in and out of the catalogue over
the years.
The fascination of
Furtwängler’s art is that, at his
best, he re-created the music he was
conducting. The many live performances
that have been issued show that, with
an audience present, his muse rarely
failed to visit him and spur him on
to astonishing heights. This was more
difficult in the recording studio, where
he often seemed to make his points with
a heavy hand, though there certainly
were occasions when things took wing
– Schubert 9, Schumann 4 and Tristan
are famous, white hot, examples.
Since we can hear him
both in the studio and live in the "Pathétique",
is there any notable difference? As
the timings show, the basic interpretation
actually changed very little in the
course of thirteen years:
1938: 20:05, 8:52,
9:19, 10:23
1951: 19:47, 9:18,
9:47, 9:42
The studio performance
begins promisingly, with a strong sense
of foreboding, and the transfer engineer
has extracted a remarkable amount of
burnished tone from the lower strings.
After this the Allegro slides in very
delicately, like a reminiscence of a
long-distant visit to the ballet. The
violas’ counterpoint as the music builds
up is marvellous – this is great orchestral
playing and conducting. But then doubts
begin to creep in. Is the tempo not
just a little too slow? Is the
conductor not holding back too much,
and for too long, until he permits himself
a sudden surge forward for the first
forte? And then, tenderly and
yearningly expressed though the second
subject is, are the points not underlined
a bit too heavily? Is the music not
made to wheeze rather than breathe?
And so it goes on, with many passionate
and fiery moments, but with a tendency
to hang fire in moments of transition,
with the result that my attention was
held only intermittently.
Turning to the live
performance, the sense of foreboding
expressed at the beginning is maybe
even more potent – the strings dig very
deeply into their expansion of the bassoon’s
opening phrases – and the Allegro slides
in as gently as before. Yet it has something
else to it, not just elegance and innocence,
but melancholy and passion too. Where
the earlier performance continued gently,
the live one is building up inexorably,
and the extra tension gives a sense
to the time the conductor takes over
transitions. The agogic underlinings
in the second subject convince now thanks
to the conductor’s extra involvement.
In short, the studio performance seems
a blueprint for the live – truly live
– one.
The next two movements
tell a similar story. The 5/4 "waltz"
has much elegance – at a very slow speed
– in 1938, but the middle section is
dolefully static, while in 1951 the
same elegance was combined with a free-flowing
expressiveness which also gives a sense
to the similarly slow treatment of the
middle section. In 1938 Furtwängler
adopted the old trick of slowing down
for the last appearance of the march
theme of the third movement – readers
unaccustomed to historical recordings
may not even know that virtually all
conductors did this in those days. He
still did it in 1951, but slightly less
so, and following a steadier build-up,
with the result that tension is not
dissipated and pomposity is avoided.
The last movement perhaps
finds Furtwängler at his most involved
in the studio performance, and here
the differences between the two versions
are minimal.
The 1938 recording
is commendably clear, if shallow, and
the elements do not gel in the forte
passages, resulting in a certain stridency.
The 1951 version shows its more recent
date with a smoother and deeper sound-picture,
but it also betrays its off-the-air
origin with a certain mushiness and
above all it distorts very badly at
the climaxes (I am speaking of the original
LP issue, I don’t know if any improvements
have been made subsequently). Neither
is entirely satisfactory, then, but
I found the limitations of the 1951
recording no bar to my involvement and
I feel this is the performance by which
the conductor should be remembered.
However, there is much to be said for
having both and reflecting on the lessons
to be gleaned from them. I haven’t gone
into comparisons with other performances
since I feel that this very broad, tragic
and deliberately unhysterical view of
the work is unique. Basically, Furtwängler
responds to the compassion and humanity
of the music, underplaying the neurosis,
and it is arguable that the white-hot
"Russian" approach of a Mravinsky
or a Markevich gives a completer picture
of Tchaikovsky’s own personality.
In the Wagner Furtwängler
takes a little time to warm up, the
long rests at the beginning of the prelude
creaking rather than breathing, but
his muse quickly takes over to produce
a reading as passionate as you could
wish, with a terrific climax. The first
LP transfer of this recording, a collaboration
between Unicorn and the Wilhelm Furtwängler
Society, found a frequency range (both
upper and lower) which could almost
kid you it was a modern recording. Mark
Obert-Thorn rather surprisingly contents
himself with a more limited response,
creating a boxier sound; the difference
was great enough to limit my response
to the performance itself and I would
never hear it again in preference to
the LP. (To be fair, the LP has moments
of mild distortion which are absent
here).
I’m not quite sure
what sort of a recommendation this amounts
to, or to whom. Those who lack the back-up
knowledge required to read the performances
and recordings in the right context
should proceed with caution.
Christopher Howell
Jonathan Woolf
has also listened to this recording
Furtwängler’s
famous Berlin Pathétique
was an outstanding set, both interpretatively
and in terms of its recording quality.
Its virtues have been endlessly discussed
over the years and there’s little that
I can add to the encomia of over half
a century regarding the conductor’s
command of structure and visceral emotive
power. It’s true that he does engage
in unmarked ritardandi in the opening
movement and that he can be cavalier
over tempo markings generally. But against
that is the undeniable truth that he
goes for the long line, doubtless surprising
those who felt him an unlikely conductor
of Tchaikovsky. Certainly like his antipode
Toscanini he was a relatively infrequent
conductor of the symphonies but he evinced
considerably more interest in the Russian
composer’s music than his Italian counterpart
ever did and to far more telling effect.
In the second movement
it is remarkable how unsectional it
is; phrased negatively this sounds unexceptional
but Furtwängler’s ability to think
in terms of paragraphs pays the richest
rewards here and is by no means a commonplace
gift. He also took the last repeat in
the third movement in the live 1951
Cairo performance whereas he jettisons
it in Berlin. The last two movements
are equally fine though the conductor’s
admirers will know that the Cairo recording
evinced, if anything, even greater reserves
of power and specifically in these last
movements. So some may baulk at the
relatively constricted scherzo, wanting
a more consistently forward moving tempo
– but he is saving it all up for the
overwhelming coda, another example of
architectural acuity. The finale is
deeply moving but never dawdles and
ends a performance of tragic consequence
but profound nobility. There is no trace
whatsoever of mania or over projection;
instead there is grandeur and power
and phrasing of a consistently remarkable
kind. Earlier in the year conductor
and orchestra had recorded the Tristan
Act 1 Prelude and Liebestod, exalted
examples of his Wagnerian work with
the Berlin Orchestra and benefiting
equally from superior sonics.
The recordings still
sound dramatic all these years later
and most transfers do them justice.
The Tchaikovsky is available on Archipel,
coupled with Schubert’s Unfinished and
is also on Claremont and an EMI box
(a recommendable set). The Biddulph
transfer should be reintroduced to the
catalogue in time. I’m not sure if the
Toshiba and Novello transfers are still
in print. The DG Furtwängler box
of live performances contains not this
one but the Cairo recording.
Jonathan Woolf
Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra/Wilhelm Furtwängler
