Furtwängler - Live in Berlin. The Complete RIAS Recordings
see end of review for track listing
Yehudi Menuhin (violin: Beethoven) Gerhard Taschner (violin: Fortner)
Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra/Wilhelm Furtwängler
rec. 1947-54, Berlin
AUDITE 21.403 [13 CDs: 957:14]
These live RIAS broadcasts have never sounded as good as they do here. That’s
the claim Audite makes and in the opportunities I’ve had to compare and
contrast it certainly seems true. The surface noise, or extraneous other impedimenta
that have pursued these tapes, whilst hardly excessive given their 1947-54 provenance,
has certainly been tamed here. Discreet and effective and in some cases powerfully
improved, the gains in vivid and immediate sound are notable. One listen to the
Beethoven Fifth and Sixth enshrined in the first disc confirms that past transfers
by such as M & A, and Tahra have been superseded. Further auditions of the
Fortner concerto on MDG adds more evidence to the conclusion, as do other spot
checks: more immediate sound, greater clarity, less surface noise.
A few markers to this set may be in order. There are twelve CDs of music and
a final CD which represents a colloquium which the conductor gave on the art
of interpretation. There are no translations provided so your German will need
to be good. Nevertheless the opportunity to eavesdrop Werner Egk and his students
interviewing Furtwängler is not one to be spurned if you have an archival
turn of mind - and in any case it will be a useful, occasional pendant to the
set as a whole.
This is a remarkable corpus of performances and enshrines at a stroke a vital
collection of the conductor’s post-War legacy. Of course readers who follow
the his work will be familiar with some at least - and others will be familiar
with a large number, if not necessarily all the performances, of the multiply
recorded works.
The conductor sometimes programmed Beethoven’s Fifth and Sixth together,
as he does in the May 1947 and May 1954 performances - given incidentally almost
exactly seven years apart to the day. The earlier performance of the Pastoral
has amazing accelerandos and more localised sense of drama than the better played
and in many ways more structurally cohesive 1954 broadcast. But the dynamism
of the 1947 compensates in some ways for the broader span of the ‘last
testament’ RIAS traversal. In 1947 his Fifth was granitic and heavy and
technically somewhat compromised: once again the 1954 statement is even broader,
and less biting.
There are two performances of the Eroica, both wonderful. I often think
that this was Furtwangler’s most consistently inspired reading of a Beethoven
symphony. Neither can really match the stupendous 1944 inscription, which is
incandescent, but I’d take the more rectitudinous 1950 over the wilder
1952.
The Violin Concerto is the Menuhin performance from September 1947; it’s
one to add, if not already done so, to the Lucerne (in the same year) and the
later 1953 Philharmonia collaborations between the two men. Poised and Olympian
the performance is one of spiritual depth and unhurried eloquence. The Bach Orchestral
Suite, with which it shares disc space, is one of those historical curios that
sound like Bach-Bruckner to our ears. The third disc couples Schubert’s Unfinished with
Brahms’s Fourth from an October 1948 concert. There’s little to choose
between this Unfinished and that housed in disc ten which comes from 1953.
Both have an immense sense of brooding power and the conductor’s way with
the transitions never loses its hypnotic fascination. Also housed in disc ten
is the Great, an expansive performance that perhaps lacks impetus and
sharp rhythmic pointing. The Brahms Fourth meanwhile lacks the passionate drama
of the wartime December 1943 reading - but then that’s true for all such
performances where comparison is allowed. This one has its technical lapses,
is less sound architecturally, and sports predictably exciting accelerandi in
the second movement and the finale.
The performance of Bruckner’s Eighth was given in March 1949 and is arguably
one of Furtwängler’s most important traversals of the composer’s
music. It has immense authority and power and at no times gets waylaid by extraneous
detailing, so persuasively is the symphonic argument deployed. Brahms’s
Third Symphony again exists in two RAIS recordings. The 1949 performance is not
necessarily preferable to the April 1954. He takes the first movement repeat
in the earlier one but not in the later, so that may alter allegiances, but there
is a rather soggy approach to rhythm in both I find. This is the most difficult
of all Brahms’s symphonies to project and it doesn’t bring out the
best in the conductor. I’ve written extensively elsewhere regarding this Fortner
Concerto recording in its MDG guise - so it’s best to pursue matters
there.
Disc six is a mixed pleasure. It sports some superbly sonorous Wagner - an especially
powerful Prelude to Act I of Die Meistersinger - and a desperately stodgy Handel
Concerto grosso, which is best avoided. So too by the way is the other Concerto
grosso on disc seven. The Brahms Haydn variations is powerful but lacks sweep.
To compensate there’s Hindemith’s Concerto for Orchestra which received
a wholesome, rather well nourished reading lacking any desiccating moments. It’s
unusual repertoire, though we hear more of Hindemith in disc 8 where we can hear Die
Harmonie der Welt (from 8 December 1952). The meeting of minds between composer
and conductor is mightily impressive here and the result is a meaty reading fully
deserving of close listening.
Other things are here too, including Blacher’s Concertante Musik für
Orchester which is unusual territory, its syncopation and jazz influenced
writing adding an open air, Stravinskian brew to the proceedings. The Strauss
Don Juan lacks energy though the Prelude and Isolde’s Liebestod from the
same concert are much more convincing.
So, here we have the product of twelve concerts given, mainly, in the Titania
Palast in Berlin between 1947 and 1954. The programming is largely traditional
fare for the conductor but sprinkled as we’ve seen with a few twentieth
century novelties. The booklet lays out detailing and programming matters with
great care and precision. Given the much improved sound this will make formidable
claims on the specialist collector, with the caveat that many Furtwänglerians
will have accumulated a fair amount already, and may be reluctant to upgrade.
Jonathan Woolf
Track listing
CD 1 [75:02]
Ludwig van BEETHOVEN (1770-1827)
Symphony No.6 in F Op.68 Pastoral (1807) [42:24]
Symphony No.5 in C minor Op.67 (1807) [32:38]
CD 2 [78:19]
Felix MENDELSSOHN (1809-1847)
A Midsummer Night's Dream: Overture (1826) [12:58]
Ludwig van BEETHOVEN (1770-1827)
Violin Concerto in D major Op 61 (1806) [44:06] ¹
Johann Sebastian BACH (1685-1750)
Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D major BWV 1068 for 3 trumpets, timpani, 2 oboes,
strings and continuo (c1729-31) [21:11]
CD 3 [65:04]
Franz SCHUBERT (1797-1828)
Symphony no. 8 in B minor, D.759 "Unfinished" (1822) [23:39]
Johannes BRAHMS (1833-1897)
Symphony No.4 in E minor Op.98 (1887) [41:24]
CD 4 [76:04]
Anton BRUCKNER (1824-1896)
Symphony No 8 in C minor (1890 ed. Robert Haas) [76:04]
CD 5 [74:28]
Robert SCHUMANN (1810-1856)
Manfred Op 115 - overture (1852) [13:21]
Johannes BRAHMS (1833-1897)
Symphony No.3 in F major Op.90 (1883) [38:44]
Wolfgang FORTNER (1907-1987)
Concerto for violin and large chamber orchestra (1947) [22:21] ²
CD 6 [68:48]
Richard WAGNER (1813-1883)
Götterdämmerung - Trauermarsch (1876) [9:35]
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg - Pelude to Act I (1868) [9:23]
George Frideric HANDEL (1685-1759)
Concerti Grossi Op. 6 No.10 (1739) [16:42]
Johannes BRAHMS (1833-1897)
Variations on a theme by Haydn (St. Anthony Variations) Op. 56a (1873)
[20:22]
Paul HINDEMITH (1895-1963)
Concerto for Orchestra Op.38 (1925) [12:42]
CD 7 [79:56]
Ludwig van BEETHOVEN (1770-1827)
Symphony no.3 in Eb, op.55 Eroica (1805) [52:26]
Christoph Willibald GLUCK (1714-1787)
Alceste - Opera in three acts - overture (1767) [9:34]
George Frideric HANDEL (1685-1759)
Concerti Grossi Op. 6 No 5 (1739) [17:53]
CD 8 [50:14]
Carl Maria von WEBER (1786-1826)
Der Freischütz - overture (1817) [13:39]
Paul HINDEMITH (1895-1963)
Symphony Die Harmonie der Welt (1951) [36:32]
CD 9 [77:13]
Ludwig van BEETHOVEN (1770-1827)
Symphony no.3 in Eb, op.55 Eroica (1805) [55:06]
Franz SCHUBERT (1797-1828)
Rosamunde D.797- Overture (1823) [12;12]
Boris BLACHER (1903-1975)
Concertante Musiche, for orchestra (1937) [9:54]
CD 10 [75:49]
Franz SCHUBERT (1797-1828)
Symphony no. 8 in B minor, D.759 "Unfinished" (1822) [23:17]
Symphony no. 9 in C, D.944 "The Great" (1825-28) [52:30]
CD 11 [73:04]
Johannes BRAHMS (1833-1897)
Symphony No.3 in F major Op.90 (1883) [37:04]
Richard STRAUSS (1864-1949)
Don Juan Op.20 (1888) [18:14]
Richard WAGNER (1813-1883)
Tristan und Isolde - Prelude and Isolde’s Liebestod (1865) [17:44]
CD 12 [79:14]
Ludwig van BEETHOVEN (1770-1827)
Symphony No.6 in F Op.68 Pastoral (1807) [44:37]
Symphony No.5 in C minor Op.67 (1807) [34:35]
Bonus CD
Colloquium; Furtwängler on the art of interpretation