This disc is actually just as interesting for what it does
not show
us as for what it does. Just as in the earlier issues of this
fascinating Naxos Historical series, you will find hardly any
hard evidence of Furtwängler’s artistic
development.
It is almost as if he had sprung fully formed like Minerva from
the head of Jove.
But we must remember that the conductor only began his recording
career at a point in time when he had already been Chief Conductor
of the Berlin State Opera for six years and of both the Berlin
Philharmonic and Leipzig Gewandhaus orchestras for four. His
was certainly not a case, therefore, of a conductor learning
on the job in the recording studio.
We must also keep in mind that in general in this early period,
with the exception of a rather
unexceptional
Beethoven
fifth symphony from 1926, Furtwängler was given no opportunity
to make recordings of the longer, more complex works for which
he is still revered today - even though one suspects that, with
his well known reservations about the impossibility of ever setting
down definitive musical interpretations, he would not necessarily
have been unhappy with that particular limitation. As a result,
much of the relatively unchallenging music that he recorded in
the 1920s and 1930s - well known overtures, dances, Wagnerian “bleeding
chunks” and other orchestral showpieces, all offering little
scope for any subsequent refinement - cannot be subjected to
the same intensive musicological analysis in the search for development
as, to take just a single example, do his dozen extant later
recordings, both studio and live, of Brahms’s First Symphony.
So what of the contents here? It is apparent from the very opening
of the
Lohengrin prelude that the Berlin Philharmonic
was in very fine form in 1930, with especially beautiful playing
from the strings. They respond admirably to Furtwängler’s
flexible approach and the undulating main melody makes an exceptionally
striking impression. The conductor’s humanity is as apparent
as his innate feel for the Wagnerian idiom and, just for once,
the music feels like it is properly and organically related to
the subsequent drama rather than being performed as a stand-alone
demonstration piece. The particularly well balanced orchestra
shines too in the
Tristan und Isolde extracts - seamlessly
conjoined by expert restoration engineer Mark Obert-Thorn. Furtwängler
creates a real sense of inexorability and tragedy in the music,
and the strings stand out for their combination of delicacy coupled
with great strength at the music’s climax. Powerful drama
is again at the heart of this 1933 performance of Siegfried’s
funeral music, so movingly played, with the tension ratcheted
up until it becomes almost unbearable: a recording that forces
one to listen to the score afresh.
The two Brahms Hungarian dances go with a real swing. Furtwängler
plays up the
zigeuner rhythms in a brisk performance of
no.1 that has an exciting acceleration towards the end. No.10
may not be the most obvious of choices, but is once again performed
with flair and aplomb.
The
Die Fledermaus overture was last of these tracks to
have been recorded and it shows in the much brighter and livelier
sound.
Pace Colin Anderson whose booklet notes dismiss
it as the least spontaneous and rewarding performance on the
disc, I responded to it far more positively and found it jaunty,
witty and sophisticated. Conductor and orchestra treat this music
seriously and perform it with loving care - is that, perhaps,
an antithetical quality to spontaneity?
I do agree with Mr Anderson, however, on the remarkably fine
performance of
Till Eulenspiegel’s merry pranks,
a piece far more familiar to concert audiences then than now.
This is a flexible, witty, frequently quite spiky and acerbic
and, I noted in particular, spontaneous-sounding performance
- though I am happy to confirm that, at least in this instance
and for this reviewer, spontaneity does
not exclude lavishing
that extra degree of loving care on the music. This track is
the highlight of the disc.
Once again, this very useful series - at, let it not be forgotten,
a most attractive price - serves to draw our attention to an
era of German history in which the highest standards of musicianship
and music-making co-existed with some truly appalling events
in the wider society - economic and political meltdown, followed
by the coming to power of the Nazi Party and its concomitant
brutalization of civil life. The fact that, in the eyes of many
to this day, Wilhelm Furtwängler himself personifies that
paradoxical situation continues to make him one of the most controversial
- and fascinating - artists of his time.
Rob Maynard
Other reviews in this series
Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra/Wilhelm
Furtwängler 
