111003 bk FurtwanglerEarly02 EU 4/10/08 12:38 PM Page 5 GREAT CONDUCTORS • WILHELM FURTWÄNGLER 8.111003 The Early Recordings, Vol. 2 Great Conductors • Furtwängler ADD Ludwig van BEETHOVEN (1770-1827): 1 Egmont – Overture, Op. 84 8:32 Recorded November, 1933 in the Hochschule für Musik, Berlin Also available Matrices: 735 be I and 736 be I First issued on Grammophon 67055 Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67 31:45 The Early Recordings, 2 I Allegro con brio 6:24 3 II Andante con moto 10:58 Vol. 2 4 III Allegro 5:41 5 III Allegro 8:42 Recorded 16th and 30th October, 1926 in Berlin Matrices: 174 bm, 175 bm, 216 bm, 217 bm, 218 bm, 179 bm, 330 1/2 bm, 214 bm and 215 bm First issued on Grammophon 69855 through 69859 BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 5 Carl Maria von WEBER (1786-1826): 6 Der Freischütz – Overture 9:49 Egmont Overture Recorded 16th October, 1926 in Berlin Matrices: 172 bm and 173 bm 8.111136 First issued on Grammophon 66466 WEBER Gioachino ROSSINI (1792-1868): Overture to Der Freischütz 7 La gazza ladra – Overture 9:16 Recorded in 1930 in the Hochschule für Musik, Berlin Matrices: 1108 1/2 bi I and 1109 1/2 bi I ROSSINI First issued on Grammophon 95427 Overtures to Il barbiere di 8 Il barbiere di Siviglia – Overture 7:15 Recorded May, 1935 in the Hochschule für Musik, Berlin 8.111060 Siviglia and La gazza ladra Matrices: 526 1/2 gs and 527 1/2 gs First issued on Grammophon 35028 Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra • Wilhelm Furtwängler Special thanks to Donald R. Hodgman and Don Tait Wilhelm Furtwängler Historical Recordings 1926 - 1935 8.111003 5 8.111003 6 8.111136 1 111003 bk FurtwanglerEarly02 EU 4/10/08 12:38 PM Page 2 Great Conductors: Wilhelm Furtwängler (1886-1954) dispenses with the repeat of the first movement’s story-line to come and completely avoids any sense of Producer’s Note exposition, which can be argued as concentrating ‘bar-line’ dogma. The Early Recordings, Vol. 2 • Beethoven • Weber • Rossini further the movement to advantage or diminishing its The elegant, sly and humorous music of Rossini The sources for the present transfers were German Grammophon and Polydor shellac 78 rpm pressings. A few bars Gustav Heinrich Ernst Martin Wilhelm Furtwängler typecasting; although this is, of course, the music that scale, especially given the length (nearly double in may not seem a likely choice for Furtwängler to of music went unrecorded during the transition from the first to the second side of the third movement of the was born in Berlin on 25th January 1886 and died in he recorded. Furtwängler’s repertoire was broader than terms of minutes) of the succeeding Andante con moto, conduct; and, indeed, the overture to La gazza ladra Beethoven Fifth Symphony. The sides were taken down at different sessions, and both the engineer and conductor Baden-Baden on 30th November 1954. His father was might be supposed and includes him conducting the a tempo-marking that Furtwängler ignores completely (The Thieving Magpie) does seem rather portentous and apparently forgot where the previous side had left off. I have filled in this gap (Track 4, 3:34 – 3:47) by cloning an archaeologist and his mother a painter; such premières of, for example, Hindemith’s symphony in favour of a lingering Adagio in a which a march-like lacking in sparkle, if respectful and taken seriously, but some surface noise from the 1926 recording and combining it with the corresponding bars from Furtwängler’s 1937 exploratory and creative qualities might be perceived in Mathis der Maler, in 1934, and Schoenberg’s (masterly tread is probably less discernible than Beethoven lacking affection and a light touch. From five years EMI remake with the same orchestra, thus presenting this performance complete for the first time. Furtwängler’s distinctive and personal brand of if ‘newly complex’) Variations for Orchestra, Op. 31, intended; that said, Furtwängler’s sensitivity to later, in 1935, the overture The Barber of Seville is musicianship. Wilhelm Furtwängler’s musical in 1928. Nor was Furtwängler a stranger to Bartók’s expressive lines gives the movement a lamenting rather more silken and buoyant, if not as al fresco as the Mark Obert-Thorn education began at an early age (with his instrument music – in 1927 he had conducted the first performance quality that further emphasises the darkness of the work music can seem, and, in the faster music, rather spikier being the piano) and was fuelled in particular by a love of Piano Concerto No. 1 with the composer as the thus far. Stoicism is also Furtwängler’s way with the than the norm: an interesting if not definitive view of of Beethoven’s music, which would develop into a soloist, and over twenty years later he recorded Violin Scherzo, quite dogged, nothing taking for granted, en the music. One imagines the record company asking lifetime’s engrossment for him. Although his Concerto No. 2 with Yehudi Menuhin, and there exist route to a mysterious and shadowy bridge passage – Furtwängler to record the music and him duly obliging posthumous reputation is as a conductor of the Austro- concert-recordings of Furtwängler conducting Ravel some of the quietest-played instruments only just not so much as a Rossinian but as a professional. German classics, kept alive through a relatively small and Stravinsky. picked-up by the microphones – an ‘escape’ into the Leading up to the years of World War II, and during official discography now swelled by many releases of Beginning this selection of recordings made by triumphant finale in which Furtwängler’s initial breadth that conflict, Furtwängler, because he remained in exhumed concert-performances, Furtwängler was also a Furtwängler and the Berlin Philharmonic between 1926 becomes a little quicker, and then quicker again, but Germany (other prominent musicians went into exile), composer (and not the only composer-conductor to put and 1935 is Beethoven’s Egmont Overture, part of the with an organic sense of line remaining and a natural was branded a Nazi (or certainly a member of the Nazi the act of creation above that of re-creation: Boulez is, composer’s incidental music to Goethe’s drama entwining of direct emotional engagement with the Party). Although, post-war, he was cleared of such and Klemperer was, of a similar mind). Furtwängler’s concerning Egmont the Flemish aristocrat who defied music. This account from 1926 is not the only example associations, such a stigma dogged his career for quite compositions include several pieces of expansive Philip of Spain (although such resistance only resulted of Furtwängler conducting Beethoven’s Fifth. He made some time. As mentioned earlier, Menuhin, a Jew, chamber music, a piano concerto, and three Bruckner- in execution). Furtwängler’s approach to the slow a celebrated Berlin recording of it in 1937 for HMV (a worked with Furtwängler in the conductor’s last years. size symphonies. introduction is both weighty and exploratory; when the few bars of which have been used to patch the current Pre-war, though, he had refused to do so. Furtwängler Indeed, Bruckner’s music was also a very important main Allegro arrives it bursts onto the scene with a well- performance, as Mark Obert-Thorn explains in this explained his actions thus: ‘I knew Germany was in a part of Furtwängler’s repertoire (recordings, approved timed acceleration that leads to a thrilling impetus presentation) and there also exists a Berlin concert terrible crisis. I felt responsible for German music, and or otherwise, exist of Furtwängler conducting several of which is intensively and incisively maintained, with performance from 1943, given under war-time it was my task to survive this crisis, as much as I could. Bruckner’s symphonies). Indeed it was Bruckner’s something saved in reserve for the conquering final conditions (the music maybe taking on its greatest The concern that my art was misused for propaganda Symphony No. 9 that Furtwängler included in his first bars. significance at such a juncture), as well as a Vienna had to yield to the greater concern that German music concert (in 1907), which was with the Munich Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 follows, the co- account from 1950. be preserved, that music be given to the German people Philharmonic Orchestra (owing to his father’s teaching earliest recording here, having been made in October On the same day, 16th October, 1926, as some of by its own musicians. These people, the compatriots of commitments, he had spent his childhood in this city). 1926. Victory is a significant word to use for this the current Beethoven symphony was set down, Bach and Beethoven, of Mozart and Schubert, still had Furtwängler then received engagements with various symphony; it is a ‘darkness to light’ work – C minor to Furtwängler and the Berlin Philharmonic also recorded to go on living under the control of a regime obsessed Austrian and German orchestras and opera houses until, C major (a trajectory that Brahms would follow in his the overture to Der Freischütz, Weber’s ‘magic’ opera with total war. No one who did not live here himself in in 1922, he was appointed to the celebrated Leipzig long-delayed Symphony No. 1) – its world-famous completed in 1821 and first heard in Berlin that year and those days can possibly judge what it was like.’ Gewandhaus Orchestra, in succession to the legendary opening motto something of a symbol for war and the quickly followed by productions in London (1824) and Arthur Nikisch, and also to the Berlin Philharmonic.