The well-known site ResMusica recently awarded its ‘Clefs d’or’ (Golden Keys) to standout recordings of distinction. And in the selection is a double CD album from Audite, ‘Furtwängler at the Lucerne Festival’, with, notably, Schumann’s Fourth Symphony and a novelty, the Overture to Manfred.

This album had been referenced by Philippe Jacquard in November 2017 as a current news item on our website (see article).

You can consult the article that ResMusica devotes to it.

Who was the hallucinating character in the photo posted with the competition of the 15th?

It was not so easy to recognise Ludwig Suthaus, the Tristan of the performances of Tristan und Isolde at the Berlin Staatsoper in early October 1947. Fixed in a somewhat frenzied pose (the scene preceding the arrival of Isolde in Act 3), Suthaus was photographed by Abraham Pisarek, responsible for a series of photos taken during the rehearsals, others of which (Schlüter, Klose…) are already featured on our site, attached to the date of 3 October in the concert list.

Too difficult? Nobody found the answer.

This news item is the one hundredth posted since the inauguration of this new site a year and a half ago.

These articles have enabled us to announce to you: 7 releases of recordings, French (SWF) or Japanese, on disc or through downloading, 20 programme facsimiles, a dozen or so studies, 5 lectures, and lots of other news items.

Since recently, you have been able to add your own comments.

​How about a little competition to celebrate this? Who is this singer and what role is he apparently performing? To get you going: the photo was of course taken on the occasion of an opera conducted by Furtwängler, and after the War.

If you are a member of the SWF and you have a solution, send an email to site@furtwangler.fr before 19 December, and the first person to provide the correct answer will receive the following discs (Christmas presents!):
Bruckner’s Ninth (SWF 041), the Schubert CD (SWF 973) and the Lucerne double CD (SWF 961-62).

This line from Victor Hugo — “Come! An invisible flute…” — finds a quite prosaic echo on our site: our album of The Magic Flute (Salzburg 1951) is no longer visible there. A victim of its success, it is out of stock. Yet be reassured: it will be reborn digitally, and in the course of February 2019 it will be possible to download this great moment of music and theatre… and in high definition 24/96!

What a curious programme was the one printed and distributed for the Berlin concert of 28 September 1947!

The concert was organised for members of the allied occupation forces, hence mainly Americans (the Titania Palast was in the American sector). Was this the reason for entrusting the preparation of the programme notes to someone no doubt more able to wield a rifle than a pen? The turns of phrase are such as to discourage our very modest English, and we asked our faithful member Roger Smithson to try to decrypt this hotchpotch.

We thank him warmly and note the presentation, not unintended, of the programme’s title page: Yehudi Menuhin (in large letters) is accompanied (in very small letters) by an orchestra that must doubtless be of the third zone and in the hands of some obscure baton wielder…

The facsimile is also available in a link with the concert.