New Year’s Eve concerts are quite common, as are those on January 1^st. For the last musical event marking the shift from 1927 to 1928, Furtwängler was in Leipzig. Request the programme!

And as a gift, this rare collector’s card — published by the cigarette manufacturer Josetti at the end of the 1920s — was one of a series of three dedicated to conductors (the other two: Weingartner and Blech), and was intended to fill an album entitled “Die Welt in Bildern” (The World in Pictures), along with sportsmen, actors, scientists and other famous people of the time.

We regularly publish what we call “programme-pages”, i.e. — in the absence of the full programme — the precise page showing the details of a concert.

For this one, there is no corresponding evening in the list of concerts.

The brochure announcing the Berlin Staatskapelle’s subscription concert series (the symphonic season of the state opera orchestra) for 1934-1935 features Richard Strauss, Kleiber, Pfitzner, Jochum and… Furtwängler. It was scheduled for March 1st 1935, with, among others, the premiere of Hymnen for orchestra, opus 18 by Karl Höller.

But in the meantime, the “Hindemith case”, the political cabal against Furtwängler, who wearily threw in the towel and resigned from all his posts at the beginning of December 1934, had arisen. He did therefore not conduct this concert at the Staatskapelle…

The annual General Meeting of the SWF was held on 26 November 2022. Here are the minutes, articulated around two documents (in French):
– the minutes themselves, according to the items discussed during the meeting (moral report, financial report, election of the bureau and miscellaneous)
– the President’s moral report

These documents are, of course, for the use of SWF members only.

When thinking about the Ring under Furtwängler’s baton, one thinks of the Ring at La Scala, or even the one at the RAI, or possibly the 1936 Bayreuth production, and one forgets the Ring produced at the Berlin Staatsoper in Autumn 1934. Directed by Heinz Tietjen and staged by Emil Preetorius, it seems to be a model of the upcoming Bayreuth production. The same team and a similar cast with Rudolf Bockelmann, Frida Leider, Franz Völker, Max Lorenz, Margarete Klose, Maria Müller and many others performing the leading roles — the best of Wagnerian singing at the time.

Here are these castings as they appear on the programmes. To see them more clearly, click on the corresponding page of the evening:

• Das Rheingold
• Die Walküre
• Siegfried
• Götterdämmerung

The conference on 15 December has been cancelled, much to our regret.

The next date is 26 January.

Christmas, the gift-giving season.

Treat yourself and your loved ones: SWF has thought of you and offers you compact discs at very low prices.

Here is something to fill the Christmas socks:

• SWF 942-43         Furtwängler à Paris (1954 – CD)   5 €
• SWJ 942-43 R    Furtwängler in Paris (1954 – SACD)   €5
• SWF 901              Beethoven/Pastoral/BPO 1944   3 €
• SWF 042-4          78 T Polydor (3 CDs )   €6
• SWF 062-64        Complete Brahms BPO   €6
• SWF 921-2          Furtwängler in Hambourg   €5
• SWF 941-R          Beethoven/BPO 1943   €3
• SWF 971-2          Ein deutsches Requiem/Lucerne   €5
• SWF 931              Furtwängler in Stuttgart   €3
• SWF 091              Beethoven 2 & 8   €3
• SWF 101              Beethoven/Brahms/VPO 1943    €3
• SWF 121-3          Don Giovanni 1953    €5
• SWF 081-4          Die Meistersinger   €6
• SWF 961-2          Furtwängler in Lucerne    €5
• SWF 963              Bruckner/6th Symphony    €3

Go to the shop — or better still, click on a reference above – to find out the details of each disc, and make your choice.