The Wilhelm Furtwängler Centre of Japan announces two new releases.

WFHC-050/52 (price: US$ 34,50)
César Franck : Symphony in D minor
Johannes Brahms : Symphony No.2
VPO – Vienna 28 January 1945
Beethoven : Symphony  No.1 – BPO, Berlin 19 September 1954
Beethoven : Overture Leonore II – BPO, Berlin 18 October 1948
Brahms : Symphonie No.2 – BPO, Munich 7 May 1952

WFHC-047/9 (price: US$ 46,60)
J.-S. Bach : Suite No.3
Brahms : Symphony No.4
BPO – Berlin 22 October 1948
J.-S. Bach : Suite No.3
Schubert : Symphony No.8
Brahms : Symphony No.4
BPO – Berlin 24 October 1948

The above price is indicative (exchange rate), including postal charges, but without membership.
Information and orders: directly to WFCJ
Address: info@furt-centre.com

The list of Furtwängler concerts has more than 2500 records, almost all filled in: date, venue, works performed, soloists, etc. A lot of details. Much of this list is based on the work done by René Trémine 30 years ago. Since then, the list has been completed, corrected by a multitude of small contributions, but which allow, in the long run, to make the inventory reliable.

One example among others. The concert in Lübeck on 11 October 1913 announced:
– Strauss : Sinfonia Domestica           
– Liszt: Piano Concerto No. 1 (soloist: Alice Ripper)
– Weber: Overture to Oberon
– Brahms: Hungarian Dance No.?
suggesting that the orchestra had finished the concert with one of the 21 Hungarian Dances, orchestrated by Brahms (he only did 3) or another musician..

Reading a review of the time dispels any misunderstanding. In fact, the Hungarian Dance — No. 6 in D flat Major — constituted an encore played on keyboard by Alice Ripper at the end of the Liszt Concerto and before Oberon.

Admittedly, this is not much, but a Furtwängler Society would not fulfill its mission by missing out on such information, as slight as it may be.

As announced a week ago, the new product is now available for download: Beethoven’s Fifth, recorded in Copenhagen on 1 October 1950. We would have liked to include the Unfinished. This was not possible, but the SWF is on the trail of another suitable source for this masterpiece, so this should only be a postponement…

The digital pack includes: the audio files (HD and CD quality), a digital booklet (French and English), and printing material for the cover and inlay card of a CD box for those who want to burn the files.

Slightly more than a year ago, and thanks to the assistance of the SWF, Warner Classics was able to obtain from Henning Smidth the tape of the Unfinished performed by the Vienna Philharmonic in Copenhagen on 1 October 1950. The restoration carried out by Christophe Hénault turned it into one of the jewels — provided as a bonus — of Warner’s 55 CD box set. This year, Beethoven’s Fifth, from the same concert, has been added to the “Beethoven-Furtwängler” box set that Warner recently released. We decided to provide you with both in high definition download, using the masters prepared by Christophe Hénault. Most of the work consisted of bringing it back to the right pitch, removing some disturbing noises, and revising some awkward editing in the Fifth.

The tape of the Unfinished has recently become the property of the Wilhelm Furtwängler Centre of Japan. We asked them for permission to publish it using the work of Christophe Hénault. Unfortunately we had to decline the conditions set by our counterparts, and we can only bring you the Fifth…

Listen to the extract

The product will be available on 19 May — and as usual in both high definition and CD formats. We have slightly increased the unit price from €8 to €10, which is still very affordable. As we are only providing you with half of the programme, we have made it available for €5.

The basic price of previous editions has been increased to €9.

This concert was part of a tour, and the orchestra travelled to the Scandinavian countries accompanied by charming models for a “fashion week” in Stockholm.

If we have been able to publish many programmes (in pdf format) of Furtwängler conducting the Berliner or the Wiener, the same cannot be said about the Leipzig Gewandhaus, of which he was the titular conductor from Autumn 1922 to Spring 1928. Thus such a publication — in this case the programme of 26 February 1925 — is rather rare.

To view the programme.

Our long-time member Angelo Scottini — author of the superlative study Furtwängler in Italy — is to thank for an exceptional programme, that of Furtwängler’s return to the orchestra on Sunday, April 6, 1947.
Having been confined to Switzerland and finally rehabilitated after more than two years of silence, it was in Italy, in Rome and then in Florence, that he made his comeback with the Orchestra of the National Academy of Santa Cecilia.
Download the programme.

« Everybody can’t be an orphan… »
Jules Renard, Poil de carotte

A month ago we issued the programme for the February 13, 1942 concert. It was a follow-up to the BPO’s tour through Scandinavian countries. Here is the programme, to be downloaded, of the concert that preceded this journey, on January 11, 1942.

It featured an exceptionally gifted artist, the violinist Guila Bustabo. Her fate refers to the quote in the title…

Is it a programme? Is it a poster? In any case, when classified among our “Get the programme!” documents, it takes the number one spot. Dated December 13th, 1914, it shows the details of a concert in Lübeck by the Verein-Orchester conducted by Furtwängler for the benefit of the Red Cross. Nobody knew then that this institution would have much to do over the next four years…

Portrait by his mother, ca. 1915

A conference about Bruckner was planned for March, 16th. Unfortunately, we have to cancel it. Our lecturer, who lives in the provinces of France, preferred to cancel this date and to postpone it to June, 15th — due to the uncertainty of transportation these days.

Admittedly, this is not the first date we have cancelled but, please believe us, we are sincerely sorry for these unforeseen difficulties.

We look forward to seeing you on June,15th.

What’s so special about this concert in Berlin on 13 February 1942, the programme for which the SWF presents here in pdf?

Certainly it was not part of the series of ten annual subscription concerts; it was organized for the benefit of the charity Aid for Elderly Artists. But it gave rise to a public scandal which provoked some polemical reactions in the newspapers and required clarification from the Intendant of the Philharmonic and from Furtwängler himself.

To learn more about this high point (?!) in Berlin’s cultural life, read the article accompanying the programme.

Chair from the old Philharmonic Hall, Berlin

We announced it for January 30th, here it is today, for you to enjoy this weekend.

In our shop you will find a new SWF product (SWF D10) : Bruckner’s Symphony No. 7, a performance by the Berlin Philharmonic on 18 October 1949.

Despite what one might have read, this is not a recording of one of the concerts given on 16, 17 and 18 October — which included Leonore II and Karl Höller’s Cello Concerto No. 2 — but a radio production recorded in the orchestra’s rehearsal room, the Gemeindehaus in Dahlem.

As we all know, recordings of this symphony — again with the BPO — were made in the Spring of 1951 in Cairo and then in Rome. To this must be added the irreplaceable document of the recording of the Adagio alone for Telefunken Records (1942). The 1949 performance is undoubtedly the most successful, benefiting from the concerts and their preparation, but also from the editing possibilities that enable an exemplary set-up.

In order to make this product available, we were able to work with a higher quality tape than the one used for the CD edition more than fifteen years ago. Indeed, Warner Classics kindly made available to us the recent Abbey Road digitisation of the copy of the tape used for the first pressings (Pathé-Marconi). This source stands out above all in terms of background noise, as its lower level makes it easier to read and thus optimises the musical content. Although we managed to remove some of the noise and improve some of the original edits, some saturation inherent in the original source remains. The coda of the 1st movement is such an orchestral outburst that one can hardly imagine how the technique of that time could have been able to deal with it…

The package includes: HD files (192-24), the same CD quality files (44-16), English/French digital booklets. For those who would like to burn a compact disc from the downloaded files, we have also included a cover and an inlay card, which can be printed out to fill the CD case. We also published another piece of news , to help you do this.

We understand that some of you may be reluctant to download files from our online shop.

We would like to encourage you to take the plunge by manufacturing — if you wish — a compact disc for your record collection.

First step: download the files (all or part of them) after placing your order. If you are not equipped with “high definition” devices, which add a little extra to the sound, you will also be provided with “CD quality” files, 44-16, far from any low definition (mp3 type).

And don’t forget that as long as you are a SWF member and the product is available, you can always access your order (in “My profile” then “My orders”), and start the download again.

In theory, all computers allow you to burn a blank CD (e.g. Windows Media Player on Windows, Apple Music on Mac). You can do this by putting in sequence the 4 “CD quality” 44-16 files that represent each movement.

You will also find in the package two pdf files to print: the cover and the inlay card. All you have to do then is fill in the jewel box.

Having a problem? Send an email to: contact@furtwangler.fr