Month: October 2024
News
A few years ago, the SWF issued a study, Furtwängler in Lübeck (1911-1915), based notably on period letters from Lilli Dieckmann.
Today, we invite you to watch a filmed documentary. It has the same title. It was directed by Ute Neumerkel. We already know her: ten years ago, she interviewed Friederike Kunz, daughter of Wilhelm Furtwängler.
This exciting new documentary is narrated in German, but with English subtitles. Richly documented (with unpublished iconography) and illustrated with sound excerpts borrowed from the conductor’s discography, it tells the story of a journey — that of the young conductor in the Hanseatic city — through the reading of period correspondence and rare documents.
This documentary can be enjoyed by everyone. Go on, you won’t regret it!
Did you really believe that Mozart only composed 41 symphonies? Well, he didn’t! And to prove it, please take a look at the programme here below.
You will discover that on October 15, 1939, leading the Vienna Philharmonic, it is said that Furtwängler conducted Symphony No. 47 by the Salzburger genius. A premiere, no doubt!
But it won’t take you long — looking closely at the Köchel number and the key — to rectify what seems to be a brilliant typo. It is indeed the Symphony n° 39.
That said, the audience at the concert probably smiled. What about the conductor?
He probably paid no attention. Because every newspaper the next day informed us that he conducted… Haydn’s 88th, not Mozart!
And as if that weren’t enough, the journalist from the Illustrierte Kronen Zeitung of the 17th reported on the event that Furtwängler had superbly conducted the Symphony… “The Clock” (in fact the 101st)… and marvelled at the “tick-tock” he thought he recognized in the 4th movement. A “tick-tock” in the 88th? A parcel bomb perhaps?
The archives of the VPO were informed of this. When they checked the archived programme, they discovered a slip of paper in the booklet announcing the change of musical work. The VPO, as we did, updated its database.
The General Meeting of the Société Wilhelm Furtwängler will be held
on Saturday, November 9, 2024, 3 p.m.
At Forum 104, salle Olivier (1st floor)
104, rue de Vaugirard, (F) 75006 PARIS
subway: Rennes, Falguière (line 12) – Montparnasse (lines 4, 6, 12)
Herewith, for members (page ‘Invitations and reports‘):
– the GM notice, including the agenda
– a document to appoint a proxy.
NEW: fully digital, it only takes a few clicks!
We hope to see many of you at this meeting. If you are unable to attend this meeting, please fill in the proxy form, which can be edited until November 8. This is vital to ensure the GM is able to deliberate properly.
Coming November 8: SWF D16
Lohengrin is not one of Wagner’s operas most conducted by Furtwängler, unlike Tristan or Die Meistersinger. But one legendary production remains: that of Bayreuth 1936. The year of the Olympic Games was also the year of the conductor’s triumphant return to the sacred hill, as he conducted a complete Ring and five performances of Parsifal.
All festival attendees and commentators were unanimous in their praise for the overall production of Lohengrin, and the high standard of the cast.
The July 19 performance was broadcast by many radio stations around the world. The Swedish radio recorded excerpts from Act 3, to our great delight, and the discs have survived. Reissued several times, we now present them restored from the sources provided in high definition by the Swedish radio.
Only thirty minutes or so! But let’s not deny ourselves the pleasure of hearing the fabulous Franz Völker, the greatest Lohengrin before Sandor Konya (in the late ’50s), the charming Maria Müller (Elsa), as well as Margarete Klose’s exceptional and terrifying Ortrud.
What about sound? One can hardly expect miracles. The most important restoration work involved processing the levels, as the sound engineer — when transmitting in Germany? when engraving in Sweden? — had fairly “played with the potentiometer”! At least Christophe Hénault’s work is faithful to the source and makes the most of the document!
Please consider this excerpt from the Prélude of Act 3 (here in mp3).
The full download — with a digital booklet featuring period photos — will be available on November 8, priced at €6. It will be available online for streaming in mid-December.
Furtwängler and two of his assistants for Lohengrin :
conductor Erich Riede (left) and choirmaster Friedrich Jung.
To associate Furtwängler with Shostakovich is not commonplace. But that would be forgetting that once — just once — Furtwängler served the composer, who was described at the time as a “Soviet”.
On January 29, 1950 (from the 28th at the public dress rehearsal), Furtwängler and the Vienna Philharmonic performed the 9th Symphony, premiered five years earlier by Mravinsky in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg). This was a major premiere for the Austrian capital’s philharmonic concerts. The performance was broadcast, but no trace of the recording seems to have survived.
Here is the facsimile of the programme, where Max Graf provides a comprehensive commentary.
The French are often accused of having little interest in classical music. However…
The weekly magazine Ici… Radio-Cité, ran a contest in May 1938: Radio-Cité listeners were asked to rank the three best recent broadcasts, and the person (out of 813 responses!) who gave “the trifecta” was given a prize.
The broadcast that comes out on top is that of the concert by the Berlin Philharmonic and Furtwängler at the Paris Opéra on May 8, 1938.
For the record, the concert featured the overture to Cherubini’s Anacreon, Schumann’s 4th Symphony, the overture to Schubert’s Rosamunde, the 2nd suite from Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé, and Strauss’ Don Juan.
Radio-Cité, a station closely linked to the Publicis group, broadcast on medium wave — 280.9 m — with a 2kW transmitter located in Argenteuil. It went off the air on June 13, 1940.
(Source: Gallica)