Available on 13 June. Price: €15

Some Furtwängler concerts are less appreciated than others, and suffer from unfavourable prejudices.

Such is the case with the concerts of Furtwängler’s final season. A year ago we published a treasure of a performance: Bruckner’s 8th Symphony from May 1954 in Vienna, grandiose, overwhelming and of a rare perfection of execution. Enough to silence these prejudices. We are doing it again with the very last concert he performed with the Vienna Philharmonic in Salzburg on 30 August 1954.

On the programme: Beethoven’s 8th and 7th symphonies, and between them — the Great Fugue op. 133, the version for string orchestra.

Some insist on dismissing Furtwängler’s final Beethoven performances and swear by the ‘war recordings’. As if Beethoven had written at the top of his scores: ‘My works should only be performed under the stress of a murderous conflict’. A former president of the SWF even stated that only the Grand Fugue deserved to be exhumed from this concert, the two symphonies being far inferior to the other known performances. Furtwängler would thus have been — no doubt suffering from the fatigue of age — below his best, only to wake up for 20 minutes of music in the middle of the programme! This is obviously absurd.

Comfortable readings? Of course, the symphonies exhibit an uncommon vision, but without compromising a constant commitment. And that the writing of the Grande Fugue led him to violence of expression only confirms an obvious fact that many music lovers seem to forget: Furtwängler knew how to read a score…

This is a tape of exceptional clarity, dynamics and balance of the sound spectrum, which Christophe Hénault has restored to its full potential. The main part of the work consisted in bringing the music back into tune (we set it to A = 444 Hz for Vienna), eliminating a few noises and imperfections, and above all revising the levels, which were very disparate between movements and works.

Here’s an extract (mp3): the last reprise in the 3rd movement of the 8th Symphony.

A few years ago, we mentioned the list of broadcasts of concerts by Furtwängler compiled and published online (pdf) by Henning Smidth. Created in 2002, it has been updated several times. Recently, by consulting period newspapers, we were able to inform the author of a number of additions and corrections.

Henning Smidth has just released online a revised version of the list.

https://www.smidth.dk/furt/furt.html

We know that Furtwängler toured a large part of Europe, not to mention the United States and Latin America. But he never set foot on the Iberian Peninsula.

To be fair, he came very close to performing in Portugal and Spain, precisely in Barcelona at the prestigious Liceu. Three concerts scheduled for 23, 24 and 25 April 1944, and the first step in a long tour by the Berlin Philharmonic, running from 23 April to 6 June (the 9th in Paris on the way home). Three weeks before his departure, the conductor wrote to Gerhart von Westerman, the orchestra’s intendant:

« First I have to see the doctor (I’m having a serious relapse, just like in the worst moments of last year). In any case, I would like to ask you to think about appointing another experienced conductor as a substitute. I won’t be able to give a definitive answer for a few days. When it comes to health, I’m now a ‘scalded cat’. I don’t like talking about it and I do everything I can to avoid looking like a sick person. But between you and me, I can’t hide the fact that I have a lot on my mind. » (1st April 1944)

Real health concerns? Or more likely a diplomatic illness designed — as in the Spring of 1943 — to obtain a medical certificate so that he could avoid the chore of celebrating the Führer’s birthday, baton in hand, just before his departure? Knappertsbusch in the end took charge of the tour, as well as the official concert on 20 April… (1)

The attached booklet, the programme for the Barcelona concerts, remains.

(1) Some footage from this concert celebrating Hitler’s birthday still exists, as well as footage from the performance at the Alhambra in Granada in May, which was incorporated into the film Die Philharmoniker.

It has been suggested that we should write a study about Furtwängler as a ‘chamber musician’, performing as a pianist in chamber music sessions with, among others, the soloists of his orchestras. This applies particularly to his periods in Lübeck and Mannheim.

But we should not forget the conference speaker. His Bruckner conference, often dated to 1939, was held on 4 January 1940 in Berlin’s Beethovensaal. Furtwängler had recently become president of the German branch of the International Anton Bruckner Society. The text — in French — can be found in the writings published in the Pluriel collection of the Livre de Poche. At the very end of the speech, Furtwängler mentions Wilhelm Kempff’s musical performance, opening the evening, and the performance, to end it, of the Adagio from the Quintet.

Here are the details.