The SWF D21 downloadable product (see details in the 14 October news item) is now available in the shop.

In a single product — at the exceptional price of €6 — we have brought together the three recordings made by Furtwängler for Telefunken in 1941 and 1942. We would like to point out that we were able to extract the high-definition files from copies of very high quality. It was, of course, the Adagio from Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony that required the most work in order to accurately reflect the dynamic levels intended by the composer.

The cover reproduces an engraved woodcut by Peter Trumm. Finally, let us remember that we stuck to the BPO ‘s tuning pitch at the time, which was A at 440 Hz.

There are only two possibilities for the date of the recording of Bruckner’s Adagio from Symphony No. 7 in Berlin in April 1942:

– Henning Smidth, in his well-known discography (‘Olsen’ 1970), indicates Tuesday, 7 April.
– René Trémine gave the date of Wednesday, 1 April.
– Wilhelm Furtwängler site by shin-p indicates 7 April, but mentions: « Teldec states that this recording was made on 1 April. »

So what? If we stick to the data we can extract from the Berliners’ activity at that time:

– 1 April was a day off between rehearsals (31 March) and the concert (2 April) of the St John Passion conducted by Georg Schumann, with the BPO and its Sing-Akademie choir.

– 7 April. An unpublished document does mention something, but it is difficult to decipher, and in any case it is certainly not ‘Aufnahme’ [recording], as appears to be the case for other confirmed dates. Actually, we can read ‘Doppelprobe – Krauss f. Reise’ [two rehearsals – Krauss for the tour]: Clemens Krauss spent several days rehearsing — from 7 to 10 April — preparing for the BPO concert in Vienna on the 11th, and above all for the long tour from 22 April to 23 May in Spain, Portugal and France.

Conclusion: we can go with April 1st. That is the date we will indicate on the upcoming SWF D21. After conducting similar research, it appears that the Overture to Alceste was engraved on 28 October 1942 and not on the 29th, as is usually stated.

On 28 November: SWF D21

We have compiled the three recordings made by Furtwängler for Telefunken, conducting the Berlin Philharmonic.

– Beethoven: Cavatina, from Quartet Op. 130 [15 October 1940]
– Bruckner: the Adagio from Symphony No. 7 [1 April 1942, not 7 April]
– Gluck: Overture to Alceste [28 October 1942, not 29 October]

The high-definition files were created from copies of 78 rpm records in exceptional condition belonging to Jean Testas, one of the founders of the SWF and owner of one of the most fabulous collections of old wax recordings.

Without overlooking the string orchestra version of the slow movement of Beethoven’s Quartet Op. 130, a monument of interiority, or the grandiloquent reading of Gluck’s Overture, this edition finds its highlight in the sumptuous interpretation of the Adagio from Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony.

High definition means you can hear the full range of the melodic curves, without losing any of the dynamic layers that are so important in Bruckner’s music.

The new product will be sold at the exceptional price of €6.

Here is an excerpt (mp3) from the Adagio.

Where is the safest place to study a score in depth? Especially if that score is Bruckner’s Eighth Symphony. The photo below gives you the answer: comfortably seated on a public bench on a Berlin street.

Furtwängler was about to conduct the piece on 13, 14 and 15 March 1949. He recorded it twice, at the Gemeindehaus — the BPO’s rehearsal hall — on the 14th, then on the 15th, during a concert at the Titania Palast.

Here is the facsimilé of the programme.