What makes Furtwängler’s vision and understanding of Beethoven’s symphonies so unified? The conductor presented brilliant but also problematic interpretations, in a vision that continues to challenge us today.

After an earlier podcast about Brahms (available here), Guilhem Chameyrat addresses some of these questions… in a completely subjective manner, of course, based on selected excerpts.

Watch it here.

We have recently expanded our catalogue of streaming files, notably by adding the 33 rpm records of our friends at the Wilhelm Furtwängler Gesellschaft in Berlin.

– Beethoven : Concerto for violin (Menuhin/BPO/30 Sept. 1947)
– Mendelssohn : Ein Sommernachtstraum Overture (BPO/30 Sept. 1947
– Beethoven : Coriolan Overture (BPO/1943)
– Schubert : Symphony No. 9 (BPO 1942)
– Ravel : Daphnis et Chloé (2nd suite/BPO/1944)

Ute Neumerkel, who has produced several fascinating videos about Furtwängler (on YouTube), has recorded a work by our favourite musician herself..

This is a waltz for piano, catalogue number WF16, composed by the eight-year-old musician. It’s cute, pleasant, rather well written… but hardly a harbinger of the future composer of the Klavierquintett or the Symphonic Concerto.

To remind us that Furtwängler was also eight years old once…

Click on the young pianist below.

Young Wilhelm at the piano (c. 1895)

Available in the online shop

The album SWF D20 Furtwängler in Paris, is now available, featuring high-definition recordings of the entire concert performed on 4 May 1954, as preserved by the INA, including announcements and applause.

An exceptional concert.
— A particularly lively overture to Euryanthe, a welcome alternative to the official recording with the VPO.
— Brahms’s Haydn Variations, with exemplary staging that clearly identifies the mood of each variation.
— A lyrical Unfinished by Schubert, with soloists (flute, oboe, horn, etc.) seldom featured so prominently.
— A monumental, grandiose Beethoven’s Fifth, but one that nonetheless features some purely poetic moments.

The applause that followed this performance seemed to go on forever…

In addition to this concert: the Entretiens sur des entretiens (“Interviews about interviews”). These are not the only interviews with Furtwängler, but rarely has he explored certain topics in such depth, with the excellent assistance of Fred Goldbeck. We’re not talking about vague compliments here; what he says about interpretation or contemporary music prompts reflection. All of these interviews are translated into English in the digital booklet.

In comparison with other live recordings of the time, the RTF recording is truly astonishing. To find out more, listen to the podcast dedicated to this product.

A few words about the Entretiens sur des entretiens included in the upcoming SWF D20. We previously included them on the 1993 CD, then on the SACD. Here they are again, with two notable differences. The second interview is followed by a large excerpt from the first movement of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5, while the third is preceded by a foreword, , both of which are absent from previous publications, and — more curiously — the original tapes held by the Institut national de l’audiovisuel, as referenced therein.

We summarise the situation in this short study (pdf file, French version and English version).

SWF D20 – Release date: 12 September 2025

For the third time, SWF is releasing the full concert given by Furtwängler and his Berliner orchestra in Paris on 4 May 1954.

– Weber : Euryanthe Overture
– Brahms : Haydn Variations
– Schubert : ‘Unfinished’ Symphony
– Beethoven : Symphony No. 5

It was first released on CD (1994) and then on SACD (2015), although the latter could only fully satisfy those who owned the appropriate equipment. Now it is available to all our members for download in high-definition files. For each release, the recording was sourced from the archives of the Institut national de l’audiovisuel, which carried out a new digitisation process just for the SWF.

As we know, from a technical point of view, this is one of Furtwängler’s most perfect live recordings. The main task for Christophe Hénault, who carried out the mastering, was to bring the source back to the correct pitch (440 Hz instead of 450!). Otherwise, the tape is exceptional in terms of dynamics, sound spectrum and timbre. It is also exempt from many of the flaws found on German or Italian tapes from that period: wow and flutter, tape skips, electrical noise, etc.

This is a Berlin orchestra at its best, performing works that were often played and recorded—except for Euryanthe’s overture, which was recorded only once—but with a symphonic rendition and virtuosity rarely achieved. Furtwängler knew that Parisian audiences were demanding in terms of performance, and the loud applause at the end suggests that the listeners’ expectations were fully met.

As with previous issues, this edition includes ‘Entretiens sur des entretiens’ (Conversations about Conversations), a series of three radio conversations in French between Furtwängler and Fred Goldbeck, which were broadcast to coincide with the publication of the book Entretiens sur la musique in Spring 1953, a translation of Gespräche über Musik. However, this time, we have made sure to accommodate our English-speaking members, and these interviews have been transcribed in English in the digital booklet. Finally, the INA has provided us with a previously unheard recording of a prelude to the third interview, recorded eight years later. We couldn’t leave it out… The next article will provide more information about these Entretiens.

The concert is available in 192-24 (HD) and 44-16 (CD quality). The Entretiens are in 44-16. The product includes an illustrated digital booklet.

Published on 12 September, priced at €18.

Two excerpts in mp3: Haydn Variations  & Conversation No. 2

The SWF is getting ready for the start of the autumn term.

On Friday 12 September, a remarkable downloadable product will go on sale. Further details will follow next week.

We can even announce another release for the end of the year.

In the meantime, we will resume publishing facsimiles of programmes, some of which are extremely rare, as well as preparing a study on Furtwängler’s first concert in Vienna.

Welcome back from your holidays!

We were behind schedule! Here are the new products available in streaming (HD & SD)

– SWF D17 (Stockholm 1950): Haydn Symphony No. 94 – Sibelius En saga – Strauss Don Juan – Beethoven Symphony No. 5
– SWF D18 (Brahms 1943): Concerto No. 2 (Aeschbacher) – Haydn Variations – Symphony No. 4
– SWF D19 (Salzburg 1954): Beethoven Symphony No. 8 – Great Fugue – Symphony No. 7

Please note that SWF D15 (Schumann IV) is only available as a downloadable digital pack because of the copyright licence agreement.

We’d like to take this opportunity to wish you all a great summer. The SWF team will be back in action in the second half of August!

A music theory professor attached to the University of North Texas (USA), Timothy L. Jackson PhD, has written a comprehensive article posted on Whiterose Magazine, entitled “When you cannot create new music: a warning from history” dated 1 April 2024.

The author explores the dark years of Nazi Germany, the improbable musical creation of the period, and the “Nordic Festival” that opened in Lübeck on 8 June 1935, with a speech by Alfred Rosenberg, the ideologue of the National Socialist Party. He fully associates Furtwängler with it, indicating on several occasions that on that day the conductor had led his Berlin Philharmonic in a programme that included Sibelius’s 7th Symphony. He even posted the following photo on the site, with a caption differing from the original one on the newspaper from which it was taken, and linking it to a photo of Rosenberg addressing the crowd gathered on 8 June.

No, Furtwängler did not conduct his orchestra in Lübeck on that date and after Rosenberg’s speech! He was on tour, on the road from Munich to Stuttgart. It was on June 26 that Furtwängler and his Philharmoniker actually visited Lübeck. All you had to do was consult the BPO archives and the newspapers of the time to write about it.

That Dr Jackson portrays Furtwängler in a less than favourable light, even darkening him, is his absolute right. But for him to arrange facts and dates in order to distort the truth demonstrates a lack of the most elementary probity, a virtue that we would expect from a “Distinguished University Research Professor”. For such is his position.

We pointed this out to him and requested a correction to his article. We haven’t even received a reply…

The programme — facsimilé in pdf — of the Vienna Philharmonic’s concert on 23 November 1941 announced this on page two: ‘Furtwängler’s recovery’.

The article explains that this concert marks the return — at least to Vienna — of the eminent conductor after several months’ downtime as a result of a serious skiing accident in Sankt-Anton in mid-February of the same year. On the slopes of this Tyrolean resort, the musician had a fall that led to several operations. Away from the conductor’s podium, he seized the opportunity to write his long article, The Wagner Case, a critique of Nietsche’s book.

On 19 October, Furtwängler resumed his activities, first in Berlin and Hamburg, then in Stockholm, Zurich and Bern.

The Berliner illustrierte Zeitung of 27 March had its cover with Furtwängler photographed shortly before his accident, but made no mention of it.

As we announced (news from 29 May), now is available on the shop the digital pack SWF D19, which features the complete recording of Furtwängler’s last concert with the Vienna Philharmonic in Salzburg on 30 August 1954.

It features Beethoven’s 7th and 8th symphonies, framing the Great Fugue. Once again Christophe Hénault has made the most of the source available.

The presentation text (booklet in French + digital booklet in English) is by Philippe Venturini, a journalist long attached to the Monde de la Musique and a columnist for France Musique.

As with all our ‘long’ products (over 75 minutes), the download (high definition + CD files) is priced at €15.

Discover the podcast dedicated to it:

This photo is well known; it is part of a set that has been reproduced several times. Furtwängler — chilled but lively — conducts an imaginary orchestra, sitting before his score on a boat.

Where? When? What? Who? Do we know more about it? Yes. After a great deal of research, we are finally lifting the veil on this interesting snapshot. All you have to do is turn your head or… your computer upside down.

The photo was taken on Lake Geneva, on May 18, 1930, on the way to Montreux. Furtwängler and his touring Berliner orchestra performed a concert there that evening. The conductor was absorbed in reading a score to be played: Schumann’s First Symphony. The series of photos is the work of Paul Bose, a Philharmonic musician comfortably equipped with a state-of-the-art Leica. He was a flute (and piccolo) player with the orchestra from 1914 to 1940.