Four years ago, we published the programme for the Brahms Festival held in Vienna in May 1933 to mark the centenary of the composer’s birth.

Following the solemn performance of the Deutsches Requiem, there will be a series of symphonic and chamber music concerts.

It all began on the 16th at 11.30 am in the main hall of the Musikverein, featuring, amongst other things, a lecture by Furtwängler on Brahms’s place in music. The text of this lecture has been included in Furtwängler’s collected writings, and that is the main point. However, a further record of this address is the photograph below (Christophe Lambinet Collection), which, to our knowledge, has not been published before.

As for the choir positioned behind the speaker, it is the Staatsoper choir, which is about to bring the event to a close with a performance of Brahms’s Opus 109, Fest– und Gedenksprüche.

Available in the shop

As announced on 29 May — Back to Wiesbaden — the new release is now available for download (in high definition and CD format): SWF D26 – the BPO concert held on 12 June 1949 in Wiesbaden.

Although Till Eulenspiegel was not preserved, the rest of the concert was captured — and very well at that — by Frankfurt Radio. It was this recording that Christophe Hénault used as his starting point; he reworked the sound somewhat — which was a little muffled — but focused particularly on the dynamics, which varied considerably from one movement to the next.

Thus, Pfitzner’s three Palestrina preludes, which might otherwise have seemed somewhat off-putting, regain a clarity and brilliance that they previously lacked. For many, this will be a ‘first’. Mozart’s 40th, meanwhile, retains its impetuous and sombre character, whilst Brahms’s 4th allows phrases of a plastic beauty superior even to those of the 1943 version to unfold!

The text, penned by Raphaël Fournier, and his podcast reflect his enthusiasm for Pfitzner, a composer to whom Furtwängler remained devoted throughout his life.

The digital booklet (in English) also includes rare documents, including a newspaper article covering the concert.

Suffice to say, we were quite right to label this product ‘Discovery’.

Streaming will begin on 1 July.

On 13 January, we published a study on Furtwängler’s very first concert in Vienna on 26 January 1913 (with the Konzertverein Orchestra). He returned on 9 March for a second performance, the last before he took up his post in 1918.

Here is a facsimile of the front of that second programme.