In the winter of 1935 Furtwängler took the Berlin Philharmonic on a long journey, including ten concerts in Great Britain. The map below, with numbers for each day, shows the route of the tour.

Let’s pause in Edinburgh and download the programme for the evening’s event at Usher Hall.

Harold Holt, the impresario who promoted the tour, was one of the greats of British musical life. His organisation became part of what is today Askonas-Holt, one of the most important and reputable agencies in the world.

Among the CDs issued by the SWF, one is out of print: Bruckner’s 7th Symphony, recorded on 18 October 1949 with the Berlin Philharmonic.

It was missing. So the SWF is about to provide you with this record as a “high definition” download, with, as always, the files in CD format, the digital booklets (French and English), and — to allow you to keep a compact disc in your record library if you wish — something to print out the cover and the inlay card of a jewel box.

For this exceptional performance of Furtwängler’s most performed symphony by Bruckner — along with the Fourth — it was necessary to start from a flawless document. Warner Classics provided us with the files digitised by Abbey Road Studios (ex-EMI studio), from a copy of the first source (Pathé-Marconi), which has not aged a bit.

From this source, Christophe Hénault established a master that respects the incredible original dynamics and the splendour of the orchestra, even though it was recorded — without an audience — in what was then the Berliner’s rehearsal hall, the Gemeindehaus in Berlin-Dahlem, which was of modest dimensions…

This product will be available on 30 January, at the usual price of € 8,00.

Furtwängler and his Berliner at the Gemeindehaus of Berlin.

Has the Furtwängler Centre of Japan read our article of January 4 about the publication of the Beethoven box set?

Still, the website of our Japanese counterpart announces the withdrawal of this product from sale, indicating the reason: Egmont would be a ‘fake’, which is not quite accurate. Actually this is the recording of the concert of 4 September 1953 in Munich, which we reissued on a compact disc in 1989 (see below). But the sound of the Japanese source is so poor that it was difficult to match it. Henning Smidth did it; thanks to him. Let us add that the cough of a female listener, present at the same time on both sources, completes the demonstration.

The box should come out again, but with the litigious recording removed.

Interested persons are invited to check out this new edition directly on the WFCJ website.

The Wilhelm Furtwängler Centre of Japan is releasing a 3-CD box set dedicated to Beethoven with the BPO. WFHC-044/6

CD 1 : 6^th et 5^th Symphonies recorded at the Titania on 25 May 1947 ;
CD 2 : Egmont and the 5^th recorded at Haus des Rundfunks on 27 May 1947. This CD is completed by a previously unreleased Egmont from September 1948 with the VPO;
CD 3 : 6^th and 5^th Symphonies, at THE Titania on 23 May 1954.

It includes a well-documented booklet, with a text by Henning Smidth, and CD-sized facsimiles of the programmes for one of the 1947 and 1954 concerts.

First, let’s discuss the unpublished material. The boxed set announces Egmont, VPO, 24 September 1948, in Vienna. Although this recording was documented, it was considered dubious. Henning Smidth, in his text, gives a very sensible explanation which we think can be accepted. Considering the acoustics, it would be a recording of one of the concerts in the VPO’s Beethoven series at the Albert Hall in London (from which the 2^nd Symphony is taken), which would date it from 28 September 1948.
Anyway, one can recognize Furtwängler’s signature, unfortunately in a rather bad sound (background noise, drop out, weeping, saturations…). And to make matters worse, the beginning is missing, about 15 sec. — which is not indicated on the box! — hence a certain disappointment.

As for the 1947 concerts — which marked Furtwängler’s return to the conductor’s desk — we already had, in particular, the following:
— 25 May: German Society edition (TMK 008080);
— 27 May: DGG edition, on LP since the early 1960s.
And for the 1954 concert: German Society, Tahra, Audite…

The WFCJ announced that they set the band speed to the pitch of 443 Hz. The board of the SWF does not share this view. It is true that the BPO is now 443, but Karajan came along… In Furtwängler’s time, the reference A was at 440 Hz.

The price is ¥6500 (excluding postage), approximately €47.00.

The WF Centre of Japan website: http://furt-centre.com/english/eindex.htm

Their email: info@furt-centre.com

New Year’s Eve concerts are quite common, as are those on January 1^st. For the last musical event marking the shift from 1927 to 1928, Furtwängler was in Leipzig. Request the programme!

And as a gift, this rare collector’s card — published by the cigarette manufacturer Josetti at the end of the 1920s — was one of a series of three dedicated to conductors (the other two: Weingartner and Blech), and was intended to fill an album entitled “Die Welt in Bildern” (The World in Pictures), along with sportsmen, actors, scientists and other famous people of the time.

We regularly publish what we call “programme-pages”, i.e. — in the absence of the full programme — the precise page showing the details of a concert.

For this one, there is no corresponding evening in the list of concerts.

The brochure announcing the Berlin Staatskapelle’s subscription concert series (the symphonic season of the state opera orchestra) for 1934-1935 features Richard Strauss, Kleiber, Pfitzner, Jochum and… Furtwängler. It was scheduled for March 1st 1935, with, among others, the premiere of Hymnen for orchestra, opus 18 by Karl Höller.

But in the meantime, the “Hindemith case”, the political cabal against Furtwängler, who wearily threw in the towel and resigned from all his posts at the beginning of December 1934, had arisen. He did therefore not conduct this concert at the Staatskapelle…

The annual General Meeting of the SWF was held on 26 November 2022. Here are the minutes, articulated around two documents (in French):
– the minutes themselves, according to the items discussed during the meeting (moral report, financial report, election of the bureau and miscellaneous)
– the President’s moral report

These documents are, of course, for the use of SWF members only.

When thinking about the Ring under Furtwängler’s baton, one thinks of the Ring at La Scala, or even the one at the RAI, or possibly the 1936 Bayreuth production, and one forgets the Ring produced at the Berlin Staatsoper in Autumn 1934. Directed by Heinz Tietjen and staged by Emil Preetorius, it seems to be a model of the upcoming Bayreuth production. The same team and a similar cast with Rudolf Bockelmann, Frida Leider, Franz Völker, Max Lorenz, Margarete Klose, Maria Müller and many others performing the leading roles — the best of Wagnerian singing at the time.

Here are these castings as they appear on the programmes. To see them more clearly, click on the corresponding page of the evening:

• Das Rheingold
• Die Walküre
• Siegfried
• Götterdämmerung

The conference on 15 December has been cancelled, much to our regret.

The next date is 26 January.

Christmas, the gift-giving season.

Treat yourself and your loved ones: SWF has thought of you and offers you compact discs at very low prices.

Here is something to fill the Christmas socks:

• SWF 942-43         Furtwängler à Paris (1954 – CD)   5 €
• SWJ 942-43 R    Furtwängler in Paris (1954 – SACD)   €5
• SWF 901              Beethoven/Pastoral/BPO 1944   3 €
• SWF 042-4          78 T Polydor (3 CDs )   €6
• SWF 062-64        Complete Brahms BPO   €6
• SWF 921-2          Furtwängler in Hambourg   €5
• SWF 941-R          Beethoven/BPO 1943   €3
• SWF 971-2          Ein deutsches Requiem/Lucerne   €5
• SWF 931              Furtwängler in Stuttgart   €3
• SWF 091              Beethoven 2 & 8   €3
• SWF 101              Beethoven/Brahms/VPO 1943    €3
• SWF 121-3          Don Giovanni 1953    €5
• SWF 081-4          Die Meistersinger   €6
• SWF 961-2          Furtwängler in Lucerne    €5
• SWF 963              Bruckner/6th Symphony    €3

Go to the shop — or better still, click on a reference above – to find out the details of each disc, and make your choice.

Dear members,

On 30 November, we all have a thought for the conductor and musician we admire. He died on this date but is still alive for us.

We are already thinking about the commemoration, in 2024, of the 70th anniversary of his death. That year will also be the Bicentenary of Anton Bruckner’s birth.

Before reporting back on the General Meeting which has just taken place, here is an overview of the studies which have been revised to match our graphic charter.

You will find — via this link — the republication of the exceptional and very complete study “Furtwängler in Italy”, written by Angelo Scottini in 1990, with a revised and expanded iconography, often with rare documents.

In a few weeks we should be able to read a revised “Furtwängler in Leipzig”, a study written more than thirty years ago by Philippe Jacquard.