Slightly more than a year ago, and thanks to the assistance of the SWF, Warner Classics was able to obtain from Henning Smidth the tape of the Unfinished performed by the Vienna Philharmonic in Copenhagen on 1 October 1950. The restoration carried out by Christophe Hénault turned it into one of the jewels — provided as a bonus — of Warner's 55 CD box set. This year, Beethoven's Fifth, from the same concert, has been added to the "Beethoven-Furtwängler" box set that Warner recently released. We decided to provide you with both in high definition download, using the masters prepared by Christophe Hénault. Most of the work consisted of bringing it back to the right pitch, removing some disturbing noises, and revising some awkward editing in the Fifth.
The tape of the Unfinished has recently become the property of the Wilhelm Furtwängler Centre of Japan. We asked them for permission to publish it using the work of Christophe Hénault. Unfortunately we had to decline the conditions set by our counterparts, and we can only bring you the Fifth...
Listen to the extract
The product will be available on 19 May — and as usual in both high definition and CD formats. We have slightly increased the unit price from €8 to €10, which is still very affordable. As we are only providing you with half of the programme, we have made it available for €5.
The basic price of previous editions has been increased to €9.
This concert was part of a tour, and the orchestra travelled to the Scandinavian countries accompanied by charming models for a "fashion week" in Stockholm.
