News

The Wilhelm Furtwängler Centre of Japan has released two new CD titles.

One, WFHC-034R-A/B, is titled “Furtwängler’s First and Last 78-RPM Recordings” and features the overture to Der Freischütz, Furtwängler’s very first recording (October 16, 1926), and Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto with Edwin Fischer and the Philharmonia from February 1951. Priced at €19.50 plus shipping.

The General Meeting of the Société Wilhelm Furtwängler will be held

on Saturday, October 17, 2026, 3 pm
In the room Septembre-Léon (1st floor) – Access codes in the invitation
24, rue du Quatre-Septembre, (F) 75002 PARIS
subway: Quatre septembre ou Bourse (line 3) – Richelieu-Drouot (lines 8 et 9)

Herewith, for members (page 'Invitations and reports'):

– the GM notice, including the agenda

– a document to appoint a proxy.
Fully digital, it only takes a few clicks!

We hope to see many of you at this meeting. If you are unable to attend this meeting, please fill in the proxy form, which can be edited until October 16. This is vital to ensure the GM is able to deliberate properly.

A Korean correspondent is offering Melodiya LPs and CDs featuring Furtwängler’s ‘war concerts', brand new and still in their original cellophane wrappers. The SWF is simply passing on these offers to you.

Attached is a list of these records. The SWF would be remiss if it did not point out that Melodiya has attributed recordings (Glazunov, D’Albert) to Furtwängler that are not his.

The prices are as follows:
Set of 7 LPs: 280 euros
Both sets: 450 euros
1 CD: 15 euros
1 LP: 40 euros

Postage for the 13 CDs: 35 euros
Postage for the 7 LPs: 55 euros

Seven years ago, the SWF published a major study, Furtwängler and Schoenberg, focusing on the premiere of the Variations, Op. 31. In the correspondence between the two musicians, we highlighted a missing link: the conductor’s interest in the work to come.

The Arnold Schönberg Centre (Eike Feß) has sent us ‘THE’ letter that was missing from the jigsaw — a letter which the Centre has just acquired, and the contents of which are set out in the attached newsletter, reserved for our members. This is the true starting point for the composition of the Variations.

Volume 3 of our Polydor complete collection is now available in the shop.

Whilst this series (1930–1932) opens with the romantic agitato of Mendelssohn’s Fingal's Cave, the rest of the programme is lighter in tone, including the 3rd Brandenburg Concerto, which is very lively and sunny. One would not have expected Furtwängler to tackle Rossini, and yet he proves himself very much at home with it. It is said (?) that even Toscanini would have been won over by this performance of La gazza ladra...

As with the previous volumes, Felix Matus-Echaiz has written an essay that closely follows Furtwängler’s interpretation of these pages.

Content: Mendelssohn Fingal's Cave (+ rehearsal) – Berlioz Hungarian March – Dvorak Slavonic Op. 46 No. 3 – Bach Brandenburg Concerto No.3 – Rossini La gazza ladra (Ov.) – Brahms Hungarian Dances No. 1 & No. 10 – Weber Invitation to the dance (orch. Berlioz)

Next and final episode: November.

Who would claim that the scene with the Norns, which opens The Twilight of the Gods, is essential? These three daughters of Erda weave the thread of fate — the past, the present and the future — but the thread snaps!

Is this scene an integral part of the story that follows? No, the ‘libretto’ could easily do without it.

However, within the saga — which begins in Das Rheingold and ends in the flames of Götterdämmerung’s finale — this episode is necessary, if only because they personify the sole ‘divine’ element in an opera that is firmly grounded in reality.

Kedem Berger, clearly a passionate and knowledgeable expert, reveals the secret behind this scene as magnified by Furtwängler — who preserves its magic — in his RAI Ring. Here is this study (pdf), available exclusively to our members.

It’s back-to-school time. And for the SWF, it’s a spectacular start to the new term.

In two weeks’ time, our new product, SWF D24 – the third volume in our Polydor series – will be released. With the exception of Mendelssohn’s Fingal’s Cave, with its turbulent Romanticism, the programme is generally of a lighter nature, including the particularly lively Third Brandenburg Concerto. Full details of the programme can be found in the project presentation.

On Saturday 17 October, the SWF’s general meeting will be held in Paris. You will receive full details by the end of September.

In the meantime, and to get the season off to a good start, here is an excerpt (mp3) from the overture to Rossini’s La gazza ladra. This isn’t necessarily where one would have expected Furtwängler to go, but he never ceases to surprise us.

As is the case every year, SWF’s operations are switching to ‘holiday’ mode for a few weeks. Of course, the shop remains open, the streaming platform has been updated to feature the latest products, and the studies and programme facsimiles are still available.

Meanwhile, the management team — discreet as ever — is busy preparing for the new season: autumn products, updates, the General Meeting in October...

We’ll be back in mid-August.

He’s on holiday too... (Collection Christophe Lambinet)

On 11 December 1950, Furtwängler conducted the Philharmonia Orchestra in a concert at the Royal Albert Hall. The planned programme had to be changed at short notice. Indeed, the original programme looked particularly promising: Dinu Lipatti was due to perform Schumann’s Concerto. Having been very ill for a long time, he passed away shortly before the concert. Lipatti and Furtwängler: a dream collaboration that was never to be...

One work remains on the programme, as originally announced: Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra, which Furtwängler has already performed in Buenos Aires, Berlin, Vienna and Lucerne.

This is a facsimile of the final programme, presented to you by Roger Smithson, a faithful supporter of the SWF.

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.