Concert of 26 February 1925
The programme for this concert is quite unusual: alongside Gluck's Overture to Alcestis are Serge Bortkiewicz's First Piano Concerto and Mahler's First Symphony.
This is the only time Furtwängler performed Bortkiewicz (1877-1952), a Ukrainian-born composer of late Romanticism.
Our conductor has never been an advocate of Malher. And although he conducted the first four symphonies — the First about ten times — he later distanced himself from them and focused on the Kindertotenlieder and the Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen.
One regret: as almost all Leipzig programmes, it is only one page listing the musical works. At least we learn that the charming Lubka Kolessa plays the concerto on a Blüthner piano and that the scores are available in the lobby...