Archives: Programmes

The brochure’s format is surprising: a wallet folded triptych. However, the words “Orchestra dell’ Augusteo” should not surprise us: this is another name for the Orchestra of the National Academy of Santa Cecilia, borrowed from the prestigious hall of the Augusteo, built in 1907 on the ruins of the mausoleum of Augustus, and destroyed in 1936 to allow the excavation and restoration of the same mausoleum. The Orchestra then moved to the Teatro Adriano, before settling in the Teatro Argentina in 1946.

The programme — Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms — is conventional. Furtwängler conducting after more than two years of forced retirement, is getting back to his “basics”.

The conductor’s biography on page 2 has a few approximations…

 

 

 

 

 

 

The programme on 11 January 1942 in Berlin provides an opportunity to sketch a short portrait of an exceptional musician, the American violinist Guila [Teressina] Bustabo (1916-2002), who, under the guidance of her fearsome mother, spent most of her career in Europe from 1940 onwards, in Nazi Germany and in the occupied countries. In 1945, her homeland held it against her. She suffered from this and said about her fellow student: “Menuhin got away from his parents. He was lucky. I never got away from mine.”

Some interesting facts about the brochure itself. An additional leaflet gives us the names of the conductors involved in Handel’s Concerto grosso, and amends the programme: it is indeed the three Hungarian dances orchestrated by Brahms that end the concert.

More revealing, an article by Karla Höcker, Johannes Brahms in Berlin, sheds light on the relationship between the Hamburg native and the Prussian capital city. Of course is mentioned Hans von Bülow, who did so much for Brahms as conductor of the young Philharmonic, while a key figure in Brahms’s life is completely ignored: Joseph Joachim. A name that sounded evil to German ears at the time…

The programme is that of a public concert intended to raise funds for the Red Cross. An eclectic programme, therefore, for a large audience, in which a virtuoso piece — Sarasate — is not missing. Jani Szanto, who had recently became Furtwängler’s Konzertmeister in Lübeck, performed it. Here is a splendid “art nouveau” portrait of him, by Albert Aereboe, 1916 (Museum Behnhaus Drägerhaus, Lübeck).

The event took place in Berlin, on the evening of February 13, 1942, at Bernburgerstrasse 22a/23, i.e. at the Berlin Philharmonie. Furtwängler conducted his Philharmonic there during a special concert given for the benefit of Aid for Elderly Artists, in the presence of the actress Ida Wüst, president of that organisation. The programme was to have included the Variations on a Theme of Mozart by Reger, which had been given two months earlier in the subscription concert series. “Was to have included…” because at the last moment — well, look at the programme.

As the conductor raised his baton to start Till Eulenspiegel, the second item in the altered programme, a gentleman rose from his seat, no 31 in row 24, and shouted: “What about Max Reger, Mr Furtwängler?”. This intervention disturbed people nearby, and a muttering began.  Furtwängler, after half-turning around, decided to begin.

This is how the scene was reported in the DAZ (Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, the most important of the German daily newspapers) by a certain Dr W. Theobald, who finished by deploring the failure of the hall staff of to intervene and put an stop to this inappropriate interruption.

The matter snowballed when the DAZ published a letter from Mr. Hinnrichs, a professor of music and the cause of the scandal. He explained that he paid 6 Reichsmarks for his seat, 0.40 RM for the cloakroom (this was February…) and 0.50 RM for the programme. He had been waiting impatiently for weeks to hear Max Reger’s Variations on a Theme of Mozart, performances of which he found regrettably rare. And then he was robbed of this satisfaction, and it was only on the evening of the concert that the change took place — as was shown by the presence of a loose sheet slipped into the programme. So why this change? A sick flautist? Was the fourth horn unavailable? And why the lack of information for the public? And, he says, contrary to what has been reported, many people in the audience had expressed their appreciation of his action during the interval.

The DAZ subsequently received numerous letters both for and against, and printed two responses.

The first was from Furtwängler, who while praising Mr. Hinnrichs’ passion for music and this work in particular, and understanding his disappointment, nevertheless deplored the manner in which he chose to manifest it.

It was the Intendant of the BPO, Gerhardt von Westerman, who explained the change of programme. If one of the instrumentalists had been unavailable, there would of course have been a replacement. In reality, however, the orchestra had just returned from a tour of the Scandinavian countries, and the journey from Copenhagen to Berlin did not go as planned, with 32 hours of travel plus some hours overnight in the railway station in Hamburg.  The instruments themselves did not arrive at the Philharmonie until very late; it was no longer possible to rehearse the planned programme, and the management had no choice but to present works which had been well rehearsed during the tour.

Concert at 11pm. Taking into account the inevitable short delay at the beginning of the evening, the sequence of works, their duration and the applause, it is easy to imagine that the countdown to the last minutes of 1927 and the cheers welcoming 1928 filled the interval.

Nothing to say about the programme — it could have been lighter… — but the venue must be highlighted: the Alberthalle, a vast circular hall which is part of the Krystallpalast and can accommodate almost 3000 spectators.

On the evening of 31 December 1918, Arthur Nikisch conducted the Beethoven 9^th Symphony and thus established the tradition of the New Year’s Eve concert.

The programme to download is substantial, as was the content of this festival organized in Vienna for the centenary of the birth of Brahms.

In addition to the inauguration, with speeches and music, there was to be a succession of concerts:

– The German Requiem, given twice, with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra and the Singverein (the choir of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde),

– two symphonic concerts with the VPO: one with Schnabel in Concerto no 2, the other bringing together Hubermann and Casals in the Double Concerto,

– two chamber music concerts presenting the Trios and, with Hindemith (viola), the Piano Quartets.

The radio broadcast the Requiem and the First Symphony live.

With hindsight, we can see that this was the last time that Furtwängler accompanied the three soloists…

Hubermann, Casals and Hindemith; Schnabel at the piano. Rehearsal at the Imperial Hotel, May 1933

The facsimile programme that we present here is for no ordinary concert; it included the first performance of Furtwängler’s imposing Second Symphony under the composer’s baton.

It is beyond the scope of this brief presentation to analyze such a complex work. Its romantic, even tragic character, the borrowing of its language from Brahms, Bruckner and even Wagner, its dense orchestration, all combine to put us at a distance from a piece that was already very “dated” at the time.

Let us however highlight a few points of detail

We don’t know why this première took place at the Admiralspalast, in the Soviet sector, rather than the Berlin Philharmonic’s usual hall, the Titania-Palast, in the American sector.

At the last moment, at least on the 23^rd — as shown in the loose sheet that we have included at the start of the facsimile — Mozart’s Symphony No 39 was replaced by Handel’s Concerto Grosso in D major, undoubtedly a less emotionally charged piece.

For two seasons the Berlin Philharmonic entrusted the covers of its programmes to the painter Ferry Ahrlé (1924-2018). This has given us a particularly successful stylized portrait of Furtwängler.

France — in this case Paris — was the first country that had suffered from the German occupation to welcome Furtwängler after the war. In January 1948, the conductor appeared with the prestigious and long-established Conservatoire orchestra, l’Orchestre de la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire de Paris.

For two years the chief conductor had been André Cluytens, who succeeded Charles Munch in 1946; the presidency belonged by right to the director of the Conservatoire Supérieur, the composer Claude Delvincourt.

In November of the same year, Furtwängler returned for another series of three concerts, again at the Théâtre des Champs Élysées, which had replaced the old and historic hall of the Conservatoire on rue Bergère, long regarded as too cramped and unworthy of a metropolis like Paris. Note that these concerts were given just a few days after the German Requiem in Stockholm.

The programme could hardly be more classic, so there is nothing to add, except the name of the orchestra’s leader, who no doubt took the great violin solo in Schumann’s Fourth: Roland Charmy.

Our sincere thanks to the SWF member who provided us with this programme.