To associate Furtwängler with Shostakovich is not commonplace. But that would be forgetting that once — just once — Furtwängler served the composer, who was described at the time as a “Soviet”.
On January 29, 1950 (from the 28th at the public dress rehearsal), Furtwängler and the Vienna Philharmonic performed the 9th Symphony, premiered five years earlier by Mravinsky in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg). This was a major premiere for the Austrian capital's philharmonic concerts. The performance was broadcast, but no trace of the recording seems to have survived.
Here is the facsimile of the programme, where Max Graf provides a comprehensive commentary.
