Wilhelm Furtwängler

Beethoven’s 9th Symphony remains to this day the only work that does not belong to the Bayreuth canon or the 'Wagner Ten', so to speak – and yet has nevertheless been performed on the Green Hill along with them. Both within and without the Bayreuth walls, the performance history of this symphony is associated with no conductor more than with Wilhelm Furtwängler. The opening performance of the first post-War Bayreuth Festival in 1951 was of Beethoven’s Ninth under Furtwängler, and there already exists an ORFEO release based on the original radio broadcast. Several technical hurdles had to be overcome before the performance of 1954 could also be released on CD, however, for none of the accessible sources could be prepared satisfactorily without employing the most modern mastering possibilities. The result is undoubtedly a vital document: both for those interested in the history of the Bayreuth Festival and for those who are enthused by the concurrent continuity and constant change that is a hallmark of Wilhelm Furtwängler’s style of interpretation. This Ninth would be his farewell to Bayreuth and was in fact one of his very last concerts anywhere, for it took place just three months before his death. Its interpretation is more direct and less ceremonial than in earlier recordings under this great conductor. In the last bars of this symphony’s famous choral finale he achieves a climax not just through his scorching pace, but also through a well-nigh breathless intensification of the musical content. The Bayreuth Festival Chorus and Orchestra and the solo quartet (led by the Dutch soprano Gré Brouwenstijn, here in magnificent voice) follow the maestro’s beat even here with an unmistakeable sense of tension and the utmost, unrelenting attention. It is surely herein that lies the secret of the fascination that Furtwängler exudes even now. As perhaps no other conductor he always understood how to avoid the routine in works that he conducted so many times. Instead he was time and again able to summon up and maintain an awareness of them as something extraordinary and unique: for himself, his fellow musicians and his listeners.

These recordings were made from 1950 to 1952 and bring all of Furtwängler’s Tchaikovsky recordings together in one set.

Wilhelm Furtwängler (1886–1954), along with Arturo Toscanini, were unquestionably the two dominant conductors of classical music in the 20th century.

Furtwängler always regarded Beethoven’s ‘Choral’ Symphony as a near-religious work and the performances he gave were always special occasions.

This release is important because it has never been released before outside Japan and came about because Furtwängler, having scheduled a number of performances of Beethoven’s Symphony No.9 in January 1953, fell ill during the first concert, which was abandoned. The concerts were then re-scheduled for the end of May with an extra performance thrown in for those who were at the uncompleted one.

This took place on May 30 but is often confused with the final concert which took place a day later, on May 31, and which has been released on a number of labels.

The original sound of the May 30 concert is superior to that of the performance of May 31 and has been enhanced with Ambient Mastering.

This recording of Bruckner’s Fifth Symphony had been published several times: USA, 1982/84, Bruno Walter Society (Denon CD 536); Germany, 1989, DG (471 297-2); Japan, 2005, Opus Kura (OPK 7013) and Russia, 2006, Melodiya (RCD 10 01103). There were also other releases, most of them of questionable sound quality. Closer investigation revealed that various sources lay behind these reissues, namely some good and some not so good editing of the tapes, which had been ‘abducted’ to Russia. Melodiya and Opus Kura had access to better copies than DG, who had to rely on the first delivery of tapes in 1987. The quality of editing and digital processing of the tapes varied considerably. For instance, resonance added, ambient noise reduced (to the detriment of musical quality), dynamic effects curtailed; in one case the digital mastering had added a disturbing hum throughout the recording. The present release is sourced from the original tape kept in the archive of Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg (RBB, formerly SFB), a photo of the box for which is shown in this booklet. The tape needed only minimal reworking as the quality is very good. It is indeed quite astonishing how natural, ample, transparent and full the orchestral sound is; only in one place was remedial intervention necessary.

Two pizzicatos were missing at the beginning of the finale, but these could be borrowed from the identical figure in the opening movement.

It should also be noted that the instrumental pitch, though raised in the majority of previous reissues – in the 1989 DG issue, for instance, A = 444 Hz with correspondingly shorter running time – has been left here at the original A = 440Hz as established at the international standardising conference held in London in 1939.

And so the Odyssey of the Furtwängler recording of Bruckner’s Fifth Symphony is now, after nearly seventy years, brought to its conclusion. Admirers of Wilhelm Furtwängler’s art, and of the excellence of the Berlin Philharmonic, now have an opportunity to hear afresh a brilliant interpretation which shows, amongst other things, Furtwängler’s temperamental affinity with a work often regarded as difficult and unapproachable. And it is an especially happy outcome that this memento of the great conductor should be issued to mark his 125th birthday on 25 January 2011.

(Extract from the booklet note: Helge Grünewald, 2011)

Reissue Producer and Audio Restoration Engineer: Mark Obert-Thorn