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After Berlin, Vienna was the music centre to which the conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler had the closest artistic connections. Under his direction the Vienna Philharmonic made a whole series of radio recordings that have now, for the first time, been carefully edited under the auspices of the Furtwängler specialist Gottfried Kraus and released by Orfeo on 18 CDs. The series commences with recordings from 1944/45, including one of Mozart’s g-minor symphony K550 in which Furtwängler demonstrates his clear sense of form from the very first bars. Beethoven’s third 'Leonore' Overture and an excerpt from Schubert’s 'Rosamunde' music complete our selection from this, the earliest of the recording sessions. Several works are to be found more than once in this anthology. Thus, Beethoven’s Eroica can be compared in an early version from 1944 and a later recording from 1953, just as Bruckner’s Eighth can be compared in recordings from 1944 and 1954. Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony is offered no less than three times here – from the years 1951, 1952 and 1953 – a work that surely no other conductor could make into such an 'event', an experience of universal import, as could Wilhelm Furtwängler. This was also true of his Brahms interpretations, represented here by the first two symphonies, the 'Haydn' Variations, the Double Concerto and the 'German Requiem', which is sadly only extant in an incomplete recording from 1951. This is, incidentally, the only time in this collection that we hear Furtwängler conducting the Vienna Symphony Orchestra. Besides Irmgard Seefried and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau – two vocal soloists whom Furtwängler admired and engaged repeatedly – we can hear the chorus of the Vienna Singakademie on this recording.

They also sing in Bach’s 'St Matthew Passion': in a partial recording from 1952 and in the famous performance of 1954 that was shortened by Furtwängler himself, but which is here released in a restored recording based on the original radio broadcast, without the cuts that were later made by record companies. Here as elsewhere in this collection, the acoustic heritage of the Viennese radio stations of the time has been restored using the best possible technological means available today. Even collector’s items such as the Piano Concertos K365 and 482 by Mozart, with Dagmar Bella and Paul Badura-Skoda, have probably never sounded better since they were first heard in the concert hall. Hence justice is done to Furtwängler’s timeles” style of music-making that unites different epochs, ranging from Gluck’s Overture to 'Iphigenie in Aulis' to Mahler’s 'Songs of a Wayfarer' and Furtwängler’s own Second Symphony – a work that despite all its late-Romantic echoes succeeds in attaining originality and a considerable emotional impact. This universality of Furtwängler has not found its match to this day.

After more than 10 years missing on the market, this recording is now back in the catalogue. Recorded live at the Edinburgh Festival in September 1953.

Stereo recording; Berlin, 1960

In a sense it was 'black Romanticism' that cast its shadow over the operatic repertory at the 1964 Salzburg Festival. Performed in the Felsenreitschule, Verdi’s 'Macbeth' was a musical event of the first order, exciting to hear and powerfully acclaimed at the end. This was due not least to Wolfgang Sawallisch’s dramatically gripping conducting of the Vienna Philharmonic, but also to an exemplary pair of protagonists. In complete control of his formidable vocal gifts, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau provided a multifaceted portrait of the complex and unfathomable figure of Macbeth, while Grace Bumbry was no less impressive as Lady Macbeth, bringing to the part an unusual degree of demonism and proving to be in total command of the part’s tremendous vocal difficulties in terms of stamina, range and artistry.

This was Bumbry's debut rôle at the Vienna State Opera, also in 1964, and her first as a soprano, having started as a mezzo in 1960. She was the first black singer to sing at Bayreuth, eliciting 42 curtain calls and a certain amount of media fever and debate as to her true fach. She studied with Lehman and the voice is in pristine condition here, aged only 27.

This 9-CD boxed set of first releases from the RIAS archives presents the first ever attempt at a recording of the complete Bach cantatas.

For everyone who is interested in the history of Bach interpretation and in the development of Germany’s post-1945 cultural rebuilding, these recordings represent a significant enrichment. From 1946, Karl Ristenpart established choral and orchestral ensembles at the RIAS Berlin, directing the RIAS Kammerchor and the RIAS Kammerorchester. With these ensembles, and emerging young singers (including Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Helmut Krebs and Agnes Giebel), Karl Ristenpart and Elsa Schiller, then head of music at the RIAS, embarked in 1947 upon a recording series of the complete Bach cantatas. However, it proved impossible to realise the project in its entirety. The 29 cantatas which survive in the RIAS archives document a Bach ideal which is pioneering even by today’s standards: thanks to small-scale forces the musical structures are distinct and transparent, and the singers link their articulation to that of the instrumentalists.This interpretation, which is free of any monumentalism, paved the way, aesthetically, for historically informed performance practice.

This performance with the great Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau was recorded in Paris on 6th June 1956.

Where is the likes of Anton Dermota today?

The Slovenian tenor was not just a member of the Vienna State Opera ensemble for over 50 years, he was also a master of the stage and concert hall, celebrated all over the world from Milan to Buenos Aires. This new release of his performances at the Vienna State Opera makes evident this versatility. His Tamino is given here both at the beginning and the end of our selection,from the immediate post-war years under Karl Böhm, plus an excerpt from the run of performances under Sanderling with which Demota made his farewell to the stage in 1981, at the age of 71! Nor can Dermota’s interpretations of Ferrando and Don Ottavio be omitted from this double CD. It is delightful to contrast the buffo roles and Dermota’s exploits as a tenore lirico spinto, such as Florestan.

The tricky, brief roles in Richard Strauss’ operas, such as the Singer in Rosenkavalier and Matteo in Arabella, were ones he mastered superbly. They too are to be found here, as in the legendary Capriccio ensemble with Elisabeth Schwarzkopf as the Countess. Dermota appeared with various, equally splendid partners in Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin – as Lenski he duelled before the radio microphone with George London and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, while as late as the 1970s he turned Monsieur Triquet’s burlesque into a subtle character study.

This anthology of Ferenc Fricsay’s Bartók recordings for the RIAS Berlin documents, in a three CD series, a summit meeting of famous Hungarian soloists: the pianists Géza Anda, Andor Foldes, Louis Kentner and the violinist Tibor Varga. Fricsay’s time-tested and congenial vocal soloist, once again, is Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau.

The project of a representative, possibly even complete, recording of Bartók’s oeuvre formed a part of Fricsay’s work from the beginning of his time in Berlin. These RIAS recordings feature almost exclusively Hungarian artists for the solo parts: a novelty at the time. In Fricsay’s view, Hungarian soloists were best suited to realising his precise concept of the close relationship between, on the one hand, Hungarian language and culture and, on the other, interpreting Hungarian music authentically. The only exception is Fischer-Dieskau, whom Fricsay much admired. This compilation from 1951 until 1953 includes all surviving Bartók recordings from the RIAS archives with Fricsay. It begins with opus 1, the Rhapsody for piano and orchestra (1904) and conceived in an entirely Hungarian idiom, and goes via the expressionist, agitated Deux Portraits Op 5 (1907-08) and the powerfully optimistic Dance Suite (1921) up to the masterworks of the 1930s: the neo-baroque influenced Second Piano Concerto (1930-31), the archaic, fairytale-like and darkly coloured Cantata Profana (1932), the splendid Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta (1935), the lucid Second Violin Concerto (1937-38) and the mysterious Divertimento of 1939 with which Bartók marked the beginning of his inner farewell to Europe. Even today, more than 60 years after these recordings were made, Fricsay’s intensity is perceptible for the listener as an existential experience – both in the impetus and the positive power of the rhythm, and also in the mysteriously resigned and ironically contorted moments in this music which is so rich in nuances. This was made possible by the cooperation with other world-famous alumni of the Budapest Music Academy where Fricsay had himself studied: the pianists Géza Anda, Andor Foldes and Louis Kentner, as well as the violinist Tibor Varga. Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau joined Fricsay as a soloist in the opera Bluebeard’s Castle and the Cantata Profana. His singing (albeit in German) congenially corresponded to Fricsay’s ideal of dramatically thrilling and passionately precise Bartók interpretation.