I have a DG vinyl box set of his Beethoven symphonies, but for the most part I just dipped my toe into the Furtwangler catalog. Yeah, I did have access to a lot of his recordings, thanks to my year or so working at Tower Classical Records in Hollywood. And to be sure, there were a couple of dedicated Furtwangler fans among my co-workers who regularly put him on the store’s stereo (including a guy we referred to as Grandma behind his back). In any case, I found his readings to be emotional as hell if just a bit too undisciplined for my taste.
How far down the Furtwangler rabbit hole did you go?
Qobuz has an apparently complete collection of Furtwangler recordings to match John Hunt's discography. After adding 1000+ tracks to a Furtwangler playlist, I felt like Gandalf climbing the Endless Stair (in reverse). My question to Furtwangler fans is how far down this particular mixed metaphor did you go? And was there a hidden gem down at the bottom?
* cultural reference.
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« Several critics have explained Furtwängler’s art as melding two often conflicting principles. Great music never emerges from comfort, well-being and privilege. Rather, throughout the history of music, the finest work arises from the most trying of circumstances. All of the great artists – composers and performers – were tortured souls. Even Beethoven was a gifted but largely derivative composer until driven to the brink of suicide by deafness, the cruellest blow of all for a budding musician. Like his idol, Furtwängler’s art was fueled by the loss of his own most treasured possession: the stability of an absolute artist, sheltered from sordid social and political reality.» http://www.classicalnotes.net/features/furtwangler.html
Furtwangler admiring listeners now are not deluded fan but people very sensible about what make music, "music", soul passionate devotion for pure freedom and creativity not mere SOUND clarity by any means...Everyone love sound clarity but few are able to move the heart and the soul to new heights...He was and will stay one... We must listen music with the heart and not with the ears only, and music is not about taste and sound but about "APOCALYSPE" which means translated from greek : revelation...
This is one of the most powerful symphony interpretation EVER recorded... But you cannot decipher it with the ears why? Because musical pulse and tempos "waving" are like the sea you must feel them with the heart and the body like a mariner on the sea , searching for minute sound details here and asking for more "clarity" is meaningless... The maestro make this symphony an encompassing whole ... If you dont feel it the problem is yours...
«Nothing is more disciplined than a loving heart»-Anonymus lover
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Valery Gergiev: The most difficult thing in conducting is to avoid a mechanical beat. This endless search for a true tempo, the right tempo for every bar of music, and not just a single tempo for the whole movement, is something few conductors ever master. Few leaders will recognize, perhaps, that it is something difficult for them, but they will try to do it and compete with Furtwängler, and most likely they will fail. Because it is a gift from God, the quality of a genius, that a conductor influences the playing of an orchestra. You cannot imagine that same orchestra playing the same way with Furtwängler and without him. It is not possible to imagine that they will do the same. Maybe they’ll be more organized, they’ll focus better on their overall game, but they won’t give that incredible expression he brings to life when leading an orchestra. Whether it’s the Berlin Philharmonic, the Hamburg Radio Orchestra or the Vienna Philharmonic, we find this incredible quality. |
The ears /brain know not much about music, the heart/body know more... Music is a social integration of all individuals in some rythmic union with Nature... Language comes from music in this sense... Furtwangler know that because his direction infaillibly express this eternal TEMPO flying over all smaller one beat in any musical work he ever directed... Alain Connes Fields medal in mathematics just registered a sequence of the imprevisible beat of the creation manifested through the prime numbers distributions... Time obey music not the reverse...Connes say studying Hilbert spaces that the source of an irrepressible flows of variations and novelty richer than time and at the source of time is this BEAT related to the prime distribution... Why do you think american Indian and pygmys dance to call for the rain? Superstition or higher consciousness ? Guess what is the right answer... 😁😊 Furtwangler music call for the soul like some call for the rain, it is the same UNIVERSAL beat for the rain and the soul......
«My soul flow with the rain»-Anonymus poet «There is only one beat for love and it is the right one each time »-Anonymus poet «Musical discourse is infallible all around the earth, be it european or a pygmies dance , because music is God speak at the origin of language itself» -Anonymus poet
Thanks to the work in non commutative geometry of alain Connes we can guess now how music and numbers can be related to God spoken language... thanks to pygmies or Furtwangler we can feel it without studying mathematics... 😁😊
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My first Furtwangler exposure was 50 years ago. My sister and I were both starting to listen to Classical Music. She bought a Furtwangler recording of Beethoven’s Eroica from late WW II. It was cheap. My first exposure to B3, and with the crappy Sonics it sounded like it was recorded in the middle of an Air Raid. That recording imprinted me on the Eroica; no other recording has ever seemed to be such a life and death affair. As I grew older and became a collector I have acquired other WF recordings but my reaction has been more variable. I’ve read a WF biography and pontificated in various Internet discussions. I currently use the Pristine Audio streaming service, which has a good WF selection. I never shelled out for the expensive Japanese or German SACD collections. Nice topic,btw |
Many years ago I was driving home after a long day, and the first notes Beethoven's Ninth began on the car radio as I pulled into my driveway. I had no idea what orchestra was playing, or who was conducting. I had heard the Ninth before, live and recorded (Karajan, Szell, etc.). But something immediately gripped me about this interpretation. The music was greater than I had imagined, I sat in my car in my driveway for the entire length of Beethoven's Ninth, riveted, unwilling to miss a note. At the end, I learned that the conductor was Furtwangler; it was the famous 1954 Lucerne performance. |
Like many here, my interest in Furtwangler goes back decades. A while back, I purchased the Kaisers Klassik Kunde The Legacy box set despite about Wagner being 25% of the selections. Opera's not my thing. I read Europe Central 3 months ago in which Furtwangler is mentioned in passing but its theme is central to Furtwangler's legacy. Concurrently, Wagner popped up on my radar screen, in conversations with friends and reading reviews of Alex Ross's book on Wagnerism. That eventually provided the impetus for getting Roon, uploading 400-some CD's, including of course the entire 107 CD Das Vermachtnis collection into the Roon Nucleus and upgrading my DAC. A fall project is listening to the entire Ring cycle reading along with John Deathridge's translation. |
The first, a structural logic, sense of proportion and intellectual probing, was derived from Furtwängler’s upbringing and is clearly evident in his early Polydors. The second – unbridled emotion and improvisation – was forged in the hideous caldron of Nazi Germany.