great conductors: wilhelm furtwängler beethoven … · matrix nos.: 2vh 7207/09, 7204/06 and...

8.112025 4

Great Conductors: Wilhelm Furtwängler

Ludwig van BEETHOVEN (1770-1827)Piano Concerto No. 5 in E flat major, Op. 73, ‘Emperor’ 38:44

1 I Allegro 20:342 II Adagio un poco mosso 7:553 III Rondo: Allegro 10:15

Edwin Fischer, PianoPhilharmonia OrchestraWilhelm FurtwänglerRecorded at EMI Abbey Road Studio No. 1, London, 19th and 20th February 1951Matrix nos.: 2EA 15407/09, 15412/17 and 15421First issued on HMV DB 9661 through 9665

Symphony No. 4 in B flat major, Op. 60 36:544 I Adagio – Allegro vivace 10:595 II Adagio 12:246 III Menuetto: Allegro vivace 5:597 IV Allegro ma non troppo 7:32

Vienna Philharmonic OrchestraWilhelm FurtwänglerRecorded at the Musikvereinssaal, Vienna, 25th and 30th January 1950Matrix nos.: 2VH 7207/09, 7204/06 and 7210/13First issued on HMV DV 9524 through 9528

Reissue Producer and Audio Restoration Engineer: Mark Obert-Thorn

BEETHOVENPiano Concerto No. 5

Symphony No. 4

Edwin Fischer, PianoPhilharmonia Orchestra • Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra

Wilhelm Furtwängler

1950 - 1951 Recordings

HELM FURTWÄNGLER

8.112025 bk Furtwangler_Beethoven_EU 26-03-2010 9:49 Pagina 4

8.1120253

Swiss-born Edwin Fischer (1886-1960) continues tobe regarded as a distinctive pianist with a particularreputation in the Austro-German classics, an unvarnishedbut perceptive, spiritual even, interpreter particularly ofBach (there is a time-honoured recording of The Well-Tempered Clavier from the 1930s that continues to enjoy aconsiderable reputation), Mozart, Beethoven andSchubert. As a teacher Fischer was very influential, notleast on Daniel Barenboim and Alfred Brendel. Fischerwas also a conductor, author (including a book onBeethoven’s piano sonatas) and a chamber musiccollaborator. And one senses a deeply meaningfulcollaboration with Furtwängler and the PhilharmoniaOrchestra. Although microphones were present and thered light was ‘on’, this was no inhibition to spontaneousand revealing music-making. This finds its heart in aspacious and rapt account of the slow movement, atransporting mediation that is rather denied to thosepreferring an ‘authentic’ view on the music, which isfollowed by an impishly flexible finale.

Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony was completed in1806. It is, ostensibly, a lighter, more relaxed work thanthe preceding Eroica Symphony and poles apart from thetitanic release that is the Fifth Symphony, yet both thislatter work and the Fourth were written concurrently. Ifthe Fourth is a more classical piece than the giantsymphonic statements that surround it, it is no lesssearching and moving; atmospheric and witty, too. Therecording of it here is Furtwängler’s 1950 ViennaPhilharmonic version, which should not be confused withthe conductor’s more widely circulated account of 1952.In this earlier traversal Furtwängler takes an expansiveview, shadowy in the slow introduction, emphatic in themain Allegro. When we reach the development,Furtwängler characteristically treats the appoggiatura inthe violins (and then woodwind) as a ‘long’ note, makingit part of the expressive design rather than something‘crushed’. He is not alone in this (Ernest Ansermet, forexample), but most conductors take the ‘short’ option.Furtwängler’s handling of the passage that leads into therecapitulation may be thought of as too sectioned-off interms of tempo, but he was a master of the transition andtension is maintained. The slow movement is veryspaciously treated, and – with no repeat of the exposition

in the first movement – this ‘heavenly length’ tends to‘bulge’ the shape of the symphony as a whole; yetFurtwängler’s searching and emotionally outreachingconducting gives the music a dimension it can certainlytake. With a Scherzo that is articulate and a Trio madecommunicative, and a finale (with exposition repeat)given time for its contours to be fully revealed (no‘historically informed’ mad dash here), there remainsstrength and bubbling vitality; less of a ‘cheeky chappy’than can be the case, but with a meaningful sense ofpurpose.

These recordings were made just a few yearsfollowing the cessation of hostilities of World War IIduring which time Furtwängler’s situation had been realand immediate. Although Beethoven’s music is (for us) –and these pieces in particular – more than two centuriesago, its timeless quality and universal meaning are typicalof great music that musicians and listeners spend theirlives investigating. One senses with Furtwängler thatmusic was indivisible with life. Leading up to the years ofWorld War II, and during that conflict, Furtwängler,because he remained in Germany (other prominentmusicians went into exile), was branded a Nazi (orcertainly a member of the Nazi Party). Although, post-war,he was cleared of such associations, this stigma dogged hiscareer for quite some time. (Yehudi Menuhin, a Jew,worked with Furtwängler in the conductor’s last years.Before the war, though, he had refused to do so.)Furtwängler explained his actions thus: ‘I knew Germanywas in a terrible crisis. I felt responsible for Germanmusic, and it was my task to survive this crisis, as much asI could. The concern that my art was misused forpropaganda had to yield to the greater concern thatGerman music be preserved, that music be given to theGerman people by its own musicians. These people, thecompatriots of Bach and Beethoven, of Mozart andSchubert, still had to go on living under the control of aregime obsessed with total war. No one who did not livehere himself in those days can possibly judge what it waslike.’ Maybe, with these post-war recordings, these wordsare etched into the performances enshrined therein.

Colin Anderson

8.112025 2

Gustav Heinrich Ernst Martin Wilhelm Furtwängler wasborn in Berlin on 25th January 1886 and died in Baden-Baden on 30th November 1954. His father was anarchaeologist and his mother a painter; such exploratoryand creative qualities might also be perceived inFurtwängler’s distinctive and personal brand ofmusicianship. Wilhelm Furtwängler’s musical educationbegan at an early age (with his instrument being the piano)and was fuelled in particular by a love of Beethoven’smusic – which would develop into a lifetime’sengrossment for him, and which is demonstrated here bytwo prime recorded examples of Furtwängler’s conductingBeethoven’s music are heard. One recording is of a world-famous piano concerto, in a classic version, and the otheris a symphony, no less well-known save it is somewhatdwarfed by the side of other Beethoven symphonies, andwhich, in this particular account, is a rarity inFurtwängler’s discography. Although Furtwängler’sposthumous reputation is as a conductor of the Austro-German classics – kept alive through a relatively smallofficial discography now swelled by many releases ofexhumed concert-performances – Furtwängler was also acomposer (and not the only composer-conductor to put theact of creation above that of re-creation: Boulez is, andKlemperer was, of a similar mind). Furtwängler’scompositions include several pieces of expansive chambermusic, a piano concerto, and three Bruckner-sizesymphonies.

Indeed, Bruckner’s music was also a very importantpart of Furtwängler’s repertoire (recordings, approved orotherwise, exist of Furtwängler conducting several ofBruckner’s symphonies). Indeed it was Bruckner’sSymphony No. 9 that Furtwängler included in his firstconcert (in 1907), which was with the MunichPhilharmonic Orchestra (owing to his father’s teachingcommitments, Wilhelm had spent his childhood in thiscity). Furtwängler then received engagements with variousAustrian and German orchestras and opera houses until, in1922, he was appointed to the celebrated LeipzigGewandhaus Orchestra, in succession to the legendaryArthur Nikisch, and also to the Berlin Philharmonic.

Not that Furtwängler’s repertoire was limited to the

Austro-German classics, for he conducted the premièresof, for example, Hindemith’s Symphony Mathis der Maler,in 1934, and Schoenberg’s (masterly if then ‘newlycomplex’) Variations for Orchestra, Op. 31, in 1928. Norwas Furtwängler a stranger to Bartók’s music – in 1927 hehad conducted the first performance of Piano ConcertoNo. 1 with the composer as the soloist, and, over twentyyears later, recorded Violin Concerto No. 2 with YehudiMenuhin, and there are in circulation concert-recordingsof Furtwängler conducting Ravel and Stravinsky, and alsopieces by his German composer contemporaries such asHans Pfitzner and Wolfgang Fortner. To this currentrelease, however, and for all his close association with theBerlin Philharmonic, Furtwängler also had success withthe Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and the PhilharmoniaOrchestra (London) and it is with these two augustensembles that Furtwängler is heard in this collection oftwo pieces by Beethoven.

First, and in collaboration with Edwin Fischer, is aLondon-made Philharmonia Orchestra recording ofBeethoven’s so-called Emperor Piano Concerto. As sooften with epithets, this royal nickname has nothing to dowith the composer and, in this case, it grew out of acomment by Johann Baptist Cramer, the work’s Londonpublisher who remarked that Beethoven’s Piano ConcertoNo. 5 in E flat is “the emperor among piano concertos”.However sweeping the statement, and however free theadvertising, the resulting soubriquet is only really knownto English-speaking music-lovers and yet does have acertain justification in terms of its musical style.Completed in Vienna in 1811, the piano concerto wasdedicated to Archduke Rudolf, who was both Beethoven’spatron and pupil. There is certainly weight and trenchancyto this 1951 performance recorded in the famous StudioNo.1 in Abbey Road, London (an iconic venue ever sinceThe Beatles were photographed crossing the nearby zebracrossing in the 1960s), Edwin Fischer establishing acommanding rhetoric from the off, the PhilharmoniaOrchestra and Furtwängler ablaze in response. Not thatthis is an overtly dramatic performance, for inwardnessand humanity also shine through, qualities that neitherFischer nor Furtwängler were short of.

Great Conductors: Wilhelm Furtwängler (1886-1954)BEETHOVEN: Piano Concerto No. 5, ‘Emperor’ • Symphony No. 4

8.1120253

Swiss-born Edwin Fischer (1886-1960) continues tobe regarded as a distinctive pianist with a particularreputation in the Austro-German classics, an unvarnishedbut perceptive, spiritual even, interpreter particularly ofBach (there is a time-honoured recording of The Well-Tempered Clavier from the 1930s that continues to enjoy aconsiderable reputation), Mozart, Beethoven andSchubert. As a teacher Fischer was very influential, notleast on Daniel Barenboim and Alfred Brendel. Fischerwas also a conductor, author (including a book onBeethoven’s piano sonatas) and a chamber musiccollaborator. And one senses a deeply meaningfulcollaboration with Furtwängler and the PhilharmoniaOrchestra. Although microphones were present and thered light was ‘on’, this was no inhibition to spontaneousand revealing music-making. This finds its heart in aspacious and rapt account of the slow movement, atransporting mediation that is rather denied to thosepreferring an ‘authentic’ view on the music, which isfollowed by an impishly flexible finale.

Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony was completed in1806. It is, ostensibly, a lighter, more relaxed work thanthe preceding Eroica Symphony and poles apart from thetitanic release that is the Fifth Symphony, yet both thislatter work and the Fourth were written concurrently. Ifthe Fourth is a more classical piece than the giantsymphonic statements that surround it, it is no lesssearching and moving; atmospheric and witty, too. Therecording of it here is Furtwängler’s 1950 ViennaPhilharmonic version, which should not be confused withthe conductor’s more widely circulated account of 1952.In this earlier traversal Furtwängler takes an expansiveview, shadowy in the slow introduction, emphatic in themain Allegro. When we reach the development,Furtwängler characteristically treats the appoggiatura inthe violins (and then woodwind) as a ‘long’ note, makingit part of the expressive design rather than something‘crushed’. He is not alone in this (Ernest Ansermet, forexample), but most conductors take the ‘short’ option.Furtwängler’s handling of the passage that leads into therecapitulation may be thought of as too sectioned-off interms of tempo, but he was a master of the transition andtension is maintained. The slow movement is veryspaciously treated, and – with no repeat of the exposition

in the first movement – this ‘heavenly length’ tends to‘bulge’ the shape of the symphony as a whole; yetFurtwängler’s searching and emotionally outreachingconducting gives the music a dimension it can certainlytake. With a Scherzo that is articulate and a Trio madecommunicative, and a finale (with exposition repeat)given time for its contours to be fully revealed (no‘historically informed’ mad dash here), there remainsstrength and bubbling vitality; less of a ‘cheeky chappy’than can be the case, but with a meaningful sense ofpurpose.

These recordings were made just a few yearsfollowing the cessation of hostilities of World War IIduring which time Furtwängler’s situation had been realand immediate. Although Beethoven’s music is (for us) –and these pieces in particular – more than two centuriesago, its timeless quality and universal meaning are typicalof great music that musicians and listeners spend theirlives investigating. One senses with Furtwängler thatmusic was indivisible with life. Leading up to the years ofWorld War II, and during that conflict, Furtwängler,because he remained in Germany (other prominentmusicians went into exile), was branded a Nazi (orcertainly a member of the Nazi Party). Although, post-war,he was cleared of such associations, this stigma dogged hiscareer for quite some time. (Yehudi Menuhin, a Jew,worked with Furtwängler in the conductor’s last years.Before the war, though, he had refused to do so.)Furtwängler explained his actions thus: ‘I knew Germanywas in a terrible crisis. I felt responsible for Germanmusic, and it was my task to survive this crisis, as much asI could. The concern that my art was misused forpropaganda had to yield to the greater concern thatGerman music be preserved, that music be given to theGerman people by its own musicians. These people, thecompatriots of Bach and Beethoven, of Mozart andSchubert, still had to go on living under the control of aregime obsessed with total war. No one who did not livehere himself in those days can possibly judge what it waslike.’ Maybe, with these post-war recordings, these wordsare etched into the performances enshrined therein.

Colin Anderson

8.112025 2

Gustav Heinrich Ernst Martin Wilhelm Furtwängler wasborn in Berlin on 25th January 1886 and died in Baden-Baden on 30th November 1954. His father was anarchaeologist and his mother a painter; such exploratoryand creative qualities might also be perceived inFurtwängler’s distinctive and personal brand ofmusicianship. Wilhelm Furtwängler’s musical educationbegan at an early age (with his instrument being the piano)and was fuelled in particular by a love of Beethoven’smusic – which would develop into a lifetime’sengrossment for him, and which is demonstrated here bytwo prime recorded examples of Furtwängler’s conductingBeethoven’s music are heard. One recording is of a world-famous piano concerto, in a classic version, and the otheris a symphony, no less well-known save it is somewhatdwarfed by the side of other Beethoven symphonies, andwhich, in this particular account, is a rarity inFurtwängler’s discography. Although Furtwängler’sposthumous reputation is as a conductor of the Austro-German classics – kept alive through a relatively smallofficial discography now swelled by many releases ofexhumed concert-performances – Furtwängler was also acomposer (and not the only composer-conductor to put theact of creation above that of re-creation: Boulez is, andKlemperer was, of a similar mind). Furtwängler’scompositions include several pieces of expansive chambermusic, a piano concerto, and three Bruckner-sizesymphonies.

Indeed, Bruckner’s music was also a very importantpart of Furtwängler’s repertoire (recordings, approved orotherwise, exist of Furtwängler conducting several ofBruckner’s symphonies). Indeed it was Bruckner’sSymphony No. 9 that Furtwängler included in his firstconcert (in 1907), which was with the MunichPhilharmonic Orchestra (owing to his father’s teachingcommitments, Wilhelm had spent his childhood in thiscity). Furtwängler then received engagements with variousAustrian and German orchestras and opera houses until, in1922, he was appointed to the celebrated LeipzigGewandhaus Orchestra, in succession to the legendaryArthur Nikisch, and also to the Berlin Philharmonic.

Not that Furtwängler’s repertoire was limited to the

Austro-German classics, for he conducted the premièresof, for example, Hindemith’s Symphony Mathis der Maler,in 1934, and Schoenberg’s (masterly if then ‘newlycomplex’) Variations for Orchestra, Op. 31, in 1928. Norwas Furtwängler a stranger to Bartók’s music – in 1927 hehad conducted the first performance of Piano ConcertoNo. 1 with the composer as the soloist, and, over twentyyears later, recorded Violin Concerto No. 2 with YehudiMenuhin, and there are in circulation concert-recordingsof Furtwängler conducting Ravel and Stravinsky, and alsopieces by his German composer contemporaries such asHans Pfitzner and Wolfgang Fortner. To this currentrelease, however, and for all his close association with theBerlin Philharmonic, Furtwängler also had success withthe Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and the PhilharmoniaOrchestra (London) and it is with these two augustensembles that Furtwängler is heard in this collection oftwo pieces by Beethoven.

First, and in collaboration with Edwin Fischer, is aLondon-made Philharmonia Orchestra recording ofBeethoven’s so-called Emperor Piano Concerto. As sooften with epithets, this royal nickname has nothing to dowith the composer and, in this case, it grew out of acomment by Johann Baptist Cramer, the work’s Londonpublisher who remarked that Beethoven’s Piano ConcertoNo. 5 in E flat is “the emperor among piano concertos”.However sweeping the statement, and however free theadvertising, the resulting soubriquet is only really knownto English-speaking music-lovers and yet does have acertain justification in terms of its musical style.Completed in Vienna in 1811, the piano concerto wasdedicated to Archduke Rudolf, who was both Beethoven’spatron and pupil. There is certainly weight and trenchancyto this 1951 performance recorded in the famous StudioNo.1 in Abbey Road, London (an iconic venue ever sinceThe Beatles were photographed crossing the nearby zebracrossing in the 1960s), Edwin Fischer establishing acommanding rhetoric from the off, the PhilharmoniaOrchestra and Furtwängler ablaze in response. Not thatthis is an overtly dramatic performance, for inwardnessand humanity also shine through, qualities that neitherFischer nor Furtwängler were short of.

Great Conductors: Wilhelm Furtwängler (1886-1954)BEETHOVEN: Piano Concerto No. 5, ‘Emperor’ • Symphony No. 4

8.112025 4

Great Conductors: Wilhelm Furtwängler

Ludwig van BEETHOVEN (1770-1827)Piano Concerto No. 5 in E flat major, Op. 73, ‘Emperor’ 38:44

1 I Allegro 20:342 II Adagio un poco mosso 7:553 III Rondo: Allegro 10:15

Edwin Fischer, PianoPhilharmonia OrchestraWilhelm FurtwänglerRecorded at EMI Abbey Road Studio No. 1, London, 19th and 20th February 1951Matrix nos.: 2EA 15407/09, 15412/17 and 15421First issued on HMV DB 9661 through 9665

Symphony No. 4 in B flat major, Op. 60 36:544 I Adagio – Allegro vivace 10:595 II Adagio 12:246 III Menuetto: Allegro vivace 5:597 IV Allegro ma non troppo 7:32

Vienna Philharmonic OrchestraWilhelm FurtwänglerRecorded at the Musikvereinssaal, Vienna, 25th and 30th January 1950Matrix nos.: 2VH 7207/09, 7204/06 and 7210/13First issued on HMV DV 9524 through 9528

Reissue Producer and Audio Restoration Engineer: Mark Obert-Thorn

BEETHOVENPiano Concerto No. 5

Symphony No. 4

Edwin Fischer, PianoPhilharmonia Orchestra • Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra

1950 - 1951 Recordings

HELM FURTWÄNGLER

AXOS H

istoricalB

iano C

oncerto ‘E

eror’ 8

.112025

XOS Historical

certo ‘Em

peror’

8.1120

All rights in this sound recording,artw

ork,texts and translations reserved.U

nauthorised public performance,broadcasting

and copying of this compact disc prohibited.

�2010 N

axos Rights International Ltd.M

ade in Germ

Ludwig van

BEETHOVEN(1770-1827)

Piano Concerto No. 5 ‘Emperor’ • Symphony No. 4

Reissue Producer and Audio Restoration Engineer: Mark Obert-ThornCover photo: Wilhelm Furtwängler in c.1952 (Private Collection)

PlayingTime75:38

8.112025

www.naxos.com

Furtwängler’s successful collaboration with

two outstanding orchestras is showcased

on this disc. In the weighty and trenchant

1951 performance of Beethoven’s ‘Emperor’

Piano Concerto, soloist Edwin Fischer

establishes a commanding presence from

the beginning, the Philharmonia Orchestra

and Furtwängler ablaze in response, though

inwardness and humanity also shine

through. In the rare 1950 recording with

the Vienna Philharmonic of Beethoven’s

Symphony No. 4 Furtwängler takes an

expansive view, by turns shadowy, emphatic,

searching and emotionally intense.

Ludwig van BEETHOVEN (1770-1827)

Piano Concerto No. 5 in E flat major, Op. 73,‘Emperor’ 38:44

1 I Allegro 20:34

2 II Adagio un poco mosso 7:55

3 III Rondo:Allegro 10:15

Edwin Fischer, Piano

Philharmonia Orchestra

Recorded at EMI Abbey Road Studio No. 1, London,

19th and 20th February 1951

Symphony No. 4 in B flat major, Op. 60 36:54

4 I Adagio – Allegro vivace 10:59

5 II Adagio 12:24

6 III Menuetto:Allegro vivace 5:59

7 IV Allegro ma non troppo 7:32

Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra

Recorded at the Musikvereinssaal,Vienna,

25th and 30th January 1950

8.112025 rr Furtwangler_Beethoven_EU 26-03-2010 9:47 Pagina 1

great conductors: wilhelm furtwängler beethoven … · matrix nos.: 2vh 7207/09, 7204/06 and...

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