Wilhelm Furtwängler - Hall of Fame (2002)

Posted By : zedda piras | Date : 19 May 2009 18:01:09 | Comments : 6 |

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Furtwängler had a unique conducting technique. He saw symphonic music as creations of nature that could only be realised subjectively into sound. This is why composers such as Beethoven, Brahms and Bruckner were so central to Furtwängler's repertoire, because he identified them as great forces of nature. He disliked Toscanini's approach to the German repertoire. He walked out of a Toscanini concert once, calling him "a mere time-beater!". Furtwängler did not have a strong beat, as can be seen in video recordings [1] that show him making awkward, gawky movements like a medium in a trance. He wished that the sense of time be established by the players in themselves, as in chamber music. Furtwängler would then show the orchestra when he wished to use rubato. His gestures bear seemingly little relationship to the rhythms of the music, while his physical motions were described as "like a puppet on a string" by one orchestra member [2]. Furtwängler would generally hold his baton hand closer to his body and his left would be outstretched giving the expression of the phrase to the orchestra. On occasion he would violently shake his baton hand when he would get into conducting fits onstage. In the video above Furtwängler can be seen conducting Beethoven's Ninth Symphony on April 19th, 1942 in celebration of Hitler's birthday. In the symphony's coda, Furtwängler can be seen having tremendous fits as he leads the orchestra through the chorus's final cries of "Götterfunken, Götterfunken!". Despite, or perhaps because of, this unorthodox style, musicians were mesmerised by his leadership. His best performances are characterized by deep, bass-driven sonorities, soaring lyricism, and wrenching extremes of emotion co-existing with logical cogency. Neville Cardus wrote in the Manchester Guardian in 1954 of Furtwängler's conducting style:
"He did not regard the printed notes of the score as a final statement, but rather as so many symbols of an imaginative conception, ever changing and always to be felt and realised subjectively...Not since Nikisch, of whom he was a disciple, has a greater personal interpreter of orchestral and opera music than Furtwängler been heard." ~

Wikipedia

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Controversial he may have been but Wilhelm Furtwängler (1886-1954) was the foremost German conductor of his time. Born in Berlin, he studied composition with Rheinberger and Max von Schillings, having written his first work at the age of seven. In 1906 he made his conducting début in Munich and later that year became a répétiteur at the Stadttheater, Breslau. Following appointments in Zürich (1906-07), Munich (1908-10), and Strasbourg (1910-11), he became Music Director at Lübeck Opera in 1911. This was followed by five years in Mannheim from 1915. His first Viennese engagement took place in 1919. After the death of Nikisch in 1922 Furtwängler succeeded him at the Berlin Philharmonic and Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestras. He made his first visit to London in 1924 and to the United States the following year.

His international reputation grew with further American and European engagements. His appointment as Toscanini’s successor in New York in 1936, however, was blocked for political reasons. Controversially Furtwängler had chosen to remain in Germany during the Nazi period but resigned all his German appointments in 1934. After being ‘de-Nazified’ in 1946, he resumed his European career in 1947 with great success. In addition to his annual appearances at the Salzburg Festival, he also conducted the opening concert at the first post-war Bayreuth Festival in 1951. He died of pneumonia in November 1954, aged 68. ~ naxos.com

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Track Listings

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