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A Thread About Furtwangler

We'll have to agree to differ then Vuk, but personally I find him impossible to listen to. The musical equivalent of a hair shirt. He seems totally incapable of finding the inner beauty beauty of music. I also find him incapable of balancing an orchestra to allow lines to come through properly. Maybe I've heard the wrong recordings, but I spent many hours listening to his Beethoven whilst writing a music criticism essay at college, it's not an experience I'd wish to repeat, nor his Brahms which I also tried in the interests of fairness thinking that someone so relatively famous couldn't be all bad.
I think what your statements mean Vuk is that if someone disagrees with you they must be wrong. Personally I think that Furtwangler lovers must be the sort of people who like listening to classical music because it's difficult, not because it's beautiful.
 
I do understand why some dislike some of Furtwangler's recordings. However, I find it difficult to see why some see to dislike the great ones some much. For me, the real strength of Furtwangler is the emotion he is capable of wringing from every bar (see particularly the Beethoven violin concerto with Rohn or the Schubert 9th from the same time). It is probably fair to say some of his Beethoven (particularly the later studio efforts with the VPO) could be a little stodgy but this was not a conductor incapable of having a spring in his step (see his Mozart 39, again from wartime Berlin). As I said above, I think the recordings of this vintage are amongst the finest of his (or anyone's) on disc and should be heard before writing him off entirely.


Lordsummit - I have to say that in your last sentence you couldn't possibly be more wrong. While it is true to say that I enjoy some music that could easily be classed as 'difficult', I love Mozart too, which couldn't. Furtwangler is more than capable of giving immense beauty (not least in his many Wagner recordings). His Beethoven, with the exception of the violin concerto, is rarely beautiful, but then I don't think Beethoven's composition was, at heart, about being beautiful. Indeed, I think the sum total of music whose point is simply beauty is pretty small. Music is primarily emotive (of which beauty is just one of many), and Furtwangler's conducting is certainly that.

Personally, I like to have multiple approaches to a work that I love (whether it be the Beethoven symphonies or Wagner's Ring). For the simple reason that there is no single approach to any one of these works and many great artists can bring many different great things to these works, to shut one out is foolish as it inherently limits one's understanding. One thing you can say about Furtwangler (like it or not) is that he always brings something to a work. The same cannot be said about a great many contemporary artists, for whom technique and historical accuracy are all, rather than having something to say, and I think we are poorer for that.

regards, Tam
 
Sorry Tam, I was making the same sort of sweeping generalisation Vuk made previously. I shall look out for some of those recordings.
 
Complexity is inherently beautiful, to me at least, which is why Beethoven and I clicked immediately.

Unfortunately, the DG box Tam mentioned ^ up thread is going to take a couple of weeks to arrive, but I'm keen to hear it.

-- Ian
 
Lordsummit,

No need to apologise. At risk of a contradiction in terms, sweeping generalisations are almost never helpful, no matter which side of the argument they're made on (Vuk's included). If I had to pick out just two Furtwangler readings (the Tristan and other Wagner exluded) they would probably the be the '44 Beethoven violin concerto mentioned above and the '42 Schubert 9th. However, care is required since there are multiple Furtwangler recordings of most major works; for example, there is also another Schubert 9 with the BPO from a decade later which is much less successful.

Ian - I had to wait a while for mine too. It is worth it.

regards, Tam
 
It's very fashionable to knock Karajan here, and very fashionable to admire Furtwangler. Obviously, whichever you prefer is better.
 
Blzebub said:
It's very fashionable to knock Karajan here, and very fashionable to admire Furtwangler.
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Is it? I hadn't noticed. I'm obviously intuitively fashionable :)

I have the Karajan Beethoven symphonies too, I still like them, but it's a while since I've listened to them, I haven't done any direct comparisons.

-- Ian
 
It probably is fairly fashionable to knock Karajan (though I don't think that's why I do it), though not nearly so much as it seems to be (on the web at least) to knock Rattle. As to Furtwangler being popular in these parts, that certainly isn't hugely in evidence from this thread.

Ian - Glad you enjoyed the violin concerto.

regards, Tam
 
I would never say I could conduct better than Karajan, but, frankly, that's an absurd argument - given that anyone who's made a CD can probably conduct better than me (but that doesn't mean they're all any good or worth buying). My point is that other people can/could conduct better than Karajan.

regards, Tam
 
I haven't got a baton, and I've never conducted, but I'll have a go using a chopstick if you like. It can't be that hard.

-- Ian
 
..and discussing who best conducts Wagner is rather like wondering which ape can propel a very large rock into a slightly smaller one with the most force.
 
Thought I'd bring this back up to the top for Ian (sideshowbob) rather than take the Coltrane thread off topic.

As far as Furtwangler conducting Wagner goes, his La Scala Ring cycle can be found absurdly cheap (as little as £18 new on ebay) but is probably not the best starting point if you are not too familiar with Wagner. His classic Wagner recording (and still, after 50 years or so, the finest recording of the work I have heard) is Tristan and Isolde, which benefits from having Flagstad as Isolde (with Schwarzkopf filling in the high Cs). Made in, if memory serves 1954, in the studio with the Philharmonia it is mono sound at its best. Since it is now out of copyright it can be had for under £20 in the Naxos historical pressing, EMI have also done their own cut price pressing at similar cost (which I am told has better cue points and ought to sound better, though I haven't sampled the Naxos so cannot confirm). Of course, you will not get a libretto with either, EMI does a version that has it, but it is more pricey (that said, it looks as though Amazon are selling that one cheap - it is hard to tell for sure).

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos...8090/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_10_1/026-2427125-2619627

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos...8090/sr=1-4/ref=sr_1_10_4/026-2427125-2619627


Lastly, and possibly a better introduction, there is a good disc of Furtwangler conducting orchestral chunks of Wagner (though the best discs of Wagner chunks I've ever heard are from Tennstedt on LPO's own label and Szell with the Cleveland orchestra at budget price), however, I have it as part of a 6 disc set of live recordings and am not sure it is available separately. Still, it's a pretty good box:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos...8090/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_10_2/026-2427125-2619627

regards, Tam
 
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Thanks again Tam, that's extremely useful.

I have it as part of a 6 disc set of live recordings and am not sure it is available separately. Still, it's a pretty good box
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Looks like a good selection, so I've ordered it.

-- Ian
 
I think you'll enjoy it - a particular highlight is probably the finest performance of Schubert's unfinished symphony I have heard, along with wonderful readings of Bruckner 8 and Beethoven's Leonore III overture.

regards, Tam
 
I'll give it a go, not heard his Tristan, so I'll give it a listen. I didn't like his Ring at all, the sections I've heard from it, I much prefer Solti.
 
Out of interest, which of his two rings was it? The Scala or the Rome? I suspect that if you didn't much care for the Scala then you will not much care for the Tristan.

regards, Tam
 
The Rome is (to these ears, at any rate, significantly worse than the Scala). The orchestra is much less polished. The singers are pretty good in Rheingold but after that less so. The only things to count against Scala is the sound is downright awful in places (but in a 1950 radio relay this is to be expected).

Tristan is in another league from the Rome Ring.

regards, Tam
 
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