Furtwängler Symphony 2/Barenboim

[eschiss1]

As I realize I've also said, I'm a big fan of this recording (and those of the composer's own conducting that I've heard.)

[Maury]

I would urge people to listen to Richard Wetz and Martin Scherber instead of this but that's just me.

[eschiss1]

I haven't been able to catch hold of a recording of any of Scherber's symphonies yet, but I've heard a lot of Wetz, would say "and" rather than "instead of" - the passion of the finale of Furtwängler 2 and that of Wetz 1 have some cousinhood at some distant level at least (I'd add Wellesz' basically Romantic, if more dissonant, 1st and 2nd symphonies, especially the fantastic 2nd which is pretty obviously influenced by Bruckner 4 but not a copy) - but I suppose the point is that now, unlike when I first heard some of these works, one can hear all of them in at -least- good sound and performances (as against the horrible sound and performances that was the only option for some- I'm looking at you, Wellesz 2, again- some not at all- and in many cases only in airchecks so even then only if one were lucky and connected.)

[Maury]

Eschiss,
 I don't know your listening modes (streaming,CD, vinyl) but there is a CD of the Scherber Sym 1 by Adriano on Sterling. The Sym 3 has also been recorded on a Col Legno CD but to my ears while still neo Brucknerian it has a significant element of modernism to its content. I haven't got the recording by the Moscow Phil of his Sym 2 yet but according to musicweb it is still well on the neo-romantic side rather than with any  modernistic stylings.

[John Boyer]

Meanwhile, back on topic, it's a pity Barenboim never tackled #1 or #3, because his 2nd shows what he could have done with them.

[eschiss1]

Maybe it was a factor that #1 and #3 were published (other than in manuscript) a year and two respectively after the Barenboim recording was made in 2001, while score and material for the 2nd symphony (1950s score and perhaps the later revised version as well) had been available for some time. (Or maybe not, I don't know about such things!)

[eschiss1]

(My mistake; OCLC 724431588 is a 1997 publication of a version of the 3rd symphony, it seems- "Edition in 2 volumes - Appendix 1: Revision report. - Appendix 2: Reproduction of the parts affected by the cuts and major deviations from the original source." And two movements of the third symphony were published for the composer in 1952.)

[tuatara442442]

I haven't got the recording by the Moscow Phil of his Sym 2 yet but according to musicweb it is still well on the neo-romantic side rather than with any  modernistic stylings.

https://youtu.be/dt1VAv-4U3w?si=pvaXvPuFk25-Pqpl
here's YouTube upload of Scherber 2

[Alan Howe]

I would urge people to listen to Richard Wetz and Martin Scherber instead of this but that's just me.

I prefer a 'both-and' approach rather than 'instead-of'. Why should one choose? Besides F2 in Barenboim's recording is an absolute aural feast...

[Holger]

I prefer a 'both-and' approach rather than 'instead-of'. Why should one choose? Besides F2 in Barenboim's recording is an absolute aural feast...

Exactly my thoughts as well: it should rather be 'also to listen to Wetz and Scherber'. No need to play off these fine composers against each other...

[Maury]

I prefer a 'both-and' approach rather than 'instead-of'. Why should one choose? Besides F2 in Barenboim's recording is an absolute aural feast...

Mr Howe,
I normally am very reticent to do a negative on a composer mentioned here and I have avoided it previously. With regard to Furtwangler he is one of the most famous conductors in history, conducted his own works and they have been roundly and consistently criticized (validly IMO) for decades. So he is hardly unknown and the odds are listeners will agree with the long term majority sentiment. Conversely Wetz and Scherber are highly unknown, worked as his contemporaries in the same style as Furtwangler  and have works that are structurally tighter with attractive content. So they need the attention. Plus there are only so many hours in the day. Needless to say I am not an enforcer of what is discussed here and have no intention of making a cause out of it. Regards

[Alan Howe]

This is, after all, a thread about Furtwängler's 2nd Symphony; and Wetz and Scherber have been extensively discussed elsewhere on this forum. Why not contribute your thoughts in the appropriate threads?

[Ilja]

I think I haven't had as rocky relationship with any composer as much as I've had with Furtwängler. As a student I was a big fan of his conducting and, being in my 20s and hence stupid, found it incomprehensible that I couldn't enjoy his own compositions as much. This was the early 1990s, everyone (at least in the Netherlands) was into Mahler and Shostakovich and this seemed to hit the same spots. After investing quite a lot of time it finally landed in some way, and the Barenboim 2nd came at exactly the right moment to fill that spot. However, accumulating both a broader and deeper knowledge and an extensive listening experience of early 20th century music (through this forum, among other things) has done little to endear me to Furtwängler's music. While I usually think I can see what he's trying to do, it also seems that he has real difficulty in getting to the point almost all the time. If there IS a point, that is, and I'm not always convinced; sometimes his pieces give the impression that all the endless perorations serve to obfuscate the lack of genuine content. What is particularly alarming in this regard is that his early works (like the F major overture or the Religioser Hymnus) are so depressingly banale; a composer's early stuff almost always offers a good indication of their talent, uneducated though it may be at the time. The Te Deum is probably his best, but let's be honest, had it been it composed by anyone but a legendary conductor the score would never have left the basement. Although I hate to be this negative, I honestly consider Furtwängler to have been a composer of very limited talent these days.

[tuatara442442]

I would call his early piano music a joke. They just showed how untalented he was in composing......

[eschiss1]

That -last- argument I have to call bs on- it's like saying that, similarly, because there is absolutely no hint of talent (and there isn't) in Lovecraft's earliest sketches (reproduced and typeset very faithfully with the original errors in the Delphi edition of his works) that he, in turn, had no talent at all.