Furtwängler Symphony No.1

[Alan Howe]

Very good - and apt. 

[semloh]

I bought the earliest LP recordings of Furtwängler's symphonies when they first appeared, and later the Marco Polo CDs, and although I don't have any strong reactions to his music, neither do I begrudge it a place in the music library.

However, I think it's fair to say that almost by definition, UC members feel disappointment or frustration when their Unsungs continue to be overlooked by recording companies. After all, it's a key part of our shared aim to promote neglected compositions or composers, and especially when we believe certain compositions have particular merit.

[Alan Howe]

Albrecht/Arte Nova TT: 83:12; Haimor/cpo TT: 88:14. Oh joy.

[dhibbard]

hmm  wonder how it compares to the MarcoPolo CD??

[eschiss1]

I seem to recall the reviews of the Marco Polo CDs of these works in Fanfare Magazine being -very- negative, and seeming to be by someone who knew what he was talking about (the late William Youngren, maybe?)

[Wheesht]

Here is the review by David Johnson in the Jul/Aug 1991 issue of Fanfare Magazine:

Among conductors who also composed, Wilhelm Furtwängler is perhaps a case unto himself, first because he talked himself into believing that composition was his true métier and conducting merely the cross he had to bear, and second because there is a small but informed and otherwise intelligent contingent of listeners who believe that Furtwängler was indeed a great composer. After a series of youthful works that impressed no one, Furtwängler put composition aside for about a quarter of a century while he concentrated on becoming the most powerful musical capo in Germany, as the conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic and the Berlin Opera. It was only when his problems with the Nazi regime became intolerable and he resigned his posts, in 1934 (though he later made some accommodations with the Nazis and resumed them all again), that he turned back seriously to composition, completing three symphonies of Brucknerian dimensions and intentions, and a symphonic concerto for piano and orchestra before his death in 1954. It is not a large legacy on which to found claims of compositional ascendency, but it is an extremely weighty, not to say heavy, one.
As with other conductors who composed, Furtwängler was his own most ardent advocate and few of his confrères have programmed his symphonies since his death, although other advocates are now beginning to appear (Sawallisch has recorded the Third; Barenboim and Mehta have done the Symphonic Concerto jointly several times). Furtwängler's own recording for Deutsche Grammophon of his Second Symphony has been revived in Japan and rumor has it that a reissue is due here in the near future.
Marco Polo, ever the enterprising label, has recorded anew the three Furtwängler symphonies under the baton of Alfred Walter. No. 3 has been out for some time, with Walter leading the RTBF Symphony Orchestra of Brussels (8.223105). I have this recording and find it a fairly convincing account of a problematic work (Furtwängler died before he could revise and conduct it). Now comes the First Symphony, with Walter this time leading the State Philharmonic of Košice, an orchestra I have had kind things to say about hitherto. Here I must take them all back. The First is a very long work, almost nine minutes longer than the Third, as Walter conducts it, and with the weight less evenly distributed: all four movements of the Third were almost of equal length (seventeen minutes each, give or take a minute), but the First begins and ends with two back-breakers of twenty-five minutes or so, with a mere slip of a Scherzo (by Furtwänglerian standards) and an Adagio that tips the scale at 18:19. If you wonder that I should be so particular about the lengths of movements, I explain it by the fact that I had frequent recourse to my watch while repeating the formula, "How long, Oh Lord, how long?"
Granted that it is unfair to judge the symphony from this recording, which perpetuates what must be one of the worst performances ever turned in by a supposedly professional group of musicians—ragged strings, missed cues, horns that begin a passage boisterously and then simply peter out as though they had grown bored, tempos draggy enough to put Prometheus to sleep even as the eagle is devouring his liver. And the engineering is among the most inept I have encountered from this label. Granted all that, the work itself would not pass muster, even if Furtwängler had risen from the dead to play it with Karajan's Berlin Philharmonic. It consists of block harmonizations, clumsy unison passages, angular sequences, orchestrations that sound as though they were conceived for the pedal board of an organ. The Scherzo is about as funny as a cry for help (to plagiarize a favorite Groucho Marx line) and the Adagio, after a promising, Brucknerian opening for the strings alone, devolves into impenetrable murk. I confess that I fell asleep during part of the Finale and did not bother to turn back, knowing full well that I had missed nothing.
This recording has been in the can since May 1989. Was Marco Polo debating whether or not to release it? If so, they made the wrong decision.
David Johnson

[Ilja]

The Marco Polo recording can be disregarded, in my view, and I don't fundamentally disagree with Johnson's assessment. It is very sloppy, and that just kills a work that needs meticulous execution more than most others. Looking at Walter's other recordings, his Furtwängler cycle seem like something of an outlier in his discography - probably for good reasons. Interestingly, his only recording of Furtwängler works which I'd classify as "solid" is the one with the fragments from the D major and B minor symphonies, and the E flat overture (probably, honestly, my favorite Furtwängler composition).

However, I'm very fond of George Alexander Albrecht's recording of the First Symphony. The Staatskapelle Weimar playing remains precise, and they are clearly committed to the piece. It is always telling when you compare two recordings (Albrecht and Walter) and the slower one somehow feels much quicker. I'll obviously await the cpo disc, but I'd be surprised if it's much better.

[Rainolf]

Having now compared the three recordings of Furtwängler's First Symphony I must confess that I had underrated Alfred Walter. Of cause, the main weakness of his recording is the playing of the orchestra. But despite the many flaws you can hear a performance of clear direction, the conductor knows how to lead from one phrase to the next and to build tension over a long time. Comparing this with Albrecht's performance my impression totally differs from Ilja's. Albrecht's finale has less momentum than Walter's, and his Adagio, despite beeing faster, seems longer to me, the building up of the climaxes less motivated than in Walter's performance.

Haimor makes me the impression of a conductor who wants to make all things right but misses to come into the flow of the music. His Adagio is several minutes slower than Albrecht's and Walter's, but this is not a suspenseful slowness as Furtwängler the conductor was able to create. The music here tends to stand still and loses all momentum, dissolving itself into seperate phrases. The orchestra plays much better than in the Marco Polo recording, and the sound is better than in the Arte Nova recording, but I do not think that the conductor does musically a better job than Walter.

David Johnson's review quoted above by Wheesht will redound upon Mr. Johnson. A critic who is sleeping instead of listening disqualifies himself.

[Alan Howe]

I found the new cpo very acceptable. But I didn't really care enough to make comparisons with Albrecht.

[tc]

"David Johnson's review quoted above by Wheesht will redound upon Mr. Johnson. A critic who is sleeping instead of listening disqualifies himself."

Well said. A critic is paid for listening to the music, not for gloating about his lack of work ethic.

[eschiss1]

It tells me a lot about the performance. I can imagine myself falling asleep during a poor performance of Furtwängler 2*, too, because that takes concentration, work, rehearsal and understanding to turn into anything like Barenboim's thrilling account.
*I know we're talking about 1, but there are these things called analogies.

[eschiss1]

I should add that David Johnson is not the only writer to be somewhat negative about Walter's Furtwangler: Henry Fogel (who also wrote for Fanfare and was associated with the Chicago Symphony for years, and may have helped convince Barenboim to perform and record the 2nd symphony) says of Albert's take on the -2nd- symphony "In addition to Asahina's Japanese set, the only other modern recording is on Marco Polo, conducted by W. A. Albert—and it is truly dreadful". I think he had Walter confused with Werner Andreas Albert, but aside from.

Fogel also reviewed for Fanfare the MP recording by Walter of Furtwängler early orchestral and choral works (Te Deum, 2 symphonies.) I recall this being a negative review also, as a subscriber back then. (AFAIK Fogel's reviews of Furtwängler's conducting were thoughtfully and comparatively positive, and his other reviews of WF's own compositions varied but were higher than those of Walter's attempts.)

[Rainolf]

Of cause, when a poor performance makes the listener asleep, it is the fault of the performers, and then the listener has all right to defend his reaction. But in Johnson's case the critic blames not only the musicians but the work when he says: "Granted all that, the work itself would not pass muster, even if Furtwängler had risen from the dead to play it with Karajan's Berlin Philharmonic."

Here I must disagree. He thinks of Furtwängler's First as a poor composition which cannot brought into life anyway. His description of his listening to the work shows that he has listend to it only once and obviously not in a concentrated state of mind. And his object of description was not a concert performance but a CD with which he could have started another try. How he can judge the worth of the last movement if he overslept parts of it? I only can call this poor critical work.

If a performance disappoints you, I think you should ask yourself what is the reason:
1. Is it the composition?
2. Is it the performance?
3. Is it you - your preferences and prejudices?

I must confess that for years I thought of Furtwängler's First as an only half good piece, with a great first movement and scherzo, but a weaker second half. I only knew Albrecht's recording. Having then listened to Walter's recording only once I was disappointed by the playing of the orchestra, and further did not care about this CD. When Haimor's recording appeared I took this as an opportunity for comparative listening. So I listened to Walter again and found out that I had underrated him very much, so I must blame myself - I obviously had a bad day when I had listened to his CD the first time.

The Walter recording showed me that my impression of the finale as a weak piece was caused by Albrecht's weak performance. Albrecht did really good work as a musicologist making a critical edition of Furtwängler's orchestral works, but his performances of the symphonies I only can find unimpressive and unattractive. The finale of No. 1 sounds static and heavy as lead unter his baton. He marks every bar and fails to develop the great flow that goes over the bar lines. His performance is very un-Furtwänglerian. Imagine there is only one recording of e.g. Bruckner's Eight Symphony in the world, and it is conducted like this, would you then think of this symphony as a masterpiece? Walter on the contrary has this flow. His recording convinced me that the finale of Furtwängler's First is not only a good piece, but a great achievement of musical architecture, as are the finali of No. 2 and 3.

Having heard Furtwängler's seven major works again during the last weeks, I am convinced that there are no flaws and no longueurs in this pieces at all. With him it is as it is with Bruckner: The pieces are long in their objective duration, but in their forms they are short and concise. And they are full of great tunes.

In the finale of No. 1 there are only two big "waves" (as Ernst Kurth would call them).

First part: exposition of three thematic groups
-Introduction, loud entry, but ending in silence, followed by
-"Gesangsperiode" (as Bruckner would have called it), rising to the
-final group, gaining activity and developing into the first climax.

Second part: development and recapitulation
-introduction theme, leading into a development with material of all groups
-"Gesangsperiode", calmer than before, marks the beginning of the recapitulation
-Introduction, leading to
-final group, its main theme now with another shape which it has gained in the development section, developing into the second and final climax

I can imagine that Fogel confused Werner Andreas Albert with George Alexander Albrecht and maybe Marco Polo with Arte Nova. The early orchestral works which were recorded by Walter are interesting if you want to know how Furtwängler started as composer, but their worth as pieces of art is limited. There are great ideas, but the young composer has not the power to develop them. Furtwängler definitely did not start as a great composer.

[Alan Howe]

So, whose is the best performance? Presumably the new cpo?

[Rainolf]

I think it is good to have Walter and Haimor. Walter for the musicality, Haimor for the technical perfection of the orchestral playing and the good sound. In Haimors recording you can hear many details which go under in the other two. The weak point of Haimor is his slow movement, which is very static and lacks direction. Albrecht only surpasses Haimor in the slow movement, and his Finale is much weaker than Haimor's. If you have Walter and Haimor, you do not need Albrecht. A real reference recording of the piece is still a desideratum.

Some tips for the other works:

The Second Symphony has the advantage to be recorded several times by great musicians. Of Furtwängler's own recordings I find the Vienna Philharmonic performance the best, the Berlin Philharmonic studio recording the (comparatively) weakest. The Hamburg performance of 1948 containes some bars that were later eliminated. You cannot make a mistake with Barenboim and Asahina. Jochum is convincing, too (in his recording there is a strange shortening recomposition in the recapitulation of the finale - if it is by Furtwängler himself he did not made a good decision to rewrite this section). Neither Albrecht nor Walter reaches the level of this performances.

For the Third Symphony we have only the choice between Albrecht and Walter if we want to hear the complete work. Walter is superior. Albrecht's performance is marred by bad recording quality. It would be great if we had a performance of all four movements by Keilberth, who made the first recording of movements 1-3.

Concerning the Symphonic Piano Concerto I am completely satisfied with Barenboim's and Mehta's recording. Of cause it is good to have Furtwängler and Fischer, too, despite the poor sound quality. Furtwängler's own recording shows the work in an earlier version. He made some minor revisions later. I do not know the recording of Then-Bergh and Kubelík, but I can imagine that it does justice to the work. Erik Then-Bergh was instructed by Furtwängler himself, but the composer died before he could conduct a performance with this pianist.

The Piano Quintet got its best presentation by the Clarens-Quintett.

The violin sonatas I only know with Wollong and Wollenweber. Not bad, but maybe there are preferable alternatives.