There are three commercial
recordings of Furtwängler’s C minor;
an early electric Polydor from 1926,
this one which dates from 1937 and the
post-War Vienna recording of 1954, the
year of his death. In all however this
trio has been supplemented by eight
live broadcast performances. We can
now follow him from that 1926 set, through
this, unquestionably the best of the
commercials, to the last recording via
those supplementary broadcasts of 1943,
1947 (two), 1950 (two), 1952 and again
in 1954 (two more, to join the Vienna
LP made at the beginning of the year).
This famous set joins
the 1938 Tchaikovsky Pathétique
as one of Furtwängler’s great pre-War
symphonic statements. It’s such a famous
recording that little new needs be added,
other than that the tempo elasticities
and range of extreme dynamics are far
more measured and incisive than the
1926 Polydor and that the relatively
slow and granitic impulses are entirely
convincing on their own terms. One should
listen for the wind soloists in the
slow movement – the phrasing is truly
"grazioso" – and the finely
argued fugal entry points in the third
movement, as well as the sense of spacious
drive cultivated in the finale. This
transfer is very much to be preferred
to the (in any case no longer available)
Novello CD, which was constricted aurally.
This one has retained a relatively high
level of surface noise and shellac crackle
but sounds open in the treble.
Coupled with it is
the Adagio solemne, all that
was recorded, from Furtwängler’s
own Symphonic Concerto. He’s joined
by Edwin Fischer, one of his favoured
pianists, and with whom he broadcast
(fortunately taped) that monumental
wartime Brahms Second Piano Concerto.
His own work is aurally a direct descendant
of the same composer’s D minor concerto
and is conveyed with utter concentration.
Furtwängler never recorded Parsifal
and all that remains are tantalising
moments such as these – the Prelude
to Act I and the Good Friday music from
Act III (a live broadcast of the latter
has survived). These are nobly conceived
readings and vividly recorded. And the
disc as a whole is equally successful
– though I can imagine a cut in surface
noise without loss of higher frequencies.
Jonathan Woolf
Edwin Fischer (piano)* 
