A Brahms Program with Furtwängler and Menuhin

Programs with the eminent conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler have met with approval from readers, so today we offer another edition, this one delving into the music of Johannes Brahms for the first time.

As he was in the Beethoven concerto, Furtwängler is joined by Yehudi Menuhin for a performance of the Brahms Violin Concerto. The conductor then leads a performance of Brahms' final symphony, the Fourth.

Johannes Brahms, circa 1866

In his book on Furtwängler's recordings, John Ardoin has this to day about Brahms: "By training, inclination, and nature, Brahms was more a classicist [that a romantic] ... Yet beneath his classic exterior beat a fervent heart, and it is in the interior of Brahms's music that we discover, as Furtwängler did, its true meaning and essence."

Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 77

The Violin Concerto was set down in a recording session in summer 1949, presumably during the Lucerne Festival and using the festival orchestra.

Those who listened to the Beethoven concerto recently featured here will know that Furtwängler and Menuhin were very much in harmony. John Ardoin had this to say: "The recording ... of the Brahms Violin Concerto is not only their finest collaboration on disc, but it stands as one of Furtwängler's major studio performances. What took place during these sessions and what resulted are best described by Menuhin: 'The great classics were in Furtwangler's blood. He never gave the impression of a deliberate conception; he merely released the work, and indeed the musicians, who never failed to be inspired.'

"The rapport between Furtwängler and Menuhin is ideal in this spacious, uncomplicated, even-tempered performance. It is filled with eloquent phrasing and deeply felt emotions."

Furtwängler and Menuhin at a recording session

The critic of The Gramophone had these thoughts: "The balancing and dove-tailing of the solo and orchestral parts are accomplished to perfection, and, what is more, I am glad to note that Furtwangler faithfully observes Brahms’s fairly lavish dynamic indications...

"His [Menuhin's] playing of the first movement is fine, spacious, and intense. In the slow movement his tone and phrasing do full justice to the poetry of the music, and the emotional expression is properly controlled. The Finale is thrown off deftly and with the right amount of abandon. The playing of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra is very good, although the place where the recording was made would appear to be a little too resonant."

Actually, I prefer a bit of distance between the orchestra and listener, unlike the close-up perspective that would later become common. It also is in keeping with the broadcast sound of the fourth symphony below. This is deservedly a famous performance.

This transfer is from what was likely the first LP issue, put out by RCA Victor in about 1950, when EMI in England and (I believe) Germany had not yet adopted the long-playing format. At the time Victor itself was trying to interest classical listeners in its seven-inch 45-rpm format, without much success. An artifact of that effort can be seen in the cover design, which uses the 45 box artwork inset in a 12-inch frame.

LINK to Violin Concerto

Symphony No. 4 in E minor, Op. 98

Unlike the Furtwängler performances presented here to date, this recording of the Brahms fourth symphony comes from a broadcast rather than a recording session. It captures the conductor and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra in an October 24, 1948 date in Berlin's Titania-Palast, a movie theater that the orchestra often used for radio appearances and recording sessions.

Titania-Palast

It's often said that the conductor's live performances were "better" than his records. This is an assertion that is impossible to validate, but we can say that this is a very good reading of a symphony that is notoriously hard to bring off - or at least the concluding passacaglia thereof.

Ardoin on this performance: "Everything Furtwängler accomplishes in the finale reflects and grows out of Brahms's marking of allegro energico e passionato. It is fast, it has energy, and above all it is streaked with passion. Along with these qualities, there is also a dizzying senses of controlled abandon ... It is an elation that carries us through the sectional character of the movement, binds the variations tightly together, and peaks in a coda that is Dionysian in its frenzy. Within this high-powered expenditure of energy and passion there is an amazing island of repose - the espressivo variation for solo flute, set against the woodwinds and accompanying strings.

"The potential for this momentary release of tension before the great final push is, of course, a feature of the movement, but few conductors have seized upon its possibilities to such a concentrated extent, and used them to such high dramatic purpose as Furtwangler has."

The passacaglia's theme is adapted from a chaconne theme in Bach's cantata BWV 150, Nach dir, Herr, verlanget mich - reflecting the composer's reverence for great music of an earlier era.

The relentless ending of the passacaglia is often sometimes to the inevitability of fate. However, in tis performance it is less fate that seems inevitable than the genius of the classical tradition that Brahms upheld.

The sound from this broadcast is very good. My transfer is from its first issue on LP, which German EMI (Electrola) put out in the 1950s. The back cover notes were entirely in German, so I have added a version with a good English translation, courtesy of Google.

LINK to Symphony No. 4

A Beethoven Program with Furtwängler and Menuhin

Here is a program devoted to Beethoven featuring recordings by one of the most famous 20th century conductors - Wilhelm Furtwängler. The soloist is violinist Yehudi Menuhin.

These recordings were made late in the conductor's career - from 1952 to 1954. Furtwängler died in late 1954 at age 68.

The program begins with Beethoven's Leonore Overture No. 2, followed by the Violin Concerto and the Symphony No. 3.

Furtwängler was often contrasted with the other preeminent conductor of his time - Arturo Toscanini. Here is the critic Neville Cardus in a tribute published following Furtwängler's death: "[He] conducted in a manner exactly opposed to the Toscanini objectivity: in plainer words, 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 realized subjectively. His variations and tempo often irritated musicians who, in increasing numbers during a period of anti-romanticism, persuaded themselves to believe in music as an arrangement of patterns conveying no emotion or meaning reducible to terms or language related to merely human or egoistical significance."

Furtwängler paradoxically conducted in a manner than appeared improvisational, while also seeming to penetrate to the work's essence - at least to his admirers, of whom there are still many. He was a remarkable figure.

Leonore Overture No. 2, Op. 72a

Beethoven wrote no fewer than four overtures for his only opera, which eventually was called Fidelio. The original title was Leonore, after one of the leading characters, and three of the overtures carry her name. Furtwängler programmed the Leonore Overture No. 2, Op. 72a, which, to add to the confusion, was actually the first Beethoven composed. It is quite long (this performance lasts almost 16 minutes); the others were more succinct.

Here is Timothy Judd's precis of the opera: "The plot centers on a heroic struggle for liberty: Leonore, disguised as a male prison guard named Fidelio, rescues her husband Florestan from political imprisonment and death by gradual starvation."

Judd then discusses Op. 72a: "The Overture opens with a titanic unison G which gives way to a searching, descending, modal scale - a musical descent into the darkness of Florestan’s prison cell ... A few moments later, the theme from Florestan’s soliloquy offers a glimmer of light amid mystery and lonely solitude. This music is filled with a sense of heroic struggle, an intense longing for freedom, and Florestan’s thoughts of Leonore ... Just as Leonore Overture No. 2 reaches a climax of ferocity,  a sudden, distant trumpet call is heard, signaling Florestan’s impending freedom. At first, there is numb shock and disbelief. Then, the Overture’s final bars erupt into a joyful, unabashed celebration of freedom."

The recording, with the Berlin Philharmonic, is from 1954.

Violin Concerto in D, Op. 61

Yehudi Menuhin recorded several concertos with Furtwängler, with whom he had a great affinity. On a broadcast following the conductor's death, he stated, "Furtwängler was perhaps the last exponent of a tradition carrying us as far back as the Indians and the Greeks, a tradition of music as a hallowed link with divinity, with the Gods. As we all too tritely say, nothing is sacred today, but I believe something should be and some music should be. Furtwängler accomplished a sacred rite each time he conducted a Beethoven or a Brahms or a Bach work."

Wilhelm Furtwängler and Yehudi Menuhin

Their recording of the Violin Concerto is a classic. The Gramophone's verdict: "This [is] an exhibition of superb fiddling, but there is in the performance also a poise, a spaciousness and depth of musical feeling for which it would be less than just not to suggest that Furtwängler was equally responsible ... Menuhin gives a magnificent reading of the work (not without deviations from the printed notes in a couple of places) which will stand the test of the most searching analysis and more than satisfy those whom the perfect recording has long eluded."

Furtwängler and Menuhin recorded the work in London with the Philharmonia Orchestra in 1953.

Symphony No. 3 in E-flat major, Op. 55 (Eroica)

Beethoven first wanted to name his third symphony "Bonaparte" in honor of Napoleon. But after Napoleon declared himself emperor - to the composer's dismay - Beethoven changed the title to "Eroica," or the "Heroic Symphony, Composed to celebrate the memory of a great man."

The cover of this original Electrola LP may lead you to think that the "hero" was the conductor, but in actuality this is a famous performance that is true to Beethoven's intentions. The critic Michael Marcus wrote: "The performance is a great one. Here Furtwängler shows incomparably how to extract the utmost meaning from any phrase while never losing sight of the over-all design. The lead into the coda of the first movement is a masterpiece of sustained and controlled tension, and in the coda itself the giant stride of the composer's imagination is unforgettably unleashed. The Finale, too, is welded together with supreme force and vigour, and the Vienna Philharmonic horns are superb."

Furtwängler attempted to penetrate to the core of the work; and in that aim he was not different from that of Roger Norrington in the recording of the Ninth Symphony recently heard here. Their methods, however, were opposed, with the younger maestro seeking insight from Beethoven's markings and the evidence as to the instruments and sound of the orchestra in the early 19th century, while Furtwängler, as Menuhin put it, was an exponent of "a tradition of music as a hallowed link with divinity." In contrast, Norrington remarked that conducting is "not about consecrating a sacred object. It’s about exploring and being curious and having fun."

The Furtwängler Eroica recording was made in late 1952 in Vienna.

The sound on all these discs is quite good.

LINK