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“Where Klemperer was granite, Furtwängler was fire.” (from a review of the Beethoven symphonies from American Record Guide, Sept/Oct 2003).Beethoven also happens to be the focal point of our latest CD offering and it comes to us courtesy of the new Wilhelm Furtwängler Centre of Japan which is headed by the magnificent Mr. Masayuki Nakamura. Mr. Nakamura, you may recall, visited the San Francisco Bay area last August with an associate of the W.F. Society Japan which is how we were introduced. Since that time, Mr. Nakamura has very diligently stayed in contact with us while at the same time establishing his own independent society, or as he calls it, “centre.”Mr. Nakamura recently sent us copies of two new, or I should say, inaugural CD releases which I must say are -certainly ambitious ground-breaking debuts: the Beethoven Symphony #9 recorded at the Bayreuth Festival, August 9, 1954.
Included on a second CD, which is a bonus, rehearsals of -movements 3 and 4! The only drawback is that one cannot make out exactly what Furtwängler is saying to the -musicians as the microphone is too far away which is not really a major issue as he is doing, for the most part, a run through of the pieces and doesn’t stop very frequently. I had heard an audio cassette of this performance about 10 years ago which was acquired from another Japanese member, Mr. Akira Tanaka. Unfortunately, the recorded sound was so inferior that it could not seriously be considered for general release to our -membership. However, Mr. Nakamura’s version is vastly -superior although still not up to the standards of the 1951 EMI recording. Yet the performance is vintage Furtwängler from the last days of his life and aside from a few tape -dropouts and other quirky recording overloads, etc., is in our opinion, well worth having. (Incidently, this will be the 10th version of the Beethoven 9th to grace the Furtwängler catalog!)
The second item of interest from the new Japanese -Society is a rare performance of the Brahm’s Symphony #4 from October 22, 1948 and the Brahm’s Double Concerto from the Lucerne Festival on August 24, 1949 with soloists Wolfgang Schneiderhan (violin) and Enrico Mainardi (cello). These performances are marvelous and the overall sound is very good for this period. The Double Concerto has appeared previously in various incarnations via LP and CD, but I think this is sonically its finest example. The Brahm’s 4th is classic Furtwängler and one of his best recorded live Brahms performances of all. Unfortunately, due to a limited production run, the Brahms is more expensive albeit well worth having.
-Dade Theiriot
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