Brahms - Furtwangler recordings

[Barbirollians]

I have just listened again to the EMI set of Brahms symphonies with Furtwangler at the helm - once available on EMI References . Is this Brahms for sceptics I wonder ? It is so dramatic and in places visceral . The Fourth is quite overwhelmingly intense.

I remember a Record Review many years back when a reviewer said he had a class of music students dismissive of Brahms listen to Furtwangler's Brahms 1 and how much affected they were and some of them said it had made them rethink their attitude to Brahms altogether .

Anyone else for WF's Brahms recordings ( there is a DG Third that is even more impressive I think than this EMI one ) - up there at the top of my pantheon with the oh so different Walter/CSO .

PS Also includes a quite stupendous recording of Leonore No 2 from 1954 .

[Petrushka]

Wholeheartedly agreed! I have the symphonies in a Furtwangler EMI box from about five years ago and I was bowled over by them on a first hearing. Michael Oliver's Gramophone review from February 1996 shows that he too was bowled over. The intensity of some of Furtwangler's wartime recordings is well known but here he carries the same thing out in a post-war Vienna that must have ignited tremendous passion for the renewal of German culture in a shattered world. Whatever it was, we can only marvel.

I've been playing a lot of Brahms just lately (not yet the WF recordings though) and it just so happened that I played Bruno Walter's recording of the Second Symphony a couple of nights ago. Different, yes, but no less thrilling for all that. Haydn isn't the new Beethoven: Brahms is!

[Keraulophone]

The Fourth is quite overwhelmingly intense.

The last five minutes of the finale certainly is in this rehearsal from 1948. Fascinating to watch the steely-eyed rag doll energise his players to this extent.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leYbb5KZYDg

It's the kind of rehearsal after which Mravinsky cancelled the concert (Bruckner?), because he felt the performance could never be the equal of the rehearsal.

[makropulos]

Absolutely agree that Furtwängler's Brahms can be utterly overwhelming. There's a Hamburg Brahms 1 which I personally find even more electrifying than the Vienna PO disc - it was available on EMI (767332, now deleted, I think) and I'm fairly sure (but would need to check) that the same performance has also been out on Tahra. For admirers of WF's Brahms, I reckon it's well worth the effort to track it down.

[Barbirollians]

Absolutely agree that Furtwängler's Brahms can be utterly overwhelming. There's a Hamburg Brahms 1 which I personally find even more electrifying than the Vienna PO disc - it was available on EMI (767332, now deleted, I think) and I'm fairly sure (but would need to check) that the same performance has also been out on Tahra. For admirers of WF's Brahms, I reckon it's well worth the effort to track it down.

It was the 27.1.52 VPO performance that was recalled in the record review and I remember buying the EMI LP shortly thereafter and I have just found it again on my shelves . There is a Tahra version in the Furtwangler Legendary Concerts box that was released on Tahra ( and which included a wonderful Eroica from 8.12.52 with the BPO and the 1954 Philharmonia Beethoven 9 . That box does indeed also include a Brahms 1 with the NDR Symphony Orchestra from 27.10.51

[gradus]

It was film of WF conducting Brahms 4 that convinced me that he had/has no equal as a Brahms conductor. I don't know how he got orchestras to play like that but the secret died with him.

[Barbirollians]

I see from the post above that the rehearsal extract is on Youtube - albeit in rather distorted sound . Still amazing to hear . Furtwangler looks to be telling someone off just as he starts as he shakes his head crossly.

There is also a lovely Brahms 1 with the BPO from 10.2.52 that is in a DG box from 2004.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

There's also the 10/02/52 BPO recording of Brahms 1, and a January 1945 one with the same orchestra.

Oh, I see you've beaten me to it, Barbs.

[richardfinegold]

Agree that as a Brahms interpreter, and particularly in the 4th Symphony, WF was supreme. I have the set on the Music and Arts Label, and one of delights is the end of the Second, knowing that during the clapping and calls for an encore WF was making his escape to Switzerland .

[Barbirollians]

Just listened to the 10/2/52 recording - it is also marvellous .

[kea]

I haven't listened to all WF's Brahms 1s but will endorse 10/2/52 as my favourite performance (so far) of the piece by any conductor. (I obtained it via the Berliner Philharmoniker 100 box which my library has >.>)

[slarty]

Quite the equal of the Brahms 4 rehearsal is the last movement (only) of Brahms 1 from the Admiralspalast late January 1945. Seemingly, it was during the interval of this concert that WF was told he was on the SS death list, and he should travel to Vienna the next day(as planned) but not return, he did not.
This performance (issued by Tahra) blows one out of the room, I have never heard anything to compare. This last movement is all that survives from this concert, in very good sound.
I agree about the 1951 Hamburg Brahms 1, probably his best performance.

[akiralx]

I do like his live VPO recording of the Second from 1945 which was on DG but I now have on Andante, in a set devoted to historic Brahms: 2 versions of each symphony by various conductors.

[muzzer]

Sounds marvellous - what's the serial number?

[Keraulophone]

Quite the equal of the Brahms 4 rehearsal is the last movement (only) of Brahms 1 from the Admiralspalast late January 1945.

This one? 23/1/45. Extraordinary sensitivity, intensity and superb orchestral playing, in remarkably good sound.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUWMrC96sVY