Bruckner 4 Furtwangler Stuttgart 1951

[Barbirollians]

Scathing review in Gramophone today by Peter Quantrill of this live recording which I have had for ages on DG and which has now been reissued by Praga and it seems others over the years . The reviewer suggests that compared to modern day Bruckner interpretation it is more out of date than 1930s baroque or even Palaestrina performances .

Not sure who Mr Quantrill is but I have always been very fond of this performance despite its corrupt edition - certainly a lot more emotional pull than the long highly rated Bohm for me .

Anyone else think it is a dated and episodic as he does ?

[jayne lee wilson]

I only heard this for the first time earlier this year and was very moved by it, on Archipel and the 2004 DG Japanese edition. It's a fascinating, gripping Bruckner 4, often wildly impulsive in the outer movements, absolutely in that subjective, recreative tradition discussed elsewhere, a tradition of performance currently almost lost to us. It may return. All it needs is a bold, individual performer...
Still, from this era, I would prefer the 10/3/44 Knappertsbusch recording (wrongly dated 8/9/44 on Archipel, Urania etc.) for better orchestral playing and swifter tempi in (i) and (iv).

Very keen to hear this transfer...

https://www.pristineclassical.com/collections/artist-wilhelm-furtwangler/products/pasc254

But there's only so much "slow listening" one can do...
The edition WF (and Kna) use is very interesting: the First Published Edition, ed. Loewe/Gutmann, 1888/9, now considered to be authentic i.e with Bruckner's approval. A more recent edition of this can be heard on the Minneapolis/Vanska/BIS recording, ed. Korstvedt.

Here's the quote from Gramophone, 6/2017:

"“Not even Mario Venzago at his most idiosyncratic chops up the outer movements into discrete units of expression - this one rustic, the next visionary - to such disconcerting effect and with so violent a wrench of momentum between each episode. The past really is another country, a more vivid and deeply etched one, to be sure, in the Andante’s musings on Lohengrin…. but lost all the same”.

Telling choice of comparison... the most vitally renewing and recreative of any recent recording... and - yes, as disconcerting as any. Which is, surely, the whole point. Listen again....

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

The performance can be heard via youTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObqeWK7lKc0

I owned the original DG CD release, where the back cover proudly proclaimed "ed Haas" without specifying which of Haas' editions was being used - the youTube with equal (but opposite) inaccuracy describes it as the Nowak edition - which didn't appear until nearly a quarter-of-a-century later!

Is it "out of date"? It is certainly "of its date", as are all recordings. "Episodic"? Well, I hear the contrasts Furtwangler emphasizes as being held together by a sense of "line": as so often with this conductor, there is an intellectual awareness of what the Music is doing, and (more importantly) where it is going: Furtwangler has the last bars in mind from the first. Listening to it now (after a gap of nearly thirty years) the balance between local detail and large-scale structure has a much greater impact than I'd remembered.

I initially sold the CD in my "Downsizing Madness" in 1993 - the edition, the audience noise, the split Horn notes right at the very start, the oh-so-slooow Second Movement, (and the fact that the Romantic is my least favourite of Bruckner's symphonies) meant that it wasn't the version that I wanted to keep as my only recording, so kept the Böhm (a very fine performance in its - and Bruckner's - own terms). Now, having heard it again I feel much more impressed by it.

[Karafan]

Still, from this era, I would prefer the 10/3/44 Knappertsbusch recording (wrongly dated 8/9/44 on Archipel, Urania etc.)

Jayne - My M&A CD also has the September date on it...I'll add a post-it note of correction to mine What's the source of your correct date, please?
K.

[jayne lee wilson]

Jayne - My M&A CD also has the September date on it...I'll add a post-it note of correction to mine What's the source of your correct date, please?
K.

https://www.abruckner.com/recordings/Urania+URN+22225Symphony+No.+4+in+E+Flat+Major/notestest.htm

https://www.abruckner.com/recordings/Archipel+ARCD+0044Symphony+No.+4+in+E+Flat+Major/notestest.htm

[Karafan]

I'm greatly obliged, m'Lady.... I'm assuming Berky is reverting to European date format and means 10th March, not 3rd October?

[Barbirollians]

The performance can be heard via youTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObqeWK7lKc0

I owned the original DG CD release, where the back cover proudly proclaimed "ed Haas" without specifying which of Haas' editions was being used - the youTube with equal (but opposite) inaccuracy describes it as the Nowak edition - which didn't appear until nearly a quarter-of-a-century later!

Is it "out of date"? It is certainly "of its date", as are all recordings. "Episodic"? Well, I hear the contrasts Furtwangler emphasizes as being held together by a sense of "line": as so often with this conductor, there is an intellectual awareness of what the Music is doing, and (more importantly) where it is going: Furtwangler has the last bars in mind from the first. Listening to it now (after a gap of nearly thirty years) the balance between local detail and large-scale structure has a much greater impact than I'd remembered.

I initially sold the CD in my "Downsizing Madness" in 1993 - the edition, the audience noise, the split Horn notes right at the very start, the oh-so-slooow Second Movement, (and the fact that the Romantic is my least favourite of Bruckner's symphonies) meant that it wasn't the version that I wanted to keep as my only recording, so kept the Böhm (a very fine performance in its - and Bruckner's - own terms). Now, having heard it again I feel much more impressed by it.

I have also listened to it again and simply do not hear what Mr Quantrill does - there may well be vivid and striking contrasts between the movements but I think ferny you sum it up perfectly it know where it is going something that is so wonderful about Furtwangler's Bruckner generally for me especially the legendary 1944 Eighth.

[Petrushka]

Way back in 1974 I bought the Decca Eclipse LP of the Munich performance given on October 29 1951, which I think was a day, or two days, after the Stuttgart concert. This was my first contact with the Bruckner 4 and was the recording from which I learnt the work. I loved it for years and it came as something of a shock to hear the VPO/Böhm recording on an LP I got 8 years later. I've since bought the Archipel issue of that 1951 Munich performance, not having heard it since the 1980s, and got a shock in reverse!

I've not read Quantrill's review but present day critics need to avoid appraising older recordings by today's standards and expectations but with sympathy for the norms existing at the time. Had he been the reviewer I suspect that Richard Osborne would have been much fairer.

[LeMartinPecheur]

...something that is so wonderful about Furtwangler's Bruckner generally for me especially the legendary 1944 Eighth.

Apologies for going slightly OT. Is there only one WF Bruckner 8 from 1944, or several but only one that's legendary?

I have one such with the VPO, a thoroughly obscure LP pressing on the Italian Auditio Classico Ariston label and said in English to be 'A Unicorn Records London production licensed from Transatlantic Records'. Sleeve notes in Italian only: cat no ARCL/13016/17 but rec date just given as '44 . Timings are 15'17 + 14'06 + 25'30 + 22'32.

Bought it for pennies in Blackwells Oxford in the 70s. Straight from sleeve it had a horrible scratch, but in view of the price and impossibility of getting a replacement I kept it. Played only a couple of times though, because I hate long LP scratches
Or CD ones come to that

[Petrushka]

Apologies for going slightly OT. Is there only one WF Bruckner 8 from 1944, or several but only one that's legendary?

I have one such with the VPO, a thoroughly obscure LP pressing on the Italian Auditio Classico Ariston label and said in English to be 'A Unicorn Records London production licensed from Transatlantic Records'. Sleeve notes in Italian only: cat no ARCL/13016/17 but rec date just given as '44 . Timings are 15'17 + 14'06 + 25'30 + 22'32.

Bought it for pennies in Blackwells Oxford in the 70s. Straight from sleeve it had a horrible scratch, but in view of the price and impossibility of getting a replacement I kept it. Played only a couple of times though, because I hate long LP scratches
Or CD ones come to that

So far as I know, the only 1944 WF recording is the one with the VPO dated October 17 1944. It's available on several CD labels and is indeed legendary. A truly great performance. I bought the Unicorn LPs in 1974 (my first ever Bruckner!) and would be 99% sure that's what you have.

[LeMartinPecheur]

Many thanks pet. Now you've assured me it really is legendary, I guess I'd better track down an unscratched CD copy

[Barbirollians]

That's the one - I think my copy is Music and Arts .

[jayne lee wilson]

Furtwängler Bruckner 8ths.....https://www.abruckner.com/recordings/Furtwaengler/Wilhelm

I haven't heard Pristine's take on this 1944 one, but they nearly always go one better than anyone else. It's not just the advanced software (the proficiency with which it can suppress noise whilst clarifying and projecting music is amazing now - compare Archipel's Mengelberg Mahler 4 with Pristine's) - Andrew Rose simply seems to have a very good ear. Remastering is one of those black arts, like hi-fi design... and, the later the XR version, usually, the better it is. Same goes for the "har-bal" used by Aaron Z Snyder - "harmonic balancing technology" used to astounding effect in the M&A Toscanini 1939 Beethoven Cycle, and the Andreae Bruckner Symphonies.

https://www.pristineclassical.com/collections/artist-wilhelm-furtwangler/products/pasc260

Producer's notes & Fanfare reviews are always fascinating reading here too..

Don't forget if you don't like downloads you can order CDs from Pristine. It took about a week when I last did it a few years ago...

Having said all of which.... I often find Knappertsbusch a more natural Brucknerian than Furtwängler; for his humility, humour, warmth...the drama (neo-Wagnerian yet somehow, wonderfully apt) the flow of phrase and rubato so idiomatic, so Austrian...full of the voices of nature.
My favourite of the historic 8ths I've heard is the 8/01/51 Titania Palast reading, where for once the lack of an audience doesn't cramp Kna's exuberance... (Bruckner's final revision, 1892 First Publication). Excellent Tahra transfer.
I hope Andrew Rose can give us his version of that 1944 4th one day, as neither Archipel nor my preferred Urania are ideal, really...