FURTWÄNGLER Beethoven: The Complete Symphonies - PABX007

Furtwängler, Berlin 1942: perhaps the greatest Beethoven 9 ever

The infamous, astonishing performance in an outstanding sonic resurrection

The history of this recording is well known and takes us deep into one of the darkest eras of human history: Nazi Germany, the performances around the celebration of Hitler's birthday in March 1942, and a conductor who some saw as a collaborator, others an a naive tool of the regime, others still as someone who chose to oppose from within rather than leave Germany like so many other top-ranking musicians. The wider subject is covered in some depth in the further notes which accompany this release, and of course in much greater depth elsewhere.

It is pertinent to mention here, however, that many have come to see Furtwängler's Beethoven 9th Symphony of March 1942 as a kind of protest against Hitler and his henchmen, present for at least one of the performances that week. It has been hailed as one of the greatest and most powerful renditions of this momentous work ever captured by the miracle of recorded sound, as multiple five-star reviews on sites such as Amazon.com testify. Naturally it has seen numerous releases on different labels.

Each previous issue has, no doubt, attempted to deal with the rather poor quality of the original recording in one way or another, so why come back to in for another go? Well partly this has been due to requests received from those desperate for someone to crack the major sonic shortcomings of the recording, in the hope that XR remastering might achieve something where previous efforts have failed, and partly (as is often the case) through sheer curiosity on my part. I had been working on another performance by Furtwángler of the same work, and while I had the various elements of an XR restoration to hand curiosity got the better of me and I experimented with the 1942 Choral Symphony.

The results you'll hear in our lengthy sample on this page, comprising the full first movement. Despite some occasional fuzziness caused by peak distortion (much of which I've been able to tame considerably) during the loudest passages, the transformation has been exceptional, allowing the full power and impact of Furtwängler's vision to be experienced as perhaps never before (unless you had the "luck" to be in the hall at the time). Background hiss and noise has been reduced to near-silence, a number of audience coughs have been removed, and XR remastering has brought a fullness and depth of sound, matched by a new openness and clarity lacking in all previous issues.

Experience now one of the most powerful and charged music performances you'll ever hear - in a whole new sonic light.

Andrew Rose

Furtwängler's superb 1943 Berlin Beethoven Symphonies

Fabulous performances in excellent new XR remasters

Furtwängler's live wartime recordings were made on iron oxide tape by Radio Berlin, which took a relayed feed of four microphones placed in the Alte Philharmonie concert hall and preserved them on 14-inch reels of tape running at 30 inches per second, each tape lasting up to 20 minutes. (Fifty years later the same basic technology, albeit somewhat refined, was still in use by broadcasters around the world - the tape was by now running at 15 inches per second, the reels were 10.5 inches in diameter, most recorded two tracks to accommodate stereo, and they managed 32 minutes per reel, but the system would have been quickly recognisable by any Radio Berlin radio engineer of the 1940s.)

The principle microphone, placed in front of the stage was, like all of the microphones used there, omnidirectional. Whilst probably delivering the best sound quality available at the time, these microphones had the obvious downside of picking up sound equally from all directions, including of course the coughs and other assorted noises emanating from the audience. Removing or reducing audience noise has been one of a number of key priorities here, and special attention was paid to the quiet introduction of the Fourth Symphony, which had been particularly badly afflicted.

Although the tapes, which spent many years in Soviet Russia after the war (during which time a number were lost), had done a remarkably good job of capturing the sound of the orchestra and preserving it the direct sound from them was harsh, and lacked in both bass depth and treble expansion. Re-equalisation during XR remastering has done much to improve this, and to reveal far more sonic detail in the recordings than might previously have been apparent.

Andrew Rose

A superb Beethoven Violin Concerto in a total aural makeover

Furtwängler's final Alte Philharmonie concert - plus a powerful Beethoven 5th

These two recordings offer two very different perspectives on technical developments in wartime Germany, as well as the long-term preservation of historic recordings.

The Violin Concerto was recorded during Furtwängler's last ever concert at the Alte Philharmonie in Berlin, just 17 days before the hall was destroyed by an Allied bombing raid. Even prior to the present remastering, it was clear that technically the recording was good, and a quick online search for Erich Röhn, the soloist, reveals a number of people claiming this as their favourite interpretation.

I was delighted to discover, therefore, that the recording as previously heard was to a great extent hiding its light under a bushel, so to speak - there was far more in terms of sonic potential in the recording than might ever have been suspected, and it really does show just how much could be captured on the still very early magnetic tape medium.

Naturally it's not perfect, and I've had to work hard to retain natural high frequencies whilst battling hissy distortion during louder passsages. That said, one could easily be fooled into believing this to be a live broadcast from the 1960s. This is not something that could ever be claimed for the companion on this release, the Symphony No. 5, which shows all signs of having spent at least some point of its life on very frequency-limited discs. There's little or no top end to be extracted, and evidence of swish which simply shouldn't be expected on an allegedly taped recording.

What is deeply puzzling is that a recording of the Fourth Symphony from this same concert (PASC267) offers superb fidelity, almost on a par with that of the Violin Concerto here. I've done what I can to even out the frequency response and make the best of the Fifth, but one should be prepared to 'retune' ones ears after listening to the concerto.

Andrew Rose

Furtwängler's Beethoven Symphonies in a fabulous XR-remastered makeover

His only recording of the 2nd is magical - and his last ever recording, of the 1st sublime

In this release, we bring together a recording from Furtwängler's final concerts of Beethoven's Symphony No. 1 (the programme was repeated over two nights and the recording dates from the first of the two - the second was his very last appearance on the concert stage), with the only known recording of Furtwängler conducting Beethoven's Symphony No. 2, at the Royal Albert Hall in London in 1948. The companion piece to these two symphonies is a studio recording of the third Leonore Overture made during the 1953 recording of Fidelio.

Whilst the studio overture recording presented few difficulties, I'm pleased to report that it has been possible to make considerable improvements to the sound quality, filling out the orchestral texture considerably and bringing the whole performance to life. Likewise his final recording of the First Symphony, which was somewhat dull and flat in its original incarnation. XR remastering has worked wonders in teasing out the full impact of the Berlin Philharmonic at this historic final concert - the sound is bright and full, with real depth. I've deliberately not attempted to remove all traces of tape hiss from this recording so as to preserve as much fine detail as possible in the upper treble.

The only known recording of the Second Symphony was first discovered and issued in 1979, and despite repeated reissues, little has ever been achieved in attempts to improve the dismal sound quality of the original discs. This new XR-remastered transfer aims to change that. Whilst one must still bear in mind the abysmal state of the original, here at last is a full-bodied orchestra, with surprising upper-end extension and a far more even sound, allowing the performance to be better appreciated than ever before. A major effort has been undertaken in stitching together tiny gaps in individual notes and dealing with hundreds of bumps and clunks. Despite the loss in the quietest sections of fine detail, overall it's a truly astonishing transformation of this historic document.

Andrew Rose

Furtwängler's finest recordings of Beethoven's 6th and 8th Symphonies

These XR-remastered issues bring a new sound quality to match the brilliance of the performances

John Ardoin lists seven Furtwängler recordings of Beethoven's Sixth and three recordings of the Eighth Symphony in his discography, and though it appears that a fourth, partial 1932 recording of No. 8 exists, he is most insistent that the present, 1953 Berlin recording easily trumps the rest. Here the full benefits of XR remastering can be heard, with dramatic improvements in sound quality, orchestral tone and texture immediately apparent to the listener used to the previous boxy and constricted acoustic of earlier issues. This issue is also considerably brighter in tone, a result of the careful analysis of remnants of electrical hum in the original recording, pointing to a far sharper tuning than the "standard" orchestral 440Hz - the 453Hz tuning of the orchestra is however not unusual for Furtwängler.

It's no great surprise to find less room for improvement over EMI's "studio" recording of the 6th Symphony, yet this too yeilded far greater tonal colour than the original might lead one to believe, and the XR remastering of this recording does seem to have injected a degree of life into it that Ardoin found lacking when comparing it to contemporary live performances. Once again I found that the original pitching was sharper than concert standard - EMI have it at around 446Hz though my own measurements suggested 451Hz was closer to the orchestra's actual tuning. In both recordings I've been able to minimise the use of additional noise reduction processing to keep as open and glorious a sound as possible.

Andrew Rose

Furtwängler's unrivalled wartime Beethoven - in sound quality to knock you out

 "The intensity of this reading is searing" - Fanfare