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Reviewer: TroughtonFan
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Unbelievably Clear Sonics! Furtwangler Finally Revealed!!
Review: As all Furtwangler fanatics do, I own the giant 109-CD Membran box, “The Furtwangler Legacy.” It’s excellent and well worth owning, but its sonics simply pale before this fabulous set (and the Audite RIAS set of post-WWII recordings). While the sonics in this new set are a bit of a mixed bag (strange mechanical tape recorder noises mar several of the SACDs), when the sound is good, it’s GREAT!! I’m listening to the set SACD by SACD (they’re hybrid, so they also play on CD decks), from last to first, and am nearly through the second half. Standouts so far:- Der Freischutz Overture (wow!)- Daphnis et Chloe Suite No. 1 (excellent, but only part of the piece was recorded)- Symphonia Domestica (holy cow! – might have been recorded yesterday, other than the mono)- Haydn Variations- Beethoven Violin Concerto (musicians alive in my listening room).Most of the other recordings are vastly cleaner than I’ve ever heard before, though marred in spots by that periodic strange thump/flutter effect (couldn’t the engineers have removed that annoyance with inexpensive audio lab software?) The other sonic flaw in some of the performances is that the technology couldn’t keep up with Furtwangler’s dramatically wide range of ppp to fff, and there’s a buzz that sometimes creeps in to the loudest sections. So far in my listening, the recordings that make Furtwangler Furtwangler – viz., the Bruckner and Beethoven Symphonies – are only so-so sonically, but I’m about to listen to what remains of Furtwangler’s Bruckner Sixth and am hoping that’s one of the superb, batwing-free renderings. Will plan to post a follow up when I’ve listened to the whole set – it’s super addictive, so that shouldn’t take very long. Bottom line: GRAB THIS SET (and the Audite postwar set, too!) and hear how the unutterably great Wilhelm Furtwangler sounded live!!
Reviewer: Alden1963
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Complete, and sound great!
Review: Review for SACD played on CD player — I have bought all the iterations of the Furtwangler wartime recordings, from various labels. This one sounds great, compared to the DG releases and the Music & Arts Beethoven Wartime set. Sounds better, particularly the 1942 Beethoven 9, which I consider the best performance recorded. The box packaging is typical of the BPO releases… I have a few of the others, and it is about twice the spine width of the Harnoncourt Schubert set. A pain to shelve, unless you have few others of these releases… then they get their own space. This one totally deserves the space.
Reviewer: bibliobill
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Who said there are no Furtwangler CDs that sound good?!?!?
Review: Give those Germans credit: Their taping system was years ahead of everyone else. The sound of these CDs is superb. They’re pricey, but worth the cost.
Reviewer: Abdul- Rahman Bitar
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Furtwangler forever
Review: Great historical collection
Reviewer: John Fowler
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Best sound for these wartime broadcasts
Review: Photo: The box offers minimal protection for these valuable SACDs.In this box are almost all the surviving radio broadcasts of Wilhelm Furtwängler with the Berlin Philharmonic, 1939-1945.[for the missing recordings, see “Missing” at the end of this review.]The earliest broadcasts (1939) were recorded on shellac discs.Beginning in 1942, broadcasts were preserved on magnetic tape, pioneered by AEG/ Magnetophon.Every Furtwängler concert (including repeat performances) would be taped and edited for broadcast(broadcasts were one hour every Sunday night).At the end of the war, most of these broadcast tapes were taken to the Soviet Union as war booty.These were not the first generation master tapes (they were destroyed in a fire), but the second generation edited broadcast tapes.The Russians missed a few (most famously Bruckner’s Symphony 9), copies of which survived at regional radio stations.In 1991, after the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia made a show of returning the tapes to Germany.Deutsche Grammophon issued most of them on compact disc; other companies issued the rest, but these turned out not to be the broadcast tapes, only Russian-made copies (third generation).It wasn’t until 2017 that the actual broadcast tapes were finally returned.Here they are on 22 Compatible SACDs – definite overkill (contrary to what Amazon says, these SACDs WILL play on ordinary CD players).The sound varies from “terrible” to “wonderful”.The three items recorded in 1939 on shellac (Beethoven – Furtwängler – Handel) are hard to listen to.I thought they left out the opening bars of the third movement of Brahms’ Fourth Symphony, but on closer hearing, the third movement begins @12:14 of track 2 and continues uninterrupted into track 3. The weird background noise in the final minutes of the fourth movement is on the tape.But everything else is surprisingly good – even the Brahms is the best it has ever sounded.The sound on Bruckner’s Fifth Symphony (1942) is phenomenal.This is the most thickly scored music in the collection, yet I heard everything clearly and without distortion.Nothing else is as good as that, but the Beethoven Ninth (1942) comes close.The sound is tremendously impactful despite incurable overload distortion.I compared the first movement to that on Pristine Classical (the best transfer so far – free download on their website).On Pristine, from 9:30 to the end of the movement, the tympani is cataclysmic but smeared.In the new box, from 9:40 * to the end, the tympani is cataclysmic, and you can hear every single drum whack (technical term).A dramatic improvement.* disagreement about tape speed: 17:14 on Pristine vs. 17:32 in the new box.This is a wonderful collection with two big problems:1) It is hideously expensive (I got a deal, but still spent too much).2) The packaging is just plain dumb:It was designed by an “artist” who was more concerned with superficial appearances than with ease of use.Any librarian could have done a better job.The 184 page hardcover book has three informative essays (in German and English) + many rare photographs.That part is good.What it doesn’t have is the basics:No program notes about the music (some of which is quite obscure).No texts or translations for the vocal works.The 22 SACDs are packaged in a fold-out box without proper protection for the discs (and no recording dates or track listings on the box).The table of contents does not include recording dates either (you must turn to the fine print on pages 9-37 to discover discographic information).It even lacks an alphabetical index to composers and compositions.I have remedied that problem.In my index, the 29 broadcast tapes returned from Russia in 2017 are marked “Russian tape” (improved sound over previous issues).The 9 tapes the Russians missed in 1945 are marked “German tape”.The 3 shellac masters are marked “shellac”.+ 1 movie soundtrack (Wagner Meistersinger Prelude).BEETHOVEN:—- Symphony No.4 / 1943 – two performances, with and without audience / Russian tape / CD 11 *—- Symphony No.5 – incomplete / 1939 / shellac / CD 2 *—- Symphony No.5 / 1943 / German tape / CD 12—- Symphony No.6 / 1944 / Russian tape / CD 20—- Symphony No.7 / 1942 or 1943 (identified as 1943 on DG) / Russian tape / CD 3 *—- Symphony No.9 / March 1942 / Russian tape / CD 4 *—- Coriolan Overture / 1943 / Russian tape / CD 12—- Piano Concerto No.4 with Conrad Hansen / 1943 / German tape / CD 13—- Violin Concerto with Erich Röhn / 1944 / Russian tape / CD 17 *BRAHMS:—- Symphony No.1 finale / 1945 / German tape / CD 22 *—- Symphony No.4 / 1943 / Russian tape / CD 16—- Piano Concerto No.2 with Edwin Fischer / 1942 / Russian tape / CD7—- Piano Concerto No.2 with Adrian Aeschbacher / 1943 / German tape / CD 15—- Variations on a Theme by Haydn / 1943 / Russian tape / CD 15BRUCKNER:—- Symphony No.5 / 1942 / Russian tape / CD 6—- Symphony No.6 movements 2,3,4 / 1943 / Russian tape / CD 14 *—- Symphony No.9 / 1944 / German tape / CD 21FURTWANGLER:—- Symphonic Concerto with Edwin Fischer piano / 1939 / shellac / CD 1GLUCK:—- Alceste Overture / 1942 / German tape / CD 5HANDEL:—- Concerto Grosso Op.6, No.5 / 1939 / shellac / CD 2—- Concerto Grosso Op.6, No.10 / 1944 / Russian tape / CD 19MOZART—- Symphony No.39 / 1942 or 1943 / German tape / CD 9—- Symphony No.39 / 1944 / Russian tape / CD 19PEPPING:—- Symphony No.2 / 1943 / Russian tape / CD 13RAVEL:—- Daphnis et Chloe Suite No.1 – incomplete / 1944 / Russian tape / CD20 *—- Daphnis et Chloe Suite No.2 / 1944 / Russian tape / CD 20F. SCHUBERT:—- Symphony No.7 (old No.8) “Unfinished” / 1944 / Russian tape / CD 22 *—- Symphony No.8 (old No.9) “Great C Major” / 1942 / Russian tape / CD 9H. SCHUBERT:—- Hymnic Concerto / 1942 / Russian tape / CD 8SCHUMANN:—- Cello Concerto with Tibor de Machula / 1942 / Russian tape / CD 5—- Cello Concerto with Pierre Fournier – incomplete / 1943 / Russian tape / CD 14 *—- Piano Concerto with Walter Gieseking / 1942 / Russian tape / CD 3SIBELIUS:—- En Saga / 1943 / Russian tape / CD10—- Violin Concerto with Georg Kulenkampff / 1943 / Russian tape / CD10 *R. STRAUSS:—- Don Juan / 1942 / Russian tape / CD 2—- Symphonia Domestica / 1944 / Russian tape / CD 18—- Till Eulenspiegel / 1943 / German tape / CD 14—- Songs (4) with Peter Anders tenor / 1942 / German tape / CD 2WAGNER:—- Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg Prelude / 1942 / movie soundtrack / CD 3 *—- Tristan und Isolde – Prelude & Liebestod / 1942 / Russian tape / CD7WEBER:—- Der Freischütz Overture / 1944 / Russian tape / CD 20* POINTS OF INTEREST:—- Beethoven Symphony No. 4 (1943) – two performances from the same week survive – with and without an audience. Both versions were released at different times by DG, but this new box is the first time both have appeared in the same collection.—- Beethoven Symphony No. 5 (1939) – Disc seven (of eight) is lost, resulting in a gap in the finale, faithfully reproduced here (Tahra issued it with the missing music added from the 1937 EMI studio recording: Inedit – Previously Unpublished Historic Recordings 1939-1944).—- Beethoven Symphony No. 9 (March 1942) – Only three movements were on the tape returned from Russia. The scherzo is from an older tape with dimmer sound. For the April 1942 performance, see “Missing” below.—- Beethoven Violin Concerto (1944) – soloist Erich Röhn was the orchestra’s concertmaster: @19:40 he plays Fritz Kreisler’s cadenza, which was officially verboten. This may have been the only music by a Jewish composer played by the Berlin Philharmonic in 1944 (+ Kreisler became a naturalized American citizen a few months before the performance). Was this a deliberate act of defiance or just force of habit? The booklet with the 1991 DG CD identified it as the Joachim cadenza, which it clearly isn’t.—- Brahms Symphony No. 1 (1945) – Only the fourth movement survives. This was Furtwängler’s final wartime appearance with the Berlin Philharmonic (January 1945).—- Bruckner Symphony No. 6 (1943) – The first movement is lost.—- Ravel Daphnis et Chloe Suite No.1 (1944) – The first movement is lost (first release of the remaining two).—- Schubert Symphony No. 7 – old No.8 (1944) – This is the first complete release of the 1944 recording of the Unfinished Symphony (only the first movement was previously available). The second movement has noticeably more background noise.—- Schumann Cello Concerto (1943) – the recording with Fournier is missing the first movement and all but 26 seconds of the second movement (the 1942 recording with Tibor de Machula is complete).—- Sibelius Violin Concerto (1943) – Only two movements were on the tape returned from Russia. The first movement is from an older tape with dimmer sound.—- Wagner Die Meistersinger Prelude (1942) – This is the soundtrack from a 1942 Nazi propaganda film.Go to YouTube, look up: “Furtwängler dirigiert ns propaganda film”MISSING – Not in this collection.—- Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 in D Minor (4/19/1942) – this performance (in honor of Hitler’s birthday) was given four weeks after the better-known March 1942 performance listed above.Transferred from radio station shellac discs found in a second-hand bookshop in Vienna in 2005 and issued on CD by Archipel (same label, less garish cover: Symphony 9).For the curious, a 4 minute, 39 second video of the April 19 finale survives (taken from a German newsreel). The sound was so poor that audio was dubbed from the March performance.This newsreel caused Furtwängler a lot of grief after the war.To see it, go to YouTube and enter “Furtwangler Beethoven April 1942”(see also Comment Three – sort by “Oldest”).Missing recordings listed in John Hunt’s Furtwängler discography:—- Beethoven Leonore Overture No.3 / 1941 (Nov 2-4)—- Beethoven Piano Concerto No.4 with Wilhelm Kempff – fragment / 1941 (Nov 2-4)—- Brahms Symphony No.2 / 1943 (Feb 7-10)—- Bruckner Symphony No.4 – fragment / 1941 (Dec 14-16)—- Bruckner Symphony No.7 – fragment / 1941 (Feb 2-4)Not in this box are the only studio recordings that Furtwangler made with the Berlin Philharmonic during World War II – recorded on 78rpm discs by Telefunken: Wilhelm Furtwangler / Berlin Philharmonic 1940-1942—- Beethoven String Quartet Op.130 – Cavatina (1940)—- Bruckner Symphony No.7 – second movement (1942)—- Gluck Alceste Overture (1942)Also not in this box are the wartime broadcasts of Furtwängler with the Vienna Philharmonic, including spectacular 1944 recordings of Beethoven’s Eroica and Bruckner’s Eighth Symphony.DUBIOUS RECORDINGS – Not in this collection.At one time believed to be Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Furtwängler:—- Dvorak Symphony No.9 (1941) – actually Munich Philharmonic conducted by Oswald Kabasta.—- Grieg Piano Concerto with Walter Gieseking (1944) – actually Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Robert Heger.—- Haydn Symphony No.104 (1944) – actually Munich Radio Orchestra conducted by Alfons Dressel (attributed to Furtwängler on an early Deutsche Grammophon CD).—- Wagner Siegfried – Forging Scene with Max Lorenz tenor (1940) on an Acanta LP. Authenticity doubtful.—- Wagner Tannhauser – Bacchanale (1940) on an Acanta LP. Authenticity doubtful.MISIDENTIFIED FURTWANGLER RECORDING:—- Beethoven Symphony No.5 (February 7, 1944) – wrong date: it’s actually the familiar 1943 broadcast (in this box). EMI misidentified it in Great Conductors of the 20th Century: Wilhelm FurtwanglerThat EMI two-CD set also includes the pre-war performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony (May 1, 1937), performed by the Berlin Philharmonic on tour in London with a British chorus (“The Philharmonic Choir”).It was presented as part of the Coronation celebrations for King George VI, recorded “live” on transcription discs by EMI, but it had to wait sixty years for an official release.I don’t know, but I would guess that it was broadcast live by the BBC.If so, it would qualify as a Furtwangler/Berlin Philharmonic Radio Recording, and could have been included in this box, though the parameters would have to be extended to 1937-1945.
Reviewer: Francisco Javier T
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Soy admirador de este extraordinario y superlativo conductor aleman, y cuento con varias grabaciones del maestro en famosos y serios sellos discograficos, por lo que en un principio dude en adquirir esta bella caja de grabaciones hechas durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial, ya que si lo hacia tendria duplicados de grabaciones con las que yo ya contaba en ese momento. Pero pues bueno, investige y me informe que la fuente de los audios de esta caja, fueron las cintas originales alemanas, que fueron tomadas por los rusos y enviadas a Moscu durante la ocupacion de Berlin en 1945, y que fueron devueltas a Alemania no hace mucho tiempo.El Sonido: Simplemente por dar solo un ejemplo comparativo: La 9na. Sinfonia de Brukner, esta obra solo la grabo una sola vez el maestro durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial, por lo cual siempre que la encuentren, sera la misma grabacion en todos los casos. De esta Sinfonia yo contaba con las ediciones de Music&Arts y la del famoso sello amarillo Deustche Gramaphon, ahora bien, lo que no es lo mismo es la fuente de la que surge dichas ediciones y esta nueva edicion de la “Berliner Philharmoniker”, ahi recide la diferencia, el sonido de esta caja de 22 discos mejora notablemente a el de la anteriores ediciones. y si ademas contamos que la resolucion de estos 22 discos hibridos CD y SACD es de 24bit/96kHz, podemos contar que la experiencia sonora es la mejor dentro de lo que cabe en grabaciones historicas de entre 1939 y 1945, Wilhelm Fürtwangler como nunca lo has escuchado. Muy recomendado.
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