Electrifying! I am 77 but this was like hearing Beethoven's 5th for the first time. Fresh, clear, powerful and totally alive. Never heard W. Furtwangler before. This goes beyond the bravado of Bernstein and precession of Von Karajan. I feel like I've just met the soul of Ludwig for the first time. Bravo master Furtwangler! Bravo... where ever you are.
Forse sono un nostalgico ma queste vecchie interpretazioni ( Celibidache, Solti, Walterecc.) mi emozionano.le recenti mi dicono poco. Mi scusino i bravissimi giovani direttori.
mmm, I would say better that Furt is the best interpreter of Beethoven's fifth. and of course the ninth etc. How can you say that this is "better" than the one on May 27, '47?
If you close your eyes during the lead up to the 4th movement, then open them after the first 30 seconds, the feeling afterwards is surreal. It's like you were on a different planet filled with pure emotion.
Beethoven's music is primal. It reaches deeper into our minds than any other composer's music. No other composer has that impact on me. And Furtwangler interpreted Beethoven the best. They both climbed highest and saw furthest.
Everything in this performance is close to perfection---tempo, expression, sound volume crescendo and decrescendo. After enduring war, chaos and starvation, these people came back to play like this.
Ok, I was a von Karajan fan until I heard the warmth, power, the beauty of this- so alive. Grateful to have found it on here and thanks all for the wonderful commentary.
This was my first time hearing anything done by Furtwangler's, let alone his interpretations of Beethoven's 5th. It was like I'd never heard it before. Instead of Beethoven pounding on the Gates of Heaven demanding entrance, this was like Beethoven himself took me by the hand and opened the Gates... just for me. Never have I heard it so alive. For me, this truly was one of those transcendent moments that touches upon things eternal.
Furtangler, like no other, gets into the heart and mind of the composer. This symphony is about grandeur and majesty, therefore never hurried nor its full voice muted under the baton of this master interpreter.
Wow. Criminal to interrupt this with actual COMMERCIALS. Whoever thought it was a good idea to interrupt Beethoven's 5th with commercials should be jailed.
No tengo palabras para expresar mi emoción cuando escucho esta sinfonía dirigida por el extraordinario director Wilhelm Furtwängler. Y en particular esta grabación de 1954 . Todos los detalles de la dinámica son perfectos! La orquesta responde maravillosamente cada gesto del director, ambos son un sólo ente... ! ¡Gracias por publicar esta maravilla!
A 85 ans, j'ai entendu de nombreuses interprétations de cette célèbre 5ème de Beethoven et je dois avouer que peu m'ont laissé aussi enchanté que celle que je viens d'entendre. S'il est indéniable que Furtwängler soit un grand chef, la gloire en l'occurrence ne revient assurément pas qu'à lui seul, la prestation de l'orchestre étant exceptionnelle et la prise de son, voire la remasterisation qui relèvent de véritables prouesses techniques pour arriver à un tel résultat n'y étant pas pour rien ! La fusion de tous ces éléments aboutit à un résultat rare mais j'estime que comparer ici le chef avec von Karajan par exemple n'est pas du tout convaincant, tant il a existé antérieurement et existent présentement d'autres grands chefs, les premiers n'ayant pas joui hélas pour flatter l'oreille des mélomanes quelque peu avertis, des moyens techniques dont on dispose aujourd'hui. Je suis en effet littéralement époustouflé quand j'écoute des CD qui reproduisent des enregistrements réalisés au départ de rouleaux Edison !!!
Great. Furtwangler has been called the master of transitions. He is said to have worked and worked on them in rehearsal. I think because he realized how important they are to the music. His "heavy" chords are another thing. He supposedly didn't want razor sharp precision because a slightly staggered entry by different instruments gave the chords that body and weight which you can hear in this performance. The Only Furtwangler performances available used to be the Studio version with VPO ,1952 I think and the May 27th 1947 BPO version. The variety on UTUBE is a joy for me after being so limited for so long.
The June 1943 version recorded live in Berlin has been available for some time. The first time I saw it was on a vinyl album but later I bought the same album on CD. www.amazon.com/Beethoven-L-Symphonies-Furtw%C3%A4ngler-1942-1944/dp/B00BFHUBXI/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1394743312&sr=8-5&keywords=furtwangler+beethoven This CD also includes Beethoven's symphonies numbers 3-7 and 9 as well as two of his overtures; the Coriolan and the Leonore #3. It is a great album and the recordings are superb.
Yes, the chords do gain body and weight. But Beethoven could have notated the instruments to stagger their entrances; instead he wrote them all to play at once. These chords remind me of very old-fashioned pianists who used to roll all their chords. Aside from the messy chords (and some messy ta-ta-ta-DAH's), it's a fine performance.
This is the best version of the Symphony Ive ever found. The Orchestra is like an intrument and all the elements (colors, movement and direction, pauses and breathings, etc...) are under a total control feeling. Nothing is a casuality. Furtwängler didnt forget the passion, the feeling and the personality of Beethoven. This is simply wonderful. :)
Pretty damn exciting! To comment on but one of WF's tactics here: The fact that the last part of the finale's stretto is actually performed rallentando, coupled with the brief pause just before the final chord, makes the coda thrilling.
Listen from 6:50 to the end of the first movement. LIFE and DEATH!!! Furt. said "the most important thing a musician must avoid is routine>. He performed this work over 200 times in his career, and he came to it each time in a humble spirit, as though for the first time. No matter how often he performed a score, he re-studied, and re-thought it. He's my hero, as both artist and man. (San Shirakawa's bio, The Devil's Musicmaster, is absolutely essential reading.)
This is the best version of Furtwängler himself. He should have lived for at least another fifty years, and his interpretation of Beethoven and of all other componists whould have reached a level and a complexity of expression which no other conductor could reach.
Just discovered Furtwangler conducting Beethoven's 9th. I always loved (still do) Von Karajan. However!! The transition from the third to fourth movement is The Most wonderful and intense!! Perfect!!!
Furtwangler's interpretation is very individual but it seems to me that he emphasizes the parts of Beethoven's symphony that a lot of us non-genius people in the seats remember in our minds when we "play" The Fifth in our heads. Listening to this, its almost like hearing the symphony again for the first time, one of the greatest experiences of my life 60 years ago.
The point is that Furtwangler was not a nazi, anymore than Lenny was responsible for Viet Nam or Slatkin for Dick Cheney. What should a famous artist do when evil tyranny suddenly takes over the country? What's the correct answer to that one?
Furtwängler is the best and I'm sure Beethoven would agree. I wish we could ask him. Let alone what he does with he volume and how he switches between instruments during what's usually a solo.... What a shame they didn't have better microphones and mediums back in the day... *close to tears*
+rationalconscience In my opinion Beethoven might be confused by the size of the orchestra and the slower post-romantic tempos and rich textures given by the newer instruments. Maybe he would have liked it, maybe he would have thought it was bullshit. 150 years is a long time and frankly I think music reinterpreted in a different cultural context should be listened to more for the interpretation than for how well it would please its original composer. I listen to Furtwangler's Beethoven for Furtwangler and less for Beethoven.
@@qwertyuiop-ke7fs Basically the same reason I listen to Klemperer's recordings. There's a Mendelssohn/Schubert recording on The Klemperer Legacy, and the 2 symphonies recorded have never felt so sublime through any other conductor I've listened to.
It's like being a child again. You hear this and you remember the first time you heard it. You didn't know about all the different styles of interpretation and all the music theory, you just knew this is Beethoven's 5th and that's how it's played. By listening to Furtwangler's version you realize that there's no doubt that Beethoven himself would have played it like this. Karajan is good, of course, but his version can't even compete with this in my opinion.
Over a half century has passed since the performance but the soul in the rendition is unchanged. After listening to about 10 different versions of Beethoven's 5 fifth, I find this the most moving one. Eventhough the sound quality isn't up to par with recent recordings naturally. It is simply more music in Furtwängler's version than the other's I've listened to so far eventhough they all share the same notes.
Incredible. This makes me never want to hear Herbert von Karajan's cold, heartless interpretation again. (And yes... too bad we can only imagine this with 21st century recording technology.)
I refuse Karajan since I heard his version of Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody Nr. 2 some 40 years ago. After that he was done for me. Stupefying jawdropping how this man could take the fire out of music. Before that I had his Ravel's Bolero. It's ok if you don't know another version. But I know some.
Precisely. von Karajan is too mechanical, as though a computer were the conductor, excising all that is human and/or spiritual from the rendition. Once was enough for me and I was DONE with him. Ozawa seems the same to me. Likewise, Barenboim makes great pretensions at creativity while being the same as von Karajan in my opinion. He ruined DuPre's ethereal creativity and play, again in my opinion, by over controlling her. He had her wound up tighter than a broken clock but still her feeling managed to shine through.
I've heard three different Karajan recordings of the Brahms Requiem. One is deadlier that the other. In one, he takes the baritone solo movement so slowly, that the young, fresh Hans Hotter has to take extra breaths, between the normal ones. K. sleepwalks through the entire work until the fugue in the second to last movement, at which point someone, like the recording producer, must have come up behind him and kicked him hard in the pants, because he suddenly wakes up and starts making actual music. He's supposed to be one of the all-time greats, but his recordings have always left me absolutely cold.
Furtwangler had a strong jealousy against Karajan. It is evidence that he had to admit Karajan's genius. To be jealous of a young man younger than 20 years, I think Furtwangler is small as a human being. Even if such a person plays, sound and soul are muddy. Beethoven is sorrowful in the other world.
Un estilo define la vida de todos. Beethoven tuvo el suyo propio, así, con inmensa sabiduría lo interpretó Furtwangler, e hizo lo increíble: inmortalizó a ambos. Todo un estilo, un poder, una energía, sello incontrastable. Hasta siempre,
Totalmente en desacuerdo, Furtwangler no interpretaba a Beethoven, Furtwangler ejecutaba a Beethoven, un insolito festival de tiempos amanerados que hacen a la obra inconsistente y no refleja la vitalidad y la genialidad de lo escrito por Beethoven, acentuado ademas por pasajes de sonoridades secas opacas y asperas. Todo lo contrario se encuentra en Herbert von Karajan, tiempos justos y uniformidad de principio a fin, pura vitalidad, brillo y poder.
Hugo Fortunato Furtwangler è un caso a sè stante nella storia della direzione; Karajan si iscrive - almeno con più senno e più finezza filologica ed estetica - nella scia di Toscanini, Walter e, prima di loro, Nikish e Hans von Bulow.
Dopo Furtwangler e Karajan sentite cosa ha fatto di certi capolavori beethoveniani un certo Toscanini Arturo, ovvero il più favoloso di tutti i tempi. Ma l'invito so benissimo che è perso.
Easily the greatest conductor of the 20th century. Too bad he wasn't well known outside of Europe! The americans treated this genius like dirt after the war.
+Thomas Andrews As a matter of fact USA did not let fleeing jews in Dyring the second world war. We are some people who cannot forget that. Now you treat mexicans almost line slaves. Did you really think the rest of the world did not notice? No, USA is not perfect.
NO, you are not awful. Just do mistakes like any, but on a grander scale. Let me remind you that Churchill did not want to stop at Berlin, but Moscow. Roosevelt, if my memory does no fail me, did not agree because good business was the prospect for the Russians. The rest is sad history. And let's not talk about Oscar award, etc...
SI EL GRAN BEETHOVEN FUERA A DIRIGIR ESTA SINFONÍA LO QUE SE ESCUCHARÍA SERÍA EXACTAMENTE ESTA MAGNA VERSIÓN DEL MÁS MAGNÍFICO DE LOS DIRECTORES DE ORQUESTA , WILHELM FURTWANGLER
i've heard this piece so many times and i have to say this is my favorite interpretation. Particularly the 1st movement for me a list of my top interpretations would be 1. Furtwängler 2. Bernstein 3. Kleiner I honestly cannot enjoy Karajan's interpretation. i have no words to describe it other than soulless.
I can enjoy Karajan's intepretation. But above him I would put Furtwangler, Klemperer, Bernstein, Nikisch, Szell, Kleiber (both father and son), Jochum, Rattle, even Menuhin
Furtwängler's interpretation is as just individual, as all the other conductor are not able to interpret this music so as Beethoven had meant. Furtwängler's interpretation is the nearest interpretation to the original music as Beethoven concieved it in his head. Thanks to Furtwängler we can hear the Beethoven's music as Beethoven himself probably heard his music for the first time in his head. In any case I personally feel the most comfort hearing Beethoven interpreted by Furtwängler, a comfort which I don't experience by no other conductor till now.
Because Furtwängler's interpretation is in comparision to the others the most expressive and the most in concordance with Beethoven's muscal intention.
That's merely repeating the first saying. Again: how do you know that .... is in concordance with B's musical intention? We have only the score and a tradition and different interpretations. So, more than one interpretation is possbile also if the score is meticulously followed.
This is just what I wanted to hear how it should be interpreted this valuable piece. I never know a performance more than by the greatest conductor, Futwangler.
Clearly the best version of this famous symphony, in spite of the poor recording tools of the time. What an inteligence in the details and in the global architecture !
I've always wondered what the musicians that performed this symphony for the 1st time ever in the history of mankind must have felt, you know I mean the 1st performance ever in front Beethoven. Now that must have been a sensation so sublime.
They were stressed out and completely spent. It was too much, with rushed rehearsals and scores still wet. I don’t think that they realized that they were part of the greatest show the world has ever witnessed: Beethoven’s 5th and 6th symphonies, the 4th piano concerto, and, IIRC, the Fantasy for piano, orchestra and choir.
I have a sort of love/hate relationship with Furtwangler. I'm really not keen on the way he pulls tempi about and often his music has this speeding up and down quality rather like when you drive your car over speed bumps. But the more I listen to his music the more I realise how hugely influential he was on performing techniques in the 20th century. I think he really influenced how orchestras sound all over the world today. When i listen to von karajan's recording of later years I can still hear a lot of Furtwangler in the orchestra's performance. He built on what Furtwangler did. Without Furtwangler, Karajan's orchestra would not have sounded as it did.
Indeed. Listen to Karajan's live recording in Moscow. Karajan and Furtwängler weren't different. The problem is people tend to judge Karajan based on his digital recordings, which are far from what Furtwängler did.