What a performance. Never heard the Brahms 4th Symphony played like this. Truly remarkable. Furtwangler was the greatest of conductors, in that he had by some method by where he had a metaphysical connection with the actual music of Brahms. This relationship with the composers music was then imparted to the orchestra by Furtwangler producing a monumental performance
And that means occult, which is demonic. That's the spirit of this fallen world including all of its art, indeed. But I know, in some cases it's really impressive and great.
one of the most incredible and important pieces of classical music histroy. What a recording, what a speed, what a moment, insanity of Brahms truefully painted by Furtwangler. Can't stop looking at it.
Thank you Francis for this post. It says something about the British that 3 years after the most awful conflict, we were prepared to invite this cultural icon of our erstwhile enemy to our homeland to show how great art is made.
watching this video I realize that the precision of this movements and his absolute control - unlike what most people think- is what made his conducting so great. watch as his left hand follows every note of a phrase, dictating exactly the phrasing and the dynamics, being as minimal as klemperer or celibidache while at the same time being as dynamic as toscanini or as richly expressive as stokowski. his conducting
@@brucevannote5002 I'm familiar (I think I have about 40 different recordings of the Brahms 4). Walter's is okay, but IMO nothing particularly outstanding. It seems almost too *polite,* with underwhelming (to me, anyway) brass and what seems like a thin string section. Then again, I have never much cared for the Columbia Symphony's sonics, something about the recording studio sounds a bit dead. And I vastly prefer Furtwangler's tempi, especially in the finale. Walter's drags a bit there. But where Furtwangler's really wins is how he brings out every layer and voice in the orchestra so well, making a luscious "fat" sound" while still having a brisk pace. He gets an unparalleled fullness without being *too* thick. I don't know how he did it, but somehow he always got that kind of sound from whatever orchestra he was leading.
I've heard or watched many, many performances of the 4th over the last 50 years, and none of them conveys as much pure forward-reaching excitement, passion and formal understanding as this one. If this was a rehearsal, what must have been the actual performance like?
Моё любимое Божество!!!!! BRAVO!!! Постоянно переслушиваю эту репетицию и слёзы сами наворачиваются от красоты и мощи. Какое счастье, что Бог подарил нам такого гения!
I went to search other conductors' performance in this final part of movement 4, including Barenboim, Haitink, Bernstein, Ozawa, Karajan, Kleiber....I still find Furtwangler's version is the best. Ferocious, powerful, wild, intensive, impressive, fantastic....it is the best interpretation of Brahms's mind and spirit in his works (full of german's passion and proud for thier musical culture ). I agree with some comments that no one has done such astonishing performance like Furtwangler~. The orchestra was just like a group of uncontrollable horses..violently run very fast on a rubble road but can maintain their elegance and persistence till the end. After watching this video, I can realize why he chose to stay a country controlled by Hitler. He just wanted to protect the culture, spirit, and nature inherited by german musicians. Even he was condemed by some people or jews for not leaving the third reich, I think his strong passion about classical music made him still become one of the best conductor in the world. No wonder that Maria Callas said that he was Beethoven....In this short video, he was also Brahms.
If that's his idea of a rehearsal....imagine the Concert. .. Perfect phrasing, great power to the point of being ominous, forward movement unstoppable as a high speed train, complete control and communion with orchestra, great example of the power of the human spirit
The breadth and depth of the great, German conductor ... with a most-responsive Orchestra. IMO, the camera work is VERY fine, as it shows the Orch., and Wilhelm F, as the latter enunciates/leads the Orch., in a most-propulsive way, towards one of the GREATEST finishes, to this great Symphony.
The vastness of his conception, his vision of entire work as a single entity, and his ability to bring it forth, while letting the details shine through.....
Einmalig. Was fuer ein grosser Dirigent. Mein Vater spielte das erste Fagott ! Er war, von den fuenfzigern an einer der bedeutensten Fagottisten in Deutschland und spielte auf einem Heckel Fagott fuer 60 Jahre ! Viele Schallplattenaufnahmen mit beruehmten Saengern und Musikern folgten und Konzerte mit Karl Richter auf der ganzen Welt. Bin sehr stolz auf Dich ! Ich vermisse Dich !
Mein Gott, da bist Du ja durch Deinen bedeutenden Vater ganz nah dran am größten nachschaffenden Musiker aller Zeiten! Was hat er denn über Furtwängler gesagt?
Furwängler - the greatest conductor of all times! He creates music during the concert. Every concert is like the birth and creation of the music. His body is showing the musical ideas and not the beat.
Maravilloso material, pese a la época muy buena grabación, es grandioso que hoy podamos admirar de las maravillas de ese tiempo como lo fue Furtwangler. ¡ Danke schÖn!. :)
I have never heard the Brahms 4th symphony could be played very strong, powerful, and beautiful...Hope I could buy a ticket at that time to enjoy his music....
Me too I've been watching this for years. Small tip if you like this .. I can recommend the Music & Arts 4941 CD set (furtwangler best brahms versions of all four symphonies). Just discovered the Jan-45 version of the adagio of the First on there .. quite unbelievable.
I'm not a fan of Furtwangler but this is absolutely scintillating. I've never heard something as angry and passionate as this. I haven't been able to stop listening to this for the past week. It sounds like he's using his baton to fire cannons and I hear smoke. Simply extraordinary!
I alwyays felt that Wagner+Brahms complete each other in achieving the quintessential summary and summit of Western classical music. After Wagner and Brahms, for me there is just experimentation, sometimes very interesting, but without enduring results.
@@LtAld0Raine Absolutely. Two teleological sides of the same coin. Time has made them far more similar than they were ever different. The great equalizer.
Completely differents in any levels, sorry but read Nitzsche true vision of Wagner tyrannical music when Brahms could let you follow your dreams inside his music.
PS2 Note also that Carlos Kleiber, when he was very young, went with his friend to the Scala in Milan to attend Furtwângler's concerts and that they were extremely impressed by the old maestro.
You may disagree with any, some or many of the particular interpretive detail of this performance, but in the end it is the overwhelming, the ferocious intensity of the playing that sweeps all before it. Brahm's raging heroic fatalism is conveyed to the absolute max. After hearing this, all other interpretations seem trite and cowardly.
He is an incredible conductor, just like my band teacher said. I mean, the emotion in this song goes from extreme sadness to complete joy. It's just amazing.
I don't know if people can imagine this, it's hard, but imagine this in glorious High Definition with Super Audio sound! Then we would truly hear what this would have sounded like. But....just LISTEN TO THAT!!!
Einfach einmalig.Von 1948 ! Am ende dieses Filmes, hinter dem Flutisten, erkenne ich meinen Vater ( geboren 1914 ), der nach dem Kriege eine der bedeutensten Fagottisten war. Er war dreieinhalb Jahre in Gefangenschaft, bis 1948 , wo man 1,8 Millionen Deutsche verhungern liss. Er war gerade nach Berlin zuruckgekommen.
They really do what composer says. This is ALLEGRO, this is ENERGICO, this is PASSIONATO. Don't know why, but many modern Brahms performances lack this dimension of agitation. It's all too clean and elegant.
Furtwängler conducted Brahms' 4th with unrivalled passion. The Passacaglia (shown in this video) is simply devastating. As Brahms wrote: "Allegro energico e passionato". The Berliners soar to the heavens. The players' commitment can be seen physically (the string section is a marvel to watch). No wonder that when Karajan for the first time heard Furtwängler conduct the Berliners he promised to himself that one day he would have that orchestra. Best thanks for this video.
That Furtwangler and the BPO "owned" this symphony after both profoundly imbued entities had the wealth of experience with this great art those many years...no doubt! I think, however, it's less about having "the balls" re: alert, driven pulse as the moments require to speak Brahms powerfully and persuasively, and perhaps more about the performing tradition of the last three decades, say. Daniel Harding, a wonderful exponent of the master, has in relatively recent past had the nerve to take this last movement, especially, at it's most cogent tempo.
True artist like Furtwangler comes once in a life time, few and far in between. I feel as if it was Brahms conducting himself. No other conductor can get closer to the composer's mind than Furtwangler.
""Well", she sighed, "you see what we have been reduced to. We are now in a time when a Szell is considered a master. How small he was next to Furtwängler." Reeling this disbelief - not at her verdict, with which I agreed, but from the unvarnished acuteness of it - I stammered, "But how do you know Furtwängler? You never sang with him." "How do you think?" she stared at me. "He started his career after the war in Italy. I heard dozens of his concerts there. To me, he was Beethoven."
The Conducting technique of Mr Furtwangler was very clear for the people who can understand it.Some of the detructors should go over political issues and accept like the mayority of great musicians like Menuhim,Abaddo,Baremboim,Celibidache, that he was not just a great conductor but somebody who could interpret and create with the orchestra as a genius.
@amfortas1978 He'd been conducting the BPO for 25 years, so, they had a lot of experience with Brahms. He knew what he could get from the orchestra and they knew what he was after.
Thanks John. I was honorary member but that was before Leduc became president and have not received newsletter for quite sometime. Then we have one in Berlin (dont do much) and a really active one in Japan.Why has the American Society been relinquished? There are so many fans, as I gather from comments on youtube
A great musician like Furtwangler performs in this way, such as a delight and merry child. Yes, Furtwangler seems as if he were a child, very enormously great child.He is the “Artist“.
Thank you! I wish the makers of The Art of Conducting had used this instead of the British newsreel which has a voice over on this very same rehersal that nearly drowns out the music.
When I first viewed this performance in "The Art of Conducting" video, I thought it was the finest performance of the finale of Brahms' 4th ever. But now, I hear some passages which sound jumbled, although others are still the finest. I suppose that the reason for this is obvious. Can you follow his beat? He appears to be a marionette dangling his arms about. Still, go to the video of F. rehearsing Schubert's "Unfinished," and you'll see what a perfectionist he was.
He sped up at a crucial point and it took a bar or two to come back together. I thought the beat was clear at the beginning, and that establishes tempo.
Thanks, Edwin. Well, Dade Thieriot was the head of the American, Furtwangler Society. Dade decided to let-go of the American form, a year or so, ago. ... Well, your grandfather was one of best of all, in his ways of improvisatory-type conducting, while continuing to HEW to the wishes and tempos, and ways, of a composer, in the latter's structures, inspirations and elements. Furtwangler was one of the BEST exemplars of how classical music could be presented. ... Talk with you later.
Someone once told the great music essayist Neville Cardus "I just can't follow Furtwängler's gestures". Cardus's reply: "Neither do I, but the Berliners surely do".
Brahms draws the map, Furtwängler shows us the door by turning the finale into a musical apocalypse, i would have loved visiting a performance by Furtwängler but i m too young!
Curiously enough, Brahms and Wagner were rivals, at least in the artistic way. Actually some other excerpts from Brahms' symphonies have just a little bit of a Wagnerian touch, I think.
Kleiber did a fabulous recording of Beethoven symphonies 5&7.Although his tempos are somewhat disjointed-the excitement level is tremendous.His Beethoven 9Th.reigns supreme.
from 0:00 to 0:03 Wilhem Furtwrangler just like :"quiet! you fools! we are RECORDING!! and pay attention to the music." ( the way he waves the hands , I just burst out laughing)
