Wilhelm Furtwangler

Portrait of Wilhelm Furtwängler by Emil Orlik

The title of this article contains the character Wilhelm Furtwaengler. Where it is unavailable or not desired, the name may be represented as ä.

Wilhelm Furtwängler (January 25, 1886 – November 30, 1954) was a German conductor and composer.

Biography

Furtwängler was born in Berlin into a prominent family. His father Adolf was an archaeologist, his mother a painter. Most of his childhood was spent in Munich, where his father taught at the university. He was given a musical education from an early age, and developed an early love of Beethoven, a composer with whom he remained closely associated throughout his life. Though his chief posthumous fame rests on his work as a conductor, he was also a composer and regarded himself first and foremost as such, having in fact first taken up the baton in order to perform his own works.

By the time of Furtwängler's conducting debut at the age of twenty, he had written several pieces of music. However, they were not well received, and that - combined with the financial insecurity of a career as a composer - led him to concentrate on conducting. At his first concert, he led the Kaim Orchestra (now the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra) in Anton Bruckner's Ninth Symphony. He subsequently held posts at Munich, Lübeck, Mannheim, Frankfurt, and Vienna, before securing a job at the Berlin Staatskapelle in 1920, and in 1922 at the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra where he succeeded Arthur Nikisch, and concurrently at the prestigious Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. Later he became music director of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, the Salzburg Festival and the Bayreuth Festival, which was regarded as the greatest post a conductor could hold in Germany at the time.

Towards the end of the war, under extreme pressure from the Nazi Party, Furtwängler fled to Switzerland. It was during this troubled period that he composed what is largely considered his most significant work, the Symphony No. 2 in E minor. Work on the symphony was begun in 1944, and carried on into 1945. It was given its premiere in 1948 by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra under Furtwängler's direction. Furtwängler and the Philharmonic recorded the symphony for Deutsche Grammophon; the music was much in the tradition of Anton Bruckner and Gustav Mahler, composed on a grand scale for very large orchestra with romantic, dramatic themes. Another important work is the Sinfonie-Konzert (Symphonic Concerto for Piano and Orchestra) for piano and orchestra, completed and premiered in 1937 and revised in 1954. Many themes from this work were also incorporated into Furtwängler's unfinished Symphony No. 3 in C sharp minor. The Sinfonie-Konzert is profoundly tragic, and the incorporation of a motif, seemingly from American popular music, in the third movement raises interesting questions of Furtwängler's view of his culture's future, not unlike the "ragtime" theme in the last movement of Brahms' Second Piano Concerto.

He resumed performing and recording following the war, and remained a popular conductor in Europe, although always under somewhat of a shadow. He died in 1954 in Ebersteinburg close to Baden-Baden. He is buried in Heidelberg's Bergfriedhof. The tenth anniversary of his death was marked by a concert in the Royal Albert Hall, London, conducted by his biographer Hans-Hubert Schönzeler.

Furtwängler is most famous for his performances of Beethoven, Brahms, Bruckner, and Wagner. However, he was also a champion of modern music, and gave performances of thoroughly modern works such as Béla Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra.

"Third Reich" controversy

Furtwängler's relationship with - and attitude towards - Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party was a matter of much controversy. When the Nazis came to power in 1933, Furtwängler was highly critical of them.^{[citation needed]} In 1934, he was banned from conducting the premiere of Paul Hindemith's opera Mathis der Maler, and Furtwängler resigned from his post at the Berlin Opera in protest. In 1936, with Furtwängler becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the regime,^{[citation needed]} there were signs that he might follow Erich Kleiber's footsteps into exile,^{[citation needed]} when he was offered the principal conductor's post at the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, where he would have succeeded Arturo Toscanini. Toscanini's biographer Harvey Sachs wrote that Toscanini recommended Furtwängler for the position, one of the few times Toscanini expressed admiration for a fellow conductor.^{[citation needed]} There is every possibility that Furtwängler would have accepted the post,^{[citation needed]} but a report from the Berlin branch of the Associated Press, possibly ordered by Hermann Göring, said that he was willing to take up his post at the Berlin Opera once more. This caused the mood in New York to turn against him; from their point of view, it seemed that Furtwängler was now a full supporter of the Nazi Party^{[citation needed]}.

However, Furtwängler never joined the Nazi Party nor did he really approve of them, much like the composer Richard Strauss, who made no secret of his dislike of the Nazis. Furtwängler always refused to give the Nazi salute,^{[citation needed]} and there is even film footage of Furtwängler turning away and wiping his hand with a handkerchief after shaking the hand of Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels .

Furtwängler was treated relatively well by the Nazis; he had a high profile, and was an important cultural figure, as evidenced by his inclusion in the Gottbegnadeten list ("Important Artist Exempt List") of September 1944. His concerts were often broadcast to German troops to raise morale, though he was limited in what he was allowed to perform by the authorities. He later said he tried to protect German culture from the Nazis;^{[citation needed]} it is now known that he used his influence to help Jewish musicians escape the Third Reich.^{[citation needed]}

Albert Speer claimed that in December 1944 Furtwängler asked whether Germany had any chance of winning the war. Speer replied in the negative, and advised the conductor to flee to Switzerland from possible Nazi retribution. Furtwängler did in fact escape to Switzerland shortly after a concert in Vienna with the Vienna Philharmonic on January 28, 1945. At that concert he conducted an account of Brahms's Second Symphony that was caught on tape and is considered one of his greatest recordings.

At his denazification trial, Furtwängler was charged with supporting Nazism by remaining in Germany, performing at Nazi party functions and with making an anti-Semitic remark against the part-Jewish conductor Victor de Sabata. However, he was eventually cleared on all these counts.

As part of his closing remarks at his denazification trial, Furtwängler said,

"I knew Germany was in a terrible crisis; I felt responsible for German music, and it was my task to survive this crisis, as much as I could. The concern that my art was misused for propaganda had to yield to the greater concern that German music be preserved, that music be given to the German people by its own musicians. These people, the compatriots of Bach and Beethoven, of Mozart and Schubert, still had to go on living under the control of a regime obsessed with total war. No one who did not live here himself in those days can possibly judge what it was like.

"Does Thomas Mann [who was critical of Furtwängler’s actions] really believe that in 'the Germany of Himmler' one should not be permitted to play Beethoven? Could he not realize, that people never needed more, never yearned more to hear Beethoven and his message of freedom and human love, than precisely these Germans, who had to live under Himmler’s terror? I do not regret having stayed with them."

(quoted from John Ardoin's The Furtwängler Record)

The violinist Yehudi Menuhin was among those in the Jewish music community and the United States who had a positive view of Furtwängler. In 1933 he had refused to play with him, but in the late 1940s after a personal investigation about Furtwängler, he became supportive of him, and performed and recorded alongside him.

British playwright Ronald Harwood's play Taking Sides (1995), set in 1946 in the American zone of occupied Berlin, is about U.S. accusations against Furtwängler of having served the Nazi regime. In 2001 the play was made into a motion picture directed by István Szabó and starring Harvey Keitel and featuring Stellan Skarsgård in the role of Furtwängler.

In 1949 Furtwängler accepted the position of principal conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. However the orchestra was forced to rescind the offer under the threat of a boycott from several prominent musicians including Vladimir Horowitz and Artur Rubinstein. According to a New York Times report, Horowitz said that he "was prepared to forgive the small fry who had no alternative but to remain and work in Germany." But Furtwängler "was out of the country on several occasions and could have elected to keep out". Rubinstein likewise wrote in a telegram, "Had Furtwängler been firm in his democratic convictions he would have left Germany".

Career

Conducting style

Furtwängler had a unique conducting technique. He saw symphonic music as creations of nature that could only be realised subjectively into sound. This is why composers such as Beethoven, Brahms and Bruckner were so central to Furtwängler's repertoire, because he identified them as great forces of nature. He disliked Toscanini's approach to the German repertoire. He walked out of a Toscanini concert once, calling him "a mere time-beater!." Furtwängler did not have a strong beat, as can be seen in video recordings [2] that show him making awkward, gawky movements like a medium in a trance. He wished that the sense of time be established by the players in themselves, as in chamber music. Furtwängler would then show the orchestra when he wished to use rubato. His gestures bear seemingly little relationship to the rhythms of the music, while his physical motions were described as "like a puppet on a string" by one orchestra member [3]. Furtwängler would generally hold his baton hand closer to his body and his left would be outstretched giving the expression of the phrase to the orchestra. On occasion he would violently shake his baton hand when he would get into conducting fits onstage. In the video above Furtwängler can be seen conducting Beethoven's Ninth Symphony on April 19th, 1942 in celebration of Hitler's birthday. In the symphony's coda, Furtwängler can be seen having tremendous fits as he leads the orchestra through the chorus's final cries of "Götterfunken, Götterfunken!." Despite, or perhaps because of, this unorthodox style, musicians were mesmerised by his leadership. His best performances are characterized by deep, bass-driven sonorities, soaring lyricism, and wrenching extremes of emotion co-existing with logical cogency. Neville Cardus wrote in the Manchester Guardian in 1954 of Furtwängler's conducting style:

"He did not regard the printed notes of the score as a final statement, but rather as so many symbols of an imaginative conception, ever changing and always to be felt and realised subjectively...Not since Nikisch, of whom he was a disciple, has a greater personal interpreter of orchestral and opera music than Furtwängler been heard."

Many commentators and critics regard him as the one of the greatest conductors in history.

Conductor and pianist Christoph Eschenbach has said of Furtwängler that he was a "formidable magician, a man capable of setting an entire ensemble of musicians on fire, sending them into a state of ecstasy".

Furtwängler commemorated on a stamp for West Berlin, 1955

Furtwängler was famous for his exceptional inarticulacy. His pupil Sergiu Celibidache remembered that the best he could say was, "Well, just listen" (to the music). Carl Brinitzer from the German BBC service tried to interview him, and thought he had an imbecile before him. A live recording of a rehearsal with a Stockholm orchestra documents hardly anything intelligible, only hums and mumbling. On the other hand, a collection of his essays, On Music, reveals deep thought. Still, Furtwängler remained highly respected amongst musicians. Even Arturo Toscanini, usually regarded as Furtwängler's complete antithesis (and sharply critical of Furtwängler on political grounds), once said – when asked to name the world's greatest conductor apart from himself – "Furtwängler!"

Influences

One of Furtwängler's protegés was pianist Karlrobert Kreiten. He was also an important influence on the pianist/conductor Daniel Barenboim, of whom Furtwängler's widow, Elisabeth Furtwängler, said, "Er furtwänglert" ("He furtwänglers"). Barenboim recently recorded Furtwängler's 2nd Symphony with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

Furtwängler's performances of Beethoven, Bruckner and Wagner remain important reference-points today.

Notable recordings

There is a huge number of Furtwängler recordings currently available, mostly live. Many of these were made during World War II using experimental tape technology. After the war they were confiscated by the Soviet Union for decades, and have only recently become widely available, often on multiple legitimate and illegitimate labels. In spite of their limitations, the recordings from this era are widely admired by Furtwängler devotees.

This is only a small selection of some of Furtwängler's most famed recordings. For more information, see his discography and list of currently available recordings. The French Wilhelm Furtängler Society also has a list of recommended recordings.

• Beethoven, Third Symphony, live performance with the Vienna Philharmonic, December 1944 (Music and Arts, Preiser, Tahra)

• Beethoven, Fifth Symphony, live performance with the Berlin Philharmonic, June 1943 (Classica d'Oro, Deutsche Grammophon, Enterprise, Music and Arts, Opus Kura, Tahra)

• Beethoven, Seventh Symphony, live performance with the Berlin Philharmonic, November 1943 (Classica d'Oro, Deutsche Grammophon, Music and Arts, Opus Kura)

• Beethoven, Ninth Symphony, live performance with the Berlin Philharmonic, March 1942 (Classica d'Oro, Music and Arts, Opus Kura, Tahra)

• Beethoven, Ninth Symphony, live performance at the re-opening of Bayreuther Festspiele with Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Elisabeth Höngen, Hans Hopf and Otto Edelmann. (EMI 1951).

• Beethoven, Ninth Symphony, live performance at the 1954 Lucerne Festival with the London Philharmonia, Lucerne Festival Choir, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Elsa Cavelti, Ernst Haflinger and Otto Edelmann (Music and Arts, Tahra).

• Brahms, First Symphony, live performance with the North German Radio Symphony Orchestra, Hamburg, October 1951 (Music and Arts, Tahra)

• Brahms, Second Symphony, live performance with the Vienna Philharmonic, January 1945 (Deutsche Grammophon, Music and Arts)

• Brahms, Third Symphony, live performance with the Berlin Philharmonic, December 1949 (EMI)

• Brahms, Fourth Symphony, live performance with the Berlin Philharmonic, October 1948 (EMI)

• Bruckner, Fifth Symphony, live performance with the Berlin Philharmonic, October 1942 (Classica d'Oro, Deutsche Grammophon, Music and Arts)

• Bruckner, Eighth Symphony, live performance with the Vienna Philharmonic, October 1944 (Deutsche Grammophon, Music and Arts)

• Bruckner, Ninth Symphony, live performance with the Berlin Philharmonic, October 1944 (Deutsche Grammophon)

• Furtwängler, Second Symphony, live performance with the Vienna Philharmonic, February 1953 (Orfeo)

• Mozart, Don Giovanni, both the 1953 and 1954 Salzburg Festival recordings (in live performance). These have been made available on several labels, but mostly EMI.

• Schubert, Ninth Symphony, live performance with the Berlin Philharmonic, 1942 (Deutsche Grammophon, Magic Master, Music and Arts, Opus Kura)

• Schubert, Die Zauberharfe overture, live performance with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, September 1953 (Deutsche Grammophon)

• Schumann, Fourth Symphony, studio recording with the Berlin Philharmonic, Deutsche Grammophon, May 1953 (Deutsche Grammophon)

• Tchaikovsky, Sixth Symphony ("Pathétique"), studio recording with the Berlin Philharmonic, HMV, 1938 (EMI, Naxos)

• Wagner, Tristan und Isolde, studio recording with Flagstad, HMV, July 1952 (EMI, Naxos) and Der Ring des Nibelungen with Wolfgang Windgassen, Ludwig Suthaus, and Martha Mödl, 1953 (EMI).

• Richard Wagner: Die Walküre, his last recording in 1954. EMI planned to record "Der ring des Nibelungen" in the studio under Furtwängler, but he only could finish this work shortly before his death. The cast includes Martha Mödl (Brünnhilde), Leonie Rysanek (Sieglinde), Ludwig Suthaus(Siegmund), Gottlob Frick(Hunding), and Ferdinand Frantz (Wotan).

Notable premieres

• Bartók, First Piano Concerto, the composer as soloist, Theater Orchestra, Frankfurt, July 1, 1927
• Schoenberg, Variations for Orchestra, op. 31, Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Berlin, December 2, 1928
• Hindemith, suite from Mathis der Maler, Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Berlin, March 11, 1934
• Richard Strauss, Four Last Songs, Kirsten Flagstad as soloist, Philharmonia Orchestra, London, May 22, 1950

Notable compositions

For orchestra

early works

• Overture in E♭ Major, op. 3 (1899)
• Symphony in D major (1st movement: Allegro) (1902)
• Symphony in B minor (Largo movement) (1908) (the principal theme of this work was used as the leading theme of the 1st movement of the Symphony no. 1, in the same key)

mature works

• Symphonic Concerto for Piano and Orchestra (1937, rev. 1954)
• Symphony No. 1 in B minor (1941)
• Symphony No. 2 in E minor (1947)
• Symphony No. 3 in C sharp minor (1954)

Chamber music

• Piano Quintet (for two violins, viola, cello, and piano) in C Major (1935)
• Violin Sonata No. 1 in D Minor (1935)
• Violin Sonata No. 2 in D Major (1939)

Choral

(all early works)

• Schwindet ihr dunklen Wölbungen droben (Chorus of Spirits, from Goethe's Faust) (1901-1902)
• Religöser Hymnus (1903)
• Te Deum for Choir and Orchestra (1902-1906) (rev. 1909) (first performed 1910)

External links

• Wilhelm Furtwängler Society (France)
• Essential recordings: French Furtwängler Society's best choice
• Wilhelm Furtwangler at All Music Guide
• Wilhelm Furtwängler Society of America
• Press cuttings announcing his denazification hearing
• Wilhelm Furtwängler: Genius Forged in the Cauldron of War, written by Peter Gutmann, music journalist
• Wilhelm Furtwängler's essay on Brahms
• Biography, Critical Discography, Book and Web Bibliography
• Discography
• Movie clip of Furtwängler conducting
• The Art of Conducting: Great Conductors of the Past (DVD featuring footage of Furtwängler conducting)
• The Art of Conducting: Legendary Conductors of a Golden Era (Another DVD featuring footage of Furtwängler conducting)
• List of currently available recordings from arkivmusic.com
• Conducting the London Philharmonic
• Finale to Furtwängler's 1942 performance of Beethoven's ninth symphony
• Taking Sides (2001)
• Large collection of public domain Furtwängler recordings

Template:Berliner Philharmoniker conductors

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