Furtwangler

A florilegium of Beethoven symphonies conducted by one of the masters of the baton, with the Berliner Philharmoniker for the Fifth (recorded in 1937) and the Wiener Philharmoniker for the "Eroica" and "Pastoral" (performed in the 1950s).

Despite making his name as an interpreter of Wagner and Bruckner, Furtwängler’s first and last love was Beethoven.

We release, for the first time in digital, Wilhelm Furtwängler’s Tchaikovsky recordings, including a fiery Pathétique with the Berliner Philharmoniker, the fourth symphony with the Wiener, and large excerpts from the Serenade. Notably, a play-through of the third movement has been exhumed from the archive, its existence being unknown before the beginning of the project!

Expect lots of surprises in this final batch of our Furtwängler digital retrospective!

Furtwängler: Lost Manfred Overture now released for the very first time. Volume 12 of the LUCERNE FESTIVAL editionpresents a sensational archive discovery: a live recording of the Manfred Overture from the 1953 festival, until recently presumed lost, and now released for the very first time. In 1953, Furtwängler also conducted two of his all-time favourites, Beethoven's Eroica and Schumann's Fourth Symphonies. Until now, these exciting interpretations were only available in technically flawed recordings made by enthusiasts. For this edition, the newly rediscovered original tapes from the archives of the SRF Swiss Radio and Television were made available.

The radio recordings between 1939 and 1945 with the Berliner Philharmoniker and Wilhelm Furtwangler are among classical music's most compelling sound documents. Created at the peak of the collaboration between orchestra and conductor, Furtwangler's artist personality is conveyed more vividly than anywhere else. What can be heard is music in which inspiration and the expressive will know no bounds and in which, not least, the existential experience of the Second World War reverberates. For the first time, the Berliner Philharmoniker are releasing a complete edition of these recordings.

When Mozart took up the popular genre of the serenade, it was to transcend it and lend it new lustre. A festive masterpiece of simplicity and emotion, his Gran Partita quickly became a genuine ‘hit’! Thanks to the distinctive, spellbinding timbres of their period instruments, the members of the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin give a unique flavour to these two extraordinary serenades, over which there blows – as it were – a tremendous wind of freedom.

As part of our Furtwängler project, we release his Beethoven recordings made with the Wiener Philharmoniker between 1947 and 1952, including two symphonies and the Coriolan overture.