Wilhelm Furtwängler - The Decca Legacy - CD

Ludwig van Beethoven: Wilhelm Furtwängler - The Decca Legacy version on 3CD in Standard edition. This particular edition was published in Europe in publishing company Decca on 13. October 2021.

Two legendary studio recordings and the 1951 Munich Concerto: a small but fine legacy of Decca by one of the greatest conductors of the 20th century, Wilhelm Furtwängler. Wilhelm Furtwängler's performances released by Decca have been issued in small and large compilations, but never in this complete format. These include a 1948 studio recording of Brahms' Second Symphony with the London Philharmonic, a 1951 studio recording of Franck's Symphony with the Vienna Philharmonic, and finally a concert by the Vienna Philharmonic on tour with Furtwängler in Munich, featuring Beethoven's Overture to Coriolanus, Schumann's First Symphony and Bruckner's Fourth Symphony. Each recording is valuable in its own way. Bruckner's has been released by Decca for the first time on the Eclipse LP series, and offers a fascinating comparison with the performance of the Viennese and Furtwängler a week earlier in Stuttgart, which is widely available, but Schumann's First is unique in the conductor's discography: majestic and brilliantly dramatised, as one might expect, but not lacking the fire of a work the composer wrote in less than a week. Furtwängler may have been more at home in concerts than in the studio, but he knew and appreciated the value of studio recordings and maintained good relations with radio engineers in Berlin. He was more difficult for the Decca team, but Brahms's Second Symphony from Kingsway Hall remains a characteristic example of his art, more subdued than his other interpretations but fluid and lyrical. Franck, on the other hand, is even more distinguished by an inspired rubato, again a valued quality in performances of late Romantic music today. With a new essay by Rob Cowan on the context and qualities of these great interpretations, this new Eloquence set is the definitive collection of Furtwängler's legacy for Decca.

Album spans genres Classical and Romantic.