Bruckner:Symphony No. 9/Wagner:Tristan Prelude & Liebestod

Bruckner:Symphony No. 9/Wagner:Tristan Prelude & Liebestod

On this CD:

1. Symphony No. 9 in D Minor (Unfinished) (Löwe version; Carragan version), WAB 109
Composed by Anton Bruckner
Performed by Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra
Conducted by Wilhelm Furtwangler

2. Tristan und Isolde, opera, WWV 90
Composed by Richard Wagner
Performed by Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra
Conducted by Wilhelm Furtwangler

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com essential recording
Furtwängler's connection with Bruckner's Ninth Symphony went back to the dawn of his career: in fact, it was the featured work on the program with which he made his symphonic conducting debut in 1907, at the age of 20. But only one of Furtwängler's performances of the Ninth was ever recorded, and this is it--a soulful reading with the Berlin Philharmonic from a concert given on October 7, 1944, in the dark final year of World War II. Furtwängler was always, in his interpretations of Bruckner, at least, closer to the Apocalypse than the Elysian Fields, and that is certainly the case here. There is an urgency to the account that is palpable through all three of the symphony's movements. It's particularly apparent in the scherzo, which comes across with a ferocity that is not wildness but something far more chilling. The intensity of vision in Furtwängler's conception of the first movement is equally remarkable, as is the groping, almost glacial way he conducts the Adagio, probing the limits of sustainable sound. Apart from some ragged ensemble in the brass and occasional fits of poor intonation in the winds, the playing is on a very high level, and the sound, while veiled, conveys both the tonal beauty of the Philharmonic's realization and the charged atmosphere generated by the performance. --Ted Libbey

Album Description
"This is the only Furtwängler Bruckner Ninth preserved in recorded form... [it] has remained one of Furtwängler's most universally admired performances for more than twenty-five years when it was first issued by DG... The conductor's expected broad phrasing and majestic scope are combined here with an immense raw power, crushing at times in its

intensity. As is typical of Furtwängler, the orchestral sound is built from the bottom up, with a firm bass and cello line consistently underpinning everything else." -Henry Fogel in Fanfare "...this famous broadcast - which, by the way, sounds better than ever in M&A's transfer from Magnetophon tapes - is unique among Furtwängler Bruckner recordings in that it communicates a profound and distrubing unrest. True, there are moments of trance-like repose, especially in the Adagio; but the climaxes have a wrenching fierceness that will shock those who know Furtwängler's Bruckner only from his [other] live recordings... This is a great and disorientating release." -Robert Cowan in CD Review (U.K.)

Bruckner:Symphony No. 9/Wagner:Tristan Prelude & Liebestod, Music, Anton Bruckner, Richard Wagner, Wilhelm Furtwängler, Berliner Philharmoniker, Classical, German/Austrian Romantic Opera, Opera, Romantic Symphony, Symphonic

Bruckner:Symphony No. 9/Wagner:Tristan Prelude & Liebestod

Google

Music Review: