Beethoven: Symphony No. 5, Violin Concerto. Wolfgang Schneiderhan, Berlin Philharmonic, Wilhelm Furtwängler. Deutsche Grammophon “Eloquence – Dokumente” 474 728-2 (2003?) barcode 028947472827
Deutsche Grammophon “Eloquence – Dokumente” 477 5030 (2004?) barcode 028947750307:
Recorded 27 May 1947 (Symphony), 18 May 1953 (Concerto)
Belongs to the collection of the serious Furwänglerite
Originally posted on Amazon.com, 1 August 2014
There are 12 or 13 (one is dubious) recordings of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony left by Furtwängler, three made in the studio (1926 and 1937 both with Berlin, and 1954 with Vienna) and the rest live performances. Among those, his wartime performance from 30 June 1943 is a famous one and considered by many Furtwängler fans to be his supreme achievement (
reissued to CD in 1989 in DG’s series of Furtwängler’s wartime recordings, on DG 427 775-2 barcode 028942777521), but there are two extant recordings from performances given two days apart, on 25 and 27 May 1947, which I consider to be even better. The one from May 25 was a hugely significant performance, since it was Furtwängler’s first post-war concert after the ban on his conducting activities had been lifted
. It was released, to limit myself to the “serious” labels, by Music & Arts in 1993, CD-789, barcode 017685078927, by Tahra in 1997, FURT 1016, barcode 3504129101619
, and more recently by Audite on their 2009 Furtwängler set, 21.403 “Live in Berlin – The Complete RIAS Recordings”, barcodes 735084493904 and 402143214038, said to have been made from the original tapes (but the sonic superiority isn’t always obvious with some of the Tahra transfers of the same material)
. All those editions come with the Pastoral Symphony given at the same concert.
This one, the one from 27 May, was first released only in 1961 on DG LPM 18 724 (paired with Egmont-Overture, link to listing on Discogs.com): Deutsche Grammophon desperately needed “posthumous” Beethoven recordings of Furtwängler to counter EMI’s studio versions. The invaluable online discography of Youngrok Lee is the reference here: Apparently its first CD release, at least in the West, was on an 8-CD tribute to Furtwängler, 
“Das Vermächtnis”, 439 832-2 (the reissue of a previous 10-LP set from circa 1980, also listed on Discogs.com), circa 1994-95 based on label number, for which I find no listing on the Amazons, even on Amazon Germany, probably because it was a “Sonderaufgabe” / special edition for the German book-and-music retailer Zweitausendeins, and the set doesn’t have a barcode (but it exists, I’ve seen it on eBay… and purchased it).
DG doesn’t provide a copyright year of release for this individual CD reissue here, first on DG 474 728-2, then DG 477 5030, but label numbering would indicate respectively 2003 and 2004. It is the later edition that I have, and it comes with no liner notes, just a listing of releases on the same “Eloquence” collection, and very scanty information about dating.
It is easy and tempting to associate extra-musical considerations to Furtwängler’s wartime performances, to view, in the power, intensity, violence and rage even that he invested into his music-making, the reflection of the surrounding situation – whether you think of it as a celebration of the triumph of Nazism, as a revolt against it, or as a desperate rage to salvage German culture no matter what.
But the same power, intensity and rage are at play in the two 1947 5ths, even marginally more intense it seems to me, so it’s an effect of what? The rage of having survived no matter what and of being allowed to return to the podium? The rage of having been barred from it for two years? Ultimately I think it is pretty otiose to try and find in the surrounding circumstances an “explanation” for the music-making. What counts is the music-making, whatever the circumstances, and it is better to listen to what the music offers with no consideration of the surrounding circumstances rather than let your listening be influenced by your knowledge of the circumstances.
The 1943 performance is undoubtedly a great and hugely intense one – but the two from 1947 are even marginally more. One difference lies in the sonics. 1943 has strong background noise and is very congested and saturated (which, paradoxically, may in fact contribute to the impression of intensity, independent of the purely interpretive parameters). Comparing the two performances of 1947, it’s amazing the sonic differences two days apart. The version published by Audite, from tapes kept at the West German radio (RIAS), recorded at Furtwängler’s usual venue with the Berlin Philharmonic in those years, the Titania Palast (the old Philharmonic hall had been bombed during the war), sounds very metallic. Tahra’s transfer of the same is less so, but also somewhat more muffled and opaque. DG’s version of two days later sounds fuller and more natural, making it simply not credible that the two performances would have been recorded at the same venue, with same microphone placement. About this, here is what Furtwängler’s discographer Youngrok Lee says:
“This performance has been known as recorded at Titania Palast, but it is said that a latest inquiry showed the recording was done at Masurenallee, Berlin. The hall was occupied by USSR Army, and this performance was at studio with audience.”
DG, even in this reissue, always credited Titania-Palast, but Lee’s explanation makes much more sense of the sonic difference. The most comfortable listening experience is with DG, and it is a big asset in the favor of this version, although, in truth, nothing is perfect in this lowly world: the more exposed brass and timps of the Audite transfers, even to the point of shrillness, lend more devastating impact to the climaxes of the three last movements, and the DG transfer and performance sounds somewhat dulled in comparison. But this will probably not be perceptible by listeners hearing only the DG recording.
Interpretively, the two 1947 performances are understandably very similar, although there ARE some differences between them, that are not all a matter of sonic perspective. One can always split hair over this and that detail, but both performances are hugely powerful, with an almost Toscaninian drive and explosiveness in the first movement, and even marginally more so in the DG performance of the 27th (but be reassured, Toscanini, from 1939 to 1952, was way harder-driven), past the various statements of the opening “fate” motive and its transformation in the second subject, in which Furtwängler uses the customary rhetorical device of pacing them slower than the rest, which, depending on one’s taste, one may call “expressive” or “emphatic” – I think it’s both (Toscanini here was always absolutely “straight” and violently punching). Ensemble isn’t always perfect – Furtwängler’s downbeat was notoriously imprecise, and on the 27th you can hear that the clarinet plays slightly before the strings of the first statement of the second part of the fate motife (F-F-F-B). The first movement repeat, at 1:40, seems pasted in from another take – there is a small change of sonic perspective that betrays the splice – but apparently not from the first time around, since that small clarinet glitch doesn’t reoccur. Or maybe they pasted in only the first part of the fate motive from the first time (G-G-G-E flat), and I can’t detect the seam back into the actual performance. Anyway, those small glitches are of no importance, in view of the performance’s immense power and intensity.
Two days apart, Furtwängler conducted one of his swiftest (25 May, TT 10:30) and one of his most expansive (27 May, 11:05) second movements, but those objective differences aren’t really perceptible, because his approach was always very deliberate anyway, way below Beethoven’s metronome mark of 92 eighth-notes/mn, and turning the composer’s “Andante con moto” into a stately Adagio or Largo. Likewise with the 3rd movement, by no stretch of the imagination near the “Allegro” called for by Beethoven, and obviously conceived by Furtwängler as a moment of pent-up energy leading to the explosion of the Finale. That, in turn, in both performances of the 25th and 27th, is the most explosive and fiery of all seven Furtwängler performances that I’ve heard. Again, the sonic perspective and more dulled brass and timps of DG may not convey as much devastating impact (nor shrillness) as on the Audite transfers of the performance of the 25th, but this is only perceived on comparison, and I think any listener with only the DG version will perceive only the fire, drive and power.
I haven’t heard an ideal performance of Beethoven’s 5th by Furtwängler. The ideal performance would be any of the two from 1947 with the sonics of the studio 1954 recording, the exposed brass and timps of the May 25 performance but without the shrillness. The ideal Furtwängler Beethoven 5th is the one that inhabits your imagination. But second to that, I’d be tempted to say that the (imperfect) combination of sonics and interpretation, all in all, favor this one.
There are five extant recordings by Furtwängler of the Violin Concerto, and only two with Menuhin were published during his lifetime: the one made in Lucerne in August 1947 (Testament SBT 1109, link will open new tab to my review) and the remake with the Philharmonia Orchestra in April 1953 (first CD reissue in 1984 on EMI CDC 7 47119 2 – see my review for a listing of subsequent reissues and remasterings). There is also a live performance with Menuhin from September 1947 that is on the Audite RIAS set mentione above, and a wartime performance with Berlin Philharmonic Concertmaster Erich Röhn from January 1944 (first CD release in 1989 on DG 427 780-2).
This one with Wolfgang Schneiderhan, a performance given on 18 May 1953 at the Titania-Palast, is Furtwängler’s last recording of the Concerto, a month after the EMI studio recording with Menuhin and the Philharmonia Orchestra in Kingsway Hall. Its first release was in 1965, on DGG LPM 18 855. Youngrok Lee’s Furtwängler discography indicates (a touch imprecisely) that it was first CD reissued on the label Amadeo, in fact in a 6-CD set from 1990 devoted to Wolfgang Schneiderhan, 431 343-2 barcode 028943134323:
The set and its complete contents are listed on Discogs.com. There’s a puzzling fact about this performance and the date (18 May ’53) provided by DG. Schneiderhan’s first studio recording of the Concerto was made with the same Berlin Philharmonic under the direction of Paul van Kempen, now on DG’s “Original Masters” 5-CD set “Wolfgang Schneiderhan – The 1950s Concerto Recordings” (477 5263 barcode 028947752639). The dates given for that recording are 17-21 May 1953, and the recording venue the Jesus-Christus Church in Berlin, the Philharmonic’s usual recording location in those years. So what? In the day Schneiderhan was recording the Concerto with van Kempen and in the evening performing it in concert with Furtwängler ? And Van Kempen was acting as Furt’s “repetiteur”?
The orchestral performance certainly sounds Furtwänglerian, spacious but never giving the impression of dragging, and with Furtwängler’s typically powerful orchestral tutti – marginally more so even than with the Philharmonia with Menuhin, although that may be in part an effect of the sonics, especially in the first movement. The sonics are here excellent, as good as and possibly even slightly better than on the EMI (Menuhin) and DG studio (Schneiderhan-Van Kempen) recordings, with a soloist a little less prominent than on EMI but even better orchestral presence, although the opening timps are almost inaudible. The concert also had its share of stage noises and audience coughs, but somehow I haven’t found them too intrusive (except for the cougher at the end of the slow movement: he deserved to be strangled).
Yes but. The same interpretive parameters, the spaciousness of tempos, the orchestral muscularity, are also present on Schneiderhan’s studio recording with Van Kempen. Certainly, the orchestral introduction unfolds a touch more spaciously with Van Kempen, there is a drive to the concert performance that is not found on the studio recording, so you easily think, “yes, Van Kempen drags, Furtwängler has that touch of drive that makes the difference”. Not so simple, because on the other hand the timings of the Van Kempen version, during the most part of the first movement, never stray by more than two seconds from those of the Philharmonia studio recording with Menuhin. It is only after the reentry of the violin on the recapitulation at 15:07 (Menuhin is there in 15:06) that Schneiderhan, in the studio, tends to be slightly more ample than Menuhin, but then it is a choice of the soloist more than of the conductor. So it isn’t so much the difference between one conductor and another one, as of studio vs the excitement of a live performance.
Hearing the first movement, I would almost have been inclined to question whether this was really Furtwängler conducting, and if DG’s attribution hadn’t been a mis-attribution from the very start. But a few clues do seem to confirm that this is indeed Furtwängler conducting in the evening the same Concerto that the performers had been recording in the day under Van Kempen. The first and unmistakable one or the few imprecisions of ensemble playing (for instance on the entry of the big string recitative at the end of the slow movement), testifying again to Furwängler’s unclear beat. The other is the shaping of the two remaining movements. In his past recordings, the one with Röhn in 1944 and the two with Menuhin in 1947, Furtwängler conducted a very spacious Larghetto, running from 10:12 (Menuhin in Berlin) to 10:37 (Menunin in Lucerne). For reference, Kreisler and Barbirolli in 1936 played it in 10:05, Szigeti and Walter in New York in 1947 in 9:19, and Heifetz with Toscanini in 1940 in 8:08. In their 1953 Philharmonia remake Menuhin and Furtwängler strayed a little from their earlier selves and were marginally more flowing, at 9:23, although this is more an information given by the clock than anything truly perceptible when listening: the impression remains of a very appeased unfolding.
At 10:19, this Schneiderhan-Furtwängler performance is very consistent with Furtwängler’s other versions. Van Kempen’s recording isn’t. In fact, running 11:14, it is the slowest I’ve ever encountered. I don’t think it is conceivable that Van Kempen would be recording the slowest Larghetto ever, past and future included, in the day and adopting such a different approach at the concert in the evening. No, it is a case where Schneiderhan and the orchestra were recording the slowest Larghetto ever during the day with one conductor, and playing it at a still-expansive-but-more-flowing-pace in the evening with another conductor.
It does show one thing: the difference between a recognized great conductor and one considered, by general consensus, no more than competent, is, sometimes, only a matter of the imagination. Listen “blind” to the first two movements, and the conductor of the Philharmonia recording with Menuhin is no greater than the conductor of the Berlin studio recording with Schneiderhan – or the latter is not lesser than the former. You can even say that daring such a held-back Larghetto is the stuff of a great conductor. But the conductor of the May 18 live performance does have this touch of added drive in the first movement over those of the two studio recordings. It is even more pronounced in the Finale. It unfolds along the very same and unhurried lines as the Philharmonia recording and the timings up to the cadenza are only three seconds apart, but on comparison Menuhin’s very legato playing and more laid-back approach – and Furtwängler’s more mellow shaping of the orchestral outbursts – elicit a certain squareness verging on boredom, while Schneiderhan’s more crisp and bouncy playing and the greater muscularity of the tutti never gives the impression of dragging (Menuhin and Furtwängler were more bouncy and muscular in their 1947 Lucerne recording). But again, talk about Dr Jekill in the day and Mr Hyde at night (in fact, it’s the other way around): with Van Kempen, Schneiderhan recorded the most pedestrian Finale I’ve ever encountered, pushing the unhurried approach of Furtwängler to its extreme. Maybe Van Kempen was trying to be “Furtwänglerian” – but he managed here only to be “Klempererian”.
One thing is sure, it IS schneiderhan playing. Not that the live performance is identical with the studio recording with Van Kempen – in fact, it isn’t as clean, the violin tone in the opening scale and in other spots is a bit wiry, there are a few minuscule intonation slips in the Larghetto, although this is not overall very significant.
But there are those long trills in the first movement leading to downward scales, where most fiddlers, including Menhin, segue from one to the other with an unwritten grace note: not so Schneiderhan, who goes straight in, both here in performance and in the recording with Van Kempen. There’s also the cadenzas he plays. Schneiderhan has left an important mark on the cadenzas of Beethoven’s Violin Concertos. Beethoven wrote no cadenzas for his Violin Concerto, but did write one for the arrangement of it he made in the form of a Piano Concerto: and those cadenzas (there are four in all, two in the slow movement) are wild, integral with accompanying timpani as in the opening of the Concerto. So Schneiderhan made a great arrangement for violin (and timps) of those cadenzas, one whose greatness is that it doesn’t try to reproduce the polyphonic piano, which a solo violin simply can’t do (others – Kremer, Kopatchinskaja – have tried, and failed), but adapts it to the specific resources of the instrument, making it sound, truly, as if they were the cadenzas Beethoven had written, had he written violin cadenzas. Those cadenzas deserve to have much more currency which they do, on a par with Kreisler’s superb offering. They are what Schneiderhan plays in his 1962 remake with the Berlin Philharmonic again, but now under Eugen Jochum (on DG “The Original 447 403-2, barcode 028944740325).
But no so, not yet, in 1953: there, he plays, in both the concert and the recording, Joachmim’s in the first movement, and with the same two small cuts – Joachim’s cadenzas were more often encountered in the early days of the recording than today where Kreisler’s have become very much part of the “Urtext”, they are pretty wild in their own right, not very Beethovenian, sounding like cadenzas Ysaye might have written. It’s only half of Joachim’s cadenza that Schneiderhan plays in the Finale however (the short transition to the return of the orchestra is, I suppose, his own) and not Joachim’s at the end of the slow movement, so I’m supposing again that it is his own.
What I like about Schneiderhan’s playing in the concert, despite the small tonal and intonational glitches, is that, within the broad tempos, it is not just sweet and lyrical like Menuhin’s, but virile and forceful – and even a touch more so, in the first movement where things are comparable, in the live performance than he in the studio, if only because of the slightly more forward and vivid placement of the soloist.
That said, this version is only of specialist interest. If you are going to have only one version of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto by Schneiderhan, the choice is easy: it should be his stereo remake with Jochum, not so much for the stereo as for the “Beethoven” cadenzas. They alone make this recording an indispensable one in any serious Beethoven collection. The “slowest Larghetto ever” of his previous recording with Van Kempen is certainly tempting, but it is offset by the “slowest Finale ever”.
Now, if you are going to have only one version of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto conducted by Furtwängler, it’s hard not to be with one of Menuhin’s, and the one from August 1947 in Lucerne is the best one, especially in Testament’s great remastering, which makes it sound better than the 1953 Philharmonia recording. The 1944 performance with Erich Röhn is also a strong contender, with fine sound for the vintage and one of the most beautifully conceived first movements, in its architecture of tension and repose, that I’ve ever heard, although the Larghetto isn’t on the same plane as Menuhin’s in Lucerne. Anyway, the devoted Furtwänglerian will not miss this performance with Schneiderhan, and its companion the 5th Symphony.