Music & Arts CD-289, 79:25 [Distrib. by Albany] ****:
This spacious reading of the valedictory A German Requiem of Brahms by Wilhelm Furtwaengler from Stockholm (19 November 1948) exists, along with two other surviving sound documents, as a testament to the conductor’s devotion to a work that must have held great spiritual significance for him in the postwar years. A convinced Brahms acolyte, Furtwaengler sought to reconcile the intense passions in the Brahms oeuvre as they manifested themselves in classical, “objective” form. Stockholm provided a kind of politically neutral ground for the conductor, given his stressful period of de-nazification tribunals. Musically, he had a solid chorus, two competent singers (though definitely not the league of Hotter, Schwarzkopf, Seefried, and Fischer-Dieskau who supported his efforts in Vienna and Lucerne), and a responsive, if sub-par, orchestra. But Furtwaengler could elicit superb playing in any ensemble by dint of his charisma and his innate, spiritual dedication.
As contemporary conductor David Randolph has confessed, “As the years pass, my tempos in the Brahms become slower and slower.” So, too, Furtwaengler imposes a monumental leisure on the brooding canvas, though he maintains a tyrannical tension on the often four-square measures. Furtwaengler lends both an incredible weight and tragic compassion to the second movement, “Denn alles Fleisch ist wie Gras,” which perhaps makes the structure of the Requiem top-heavy. A terrible tension and mortal urgency saturates the reading, the emotions on a par with the conductor’s famed realization of Beethoven’s Ninth from wartime Germany 1942. The tympani makes its presence known throughout the opening intonation of baritone Soennerstedt’s third-movement plaint for Divine guidance. The fortissimo cadences quite explode with passion, moving inexorably to the huge pedal point on D after having passed through the theme that informs Dvorak’s Cello Concerto. The last chord holds on almost beyond human endurance.
How Lovely is Thy Dwelling Place comes as a positive relief from the anguish of the prior two movements, but even here the sweeping bass figures vibrate dire hints, the tenors particularly passionate; the ensemble, however, not always letter-perfect. Some unearthly, detached chords prior to the rather solemn close to this movement, which was supposed to bring consolation. Furtwaengler takes the soprano movement very slowly; but even so, soloist Lindberg-Torlind sounds intimidated, tentative, out of her depth. Her plodding intonation becomes downright wooden at moments, the upper notes bleached and scraped, barely unshattered. Too because, the individual wind, horn, and string entries have a Brahmsian gravitas we wish were applied to better vocal results. An amazing two responsorial chords open the contrapuntal sixth movement, reminding us of our mortal limits. A lovely moment from the baritone in his doubt, the chromatic line descending and weaving, serpentine, all towards the “augenblick” of life’s transience. The music then swells with incredible fury, a volcano of spiritual protest, not for the faint of heart. More hurtling thunderbolts from above, and the music cascades into its frenzied, taunting of Death itself, “Where is thy sting?” with a vengeance, the tremolandi threatening to race off the musical page. The Red Sea parts, and the sopranos and tenors take us to a muscular, many-layered Elysium, the moral victory having been won.
The grinding first chord of the final movement, “Selig sind die Toten,” almost chokes with human frailty and compassion, as the music extends itself to the tenors and sopranos’ fevered attempts at human consolation. The Stockholm string line literally sears the soul. In rounded periods, the music shapes itself as a series of sorely graduated sighs or wringing, deep breaths, a de profudis of earnest humanity. This might well be a requiem for a fallen Europe, the Fall of Civilization.
–Gary Lemco
