Berlin Philharmonica Archive

BRUCKNER: Symphony No. 4 in E-flat Major “Romantic”; WAGNER: Parsifal – Good Friday Music – Berlin Philharmonic Orch. (Wagner)/ Vienna Philharmonic Orch./ Wilhelm Furtwaengler – Praga Digitals mono

by Audiophile Audition | Apr 2, 2017 | SACD & Other Hi-Res Reviews

Two Furtwaengler post-War performances remind us of his spiritual commitment to the German tradition. BRUCKNER: Symphony No. 4 in E-flat Major “Romantic”; WAGNER: Parsifal – Good Friday Music – Berlin Philharmonic Orch. (Wagner)/ Vienna Philharmonic Orch./ Wilhelm Furtwaengler – Praga Digitals mono SACD PRD/DSD 350 130, 77:32  (3/24/17)  [Distr. by Harmonia mundi/PIAS] ****: Wilhelm Furtwaengler’s relationship to Bruckner remains intricate and controversial, in that he championed in this music derived from church modes and chorales perhaps as an anodyne to the colossal turmoil of the conductor’s life and times. Praga remasters a live Stuttgart performance (20 October 1951) of the 1874 “Romantic” Symphony, which – typical of Bruckner – underwent revisions until 1888, of which Furtwaengler opts for those of Robert Haas, 1878 and 1880. Despite the genial intent of the composition – perhaps best captured by the various readings by Bruno Walter – Furtwaengler imposes his idiosyncratic sense of tragedy upon the work, providing an epic intensity where bucolic transparency might prove more apt. The Symphony itself takes its cues from bucolic traditions in Romanticism generally and from Schubert in particular. The “hunt” motif saturates much of the structure, while large, expansive periods congregate and disperse over the course […]