Beethoven - Symphony No.5 & Egmont Ouverture & Grosse Fuge - Wilhelm Furtwängler - BPO - UCGG 9016 SACD-SHM.jp (2011) SACD rip via PS3 to iso (2.43GB) | Only 2ch Mono single-layer | Originally Deutsche Grammophon 1961 | Scans | DR11 | Classical Emil Berliner Studio DSD remaster (2011) This recording comes from the 2nd concert, with the same program, conducted by Furtwängler on his return to the podium of the Berlin Philharmonic after the war. The interpretation is very different from the 5th of 1943. The 1st movement is more an expression of conflict & struggle than the tragedy expressed in the wartime performance. Suitably, the last movement is a strong, heroic affirmation & triumph. The Grosse Fugue is a visionary performance of a work not usually part of the orchestral repertory. It is an arrangement for string orchestra of work written for string quartet. It is among Beethoven's last works &, I believe, particularly well suited to Furtwängler's approach to this composer's music. A grand interpretation that I have never heard a string quartet perform in a way that can match the sheer dimension of this great work MWC says: There is another version of this recording: it might simply be a re-issue of this same remaster, but I don't know: cat No UCGG 9507 (2018). German tape, in 1947, was the best quality tape in the world. This remaster of what was a recording so detailed it picked up chair squeaks, coughing & footseps (the Polydor CD version) seems now to be more free of such extraneous noises. Such are the wonders of modern editing. All other masters of this recording tone down the Bass because the tympanis saturate low res formats. On this remaster the bass is still slightly muddy but no one could ever call this bass shy! I think this just might be the best this old recording has ever sounded. Someone needs to persuade Alf on HRM to set-up his system to play SACD iso (I believe he now has a DSD DAC) to hear this! Whats to say about the 5th we all know it so well. Furtwängler's perfomances of it have been reference recordings since the 1920's. In summation maybe the best performance ever, a really great recording, especialyl for 1947, but a noisy nuisance of an audience. Was Furtwängler driven to excell in this performance through trying to instill in the audience some repect? Leading up to the years of World War II, & during that conflict, Furtwängler, because he remained in Germany (other prominent musicians went into exile), was branded a Nazi (or certainly a member of the Nazi Party). Although, post-war, he was cleared of such associations, such a stigma dogged his career for quite some time. Menuhin, a Jew, worked with Furtwängler in the conductor’s last years. Pre-war, though, he had refused to do so. Furtwängler explained his actions thus: ‘I knew Germany was in a terrible crisis. I felt responsible for German music, & it was my task to survive this crisis, as much as I could. The concern that my art was misused for propaganda had to yield to the greater concern that German music be preserved, that music be given to the German people by its own musicians. These people, the compatriots of Bach & Beethoven, of Mozart & Schubert, still had to go on living under the control of a regime obsessed with total war. No one who did not live here himself in those days can possibly judge what it was like.’ Available here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B004VN7VBI/?tag=sacdinfocom08-21 and here: https://elusivedisc.com/beethoven-symphony-no-5-japanese-import-shm-sacd/ Wilhelm Furtwangler 1886 - 1952 Tracks: 01-Beethoven: Sym.5 1. Allegro con brio - 7:52 02-Beethoven: Sym.5 2. Andante con moto - 10:59 03-Beethoven: Sym.5 3. Allegro - 5:48 04-Beethoven: Sym.5 4. Allegro - 8:03 05-Beethoven: »Egmont« op.84 Ouverture - 9:01 06-Beethoven: Grosse Fuge, op.133 - 18:41 Musicians: Berliner Philharmoniker Wilhelm Furtwängler (Furtwangler) Recorded at Titania-Palast in Berlin: 1947 Symphony No.5 & Egmont Ouverture 1952 Grosse Fuge http://www.filefactory.com/folder/4a9727447715ade9 Checksums for iso: MD5: a0529ccd3502e2f35d45a16a6c4a8baf *BERLINER PHILHARMONIKER WILHELM FURTWANGLER - BEETHOVEN SYMPHONY NO.5 EGMONT OUVERTURE GROSSE FUGE.iso SFV: BERLINER PHILHARMONIKER WILHELM FURTWANGLER - BEETHOVEN SYMPHONY NO.5 EGMONT OUVERTURE GROSSE FUGE.iso E142BB09