CD-2002: Symphony No. 9 in D minor, 'Choral' - Beethoven
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Hjördis Schymber, Lisa Tunell, Gösta Bäckelin, Sigurd Björling
Stockholm Konsertförenings Orkester
Musikalita Sällskapets Kör
Conducted by Wilhelm Furtwängler
Rec. Konserthuset, Stockholm, 8 December 1943
Original CD transfer from acetate discs by Music and Arts, 1993
XR remastering by Andrew Rose, April 2007
Download ID: 295104
(Duration 73'31")
Scroll down for covers and cue sheet downloads
Play
sample movement:
Furtwängler conducts Beethoven's Ninth
A performance of the Ninth was always "a
sacred occasion for Furtwängler since his
earliest days," Berta Geissmar has written. "During the Great War, while he was conductor
in Mannheim, he never allowed this
work in his programmes. It was only after
1918 that he conducted again this great masterpiece, which he treats as a holy ritual.
In later years...the Ninth was given by
Furtwängler only on special occasions. After
he had succeeded Richard Strauss as a
conductor of the Berlin State Opera concerts
in 1920, a performance of the Choral
Symphony was always the feature of the last
concert of the season. When he became the
successor to Nikisch at the Leipzig
Gewandhaus and Berlin Philharmonic concerts,
it became the tradition that the Pension
Fund Concert of both orchestras was a
performance of the Ninth Symphony, which
was given at the end of the regular cycle and
was sold out for months ahead..."
The same was later the case with the Pension
Fund Concerts of the Vienna Philharmonic,
while the impetus for the historic performance
of the Ninth given in Bayreuth on July
29, 1951, was the reopening of the Festival
and the reconsecration of its Festspielhaus.
Nowhere in the recordings extant by
Furtwängler is there a more cogent reaffirmation
of Kierkegaard's dictum "Truth is
subjectivity" than in the existing performances
of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.
Like the recordings of Fifth, these span the
three great periods of Furtwängler' s musical
life - the pre-war heights of technical assurance
(the re-creation of sound through the
combined resources of mind and heart), the
war years during which a powerful sense of
time and history and rage tempered technique
and the post-war years in which all
that had gone before was recast through a
hard-won serenity and sense of perspective.
Nine of Furtwängler's performances of the
Ninth have been made public - all from live
performances - plus the rehearsal of the
third and fourth movements from the 1954
Bayreuth Festival. The Ninth was a work he
never attempted in the studio, perhaps because
of the importance he attached to it as
a communal experience.
Restoration note: This historic live recording was originally recorded on delicate acetate discs, which have over the years suffered wear and damage. Despite my best efforts, some surface noise will still be evident in some quieter passages, and a degree of mild distortion is evident
through the first 9-10 minutes of the recording. I have done all I can to minimise this and trust it will not interfere with your listening to this magnificent recording.
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