Sturm Symphony
Ulisses Papa | Santa Mariana, Parana, Brazil | 07/25/2007
(5 out of 5 stars)
"What would be as a result if I could merge Bruckner and Schopenhauer, with a slight touch of the darkest of Mahler and Wagner? Surely it would be Wilhelm Furtwängler. And when I utter this, I have his First Symphony in mind.
It's beyond any prescriptive massive symphonic nature; truly, Furtwängler sounds as if he were the last Romanticist on earth, such is his urgency in swearing positively to the last two centuries legacy in Romanticism assets. He actually epitomizes through an extensive ocean of gloomy chromaticism what he learned from those composers.
This symphony is more characteristically Sturm und Drang, above all, with its tremendous interrupted climaxes, culminating at a gigantic counterpointed final movement, perhaps the most crafted since Bruckner's Fifth's last part.
Furtwängler didn't write many symphonies, only three. He needn't to compose more than these. All light and darkness were contained in such a small number of pieces. He embraced beyond expectation (at least for a 20th century composer) with these huge three. And all his cosmos began with this First."
To out-bruckner Bruckner
JJA Kiefte | Tegelen, Nederland | 12/01/2009
(2 out of 5 stars)
"Learning to listen to a complete Bruckner symphony, with its slow, solemn harmonic evolvement and seemingly endless string of adagios takes some time. But, when you do take your time, the fruits may be manifold and rewarding.
Furtwängler the conductor, was a Bruckner specialist (he conducted the adagio of the seventh when Hitler's death was announced in 1945) and Furtwängler the composer could not free himself from Bruckner's looming presence. In this symphony, which took almost four decades (!) to compose, Furtwängler out-bruckners Bruckner in almost every way; the extraordinary length (the opening largo lasts almost 31 minutes, the finale takes well over 26 minutes to come to terms with itself), the snail like development, the choral-like brass eruptions etc. But where Bruckner had something to say, who came up with attractive and original thematic material and was a master in building tension, Furtwängler just rambles on in a way that can only be described as utterly boring, the loudness of some passages not being able to hide the emptiness of the material. A telling fact is that after Furtwängler and the Berlin Philharmonic had once rehearsed the symphony in 1943, Furtwängler was so disappointed with his brainchild, that he immediately withdrew it. Rather than changing "so many fundamental things (...) that are in need of alteration", Furtwängler started work on a new symphony (which, is indeed much, much better) and, although he continued tinkering with the first, he never seriously considered it good enough for perfance. Listening to the cd one can understand Furtwängler's misgivings. If you want to know what Furtwängler the composer could do, listen to the second symphony (Barenboim on Teldec), if you want to know what Bruckner is all about, turn to Bruckner."
Track Listings (2) - Disc #1