Wilhelm Furtwängler (January 25, 1886 November 30,
1954) was a German
conductor and
composer, widely considered one of the greatest
conductors of the 20th century.
Biography
Furtwängler was born in Berlin
into a
prominent family. His father
Adolf was an
archaeologist, his mother a
painter.
Most of his childhood was spent in Munich
, where his
father taught at the university
in that city. He was given a musical
education from an early age, and developed an early love of
Ludwig van Beethoven, a
composer with whom he remained closely associated throughout his
life. Though his chief posthumous fame rests on his work as a
conductor, he was also a composer and regarded himself first and
foremost as such, having in fact first taken up the baton in order
to perform his own works.
By the time of Furtwängler's conducting debut at the age of twenty,
he had written several pieces of music. However, they were not well
received, and that - combined with the financial insecurity of a
career as a composer - led him to concentrate on conducting. At his
first concert, he led the Kaim Orchestra (now the
Munich Philharmonic) in
Anton Bruckner's
Ninth Symphony.
He subsequently held
posts at Munich, Lübeck
, Mannheim
, Frankfurt
, and Vienna
, before
securing a job at the Berlin
Staatskapelle in 1920, and in 1922 at the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra
where he succeeded Arthur Nikisch,
and concurrently at the prestigious Berlin Philharmonic
Orchestra. Later he became music director of the
Vienna Philharmonic
Orchestra, the Salzburg
Festival and the Bayreuth Festival
, which was regarded as the greatest post a
conductor could hold in Germany at the time.
Furtwängler also made a number of appearances as a conductor
abroad. He made his London debut in 1924, and continued to appear
there as late as 1938 to conduct a cycle of
Richard Wagner's
Ring. In 1925 he appeared as
guest conductor of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, and made
return visits in the following two years.
Towards
the end of the war, under extreme pressure from the Nazi Party,
Furtwängler fled to Switzerland
. It was during this troubled period that he
composed what is largely considered his most significant work, the
Symphony No.
2 in E minor. Work
on the symphony was begun in 1944, and carried on into 1945. It was
given its premiere in 1948 by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra
under Furtwängler's direction. Furtwängler and the Philharmonic
recorded the symphony for
Deutsche
Grammophon; the music was much in the tradition of Bruckner and
Gustav Mahler, composed on a grand
scale for very large orchestra with romantic, dramatic themes.
Another important work is the
Symphonic Concerto for Piano
and Orchestra, completed and premiered in 1937 and revised in
1954. Many themes from this work were also incorporated into
Furtwängler's unfinished
Symphony No. 3 in C sharp minor.
He resumed performing and recording following the war, and remained
a popular conductor in Europe, although always under something of a
shadow.
He
died in 1954 in Ebersteinburg, close to Baden-Baden
. He is buried in the Heidelberg
Bergfriedhof. The tenth anniversary
of his death was marked by a concert in the Royal Albert
Hall
, London
, conducted
by his biographer Hans-Hubert
Schönzeler.
Furtwängler is most famous for his performances of Beethoven,
Brahms, Bruckner, and Wagner. However, he was also a champion of
modern music, notably the works of
Paul
Hindemith and
Arnold
Schoenberg, and conducted the world premiere of
Sergei Prokofiev's
Fifth Piano Concerto (with
the composer at the piano) on October 31, 1932 as well as
performances of
Béla Bartók's
Concerto for
Orchestra.
"Third Reich" controversy
Furtwängler's relationship with - and attitude towards -
Adolf Hitler and the
Nazi
Party was a matter of much controversy. In 1934 he was banned
from conducting the premiere of Hindemith's
opera Mathis der
Maler; though some sources claim that Furtwängler resigned
from his post at the Berlin Opera in protest, it is stated by
Frederic Spotts that he was in fact presented with the bald choice
of either resigning all his positions, or being dismissed. In 1936
it seemed possible that he might follow
Erich Kleiber's footsteps into exile when he
was offered the principal conductor's post at the
New York Philharmonic
Orchestra, where he would have succeeded
Arturo Toscanini. Toscanini's biographer
Harvey Sachs wrote that Toscanini
recommended Furtwängler for the position, one of the few times
Toscanini expressed admiration for a fellow conductor. There is
every possibility that Furtwängler would have accepted the post,
but a report from the Berlin branch of the
Associated Press, possibly ordered by
Hermann Göring, said that he was
willing to take up his post at the Berlin Opera once more. This
caused the mood in New York to turn against him; from their point
of view, it seemed that Furtwängler was now a full supporter of the
Nazi Party.
However, Furtwängler never joined the Nazi Party nor did he really
approve of them, much like the composer
Richard Strauss, who made no secret of his
dislike of the Nazis. Furtwängler always refused to give the Nazi
salute, and there is even film footage of him
turning away and wiping his hand with a handkerchief after shaking
the hand of Nazi propaganda chief
Joseph
Goebbels.
Furtwängler conducting in 1942
Furtwängler was treated relatively well by the Nazis; he had a high
profile, and was an important cultural figure, as evidenced by his
inclusion in the
Gottbegnadeten
list ("God-gifted List") of September 1944. Furtwängler in turn
conducted several concerts for the direct benefit of the Nazis: in
February 1938 he conducted the Berlin Philharmonic at a concert
held for the Hitler Youth, and that same year conducted a
performance of Wagner's
Die
Meistersinger in celebration of Hitler's birthday.
Further, contrary to the claims of some writers that he refused to
conduct in occupied countries during the war, he conducted in
Prague in May and November 1940, and again in March 1944 in a
concert marking the fifth anniversary of the German occupation. His
concerts were often broadcast to German troops to raise morale,
though he was limited in what he was allowed to perform by the
authorities. He later said he tried to protect German culture from
the Nazis; it is now believed by some that he used his influence to
help Jewish musicians escape the Third Reich, though his motives
were not, according to some sources, as pure as those of
Oskar Schindler.
Albert Speer claimed that in December
1944 Furtwängler asked whether Germany had any chance of winning
the war.
Speer replied in the negative, and advised
the conductor to flee to Switzerland from possible Nazi retribution. Furtwängler did in
fact escape to Switzerland shortly after a concert in Vienna with the
Vienna Philharmonic on January
28, 1945. At that concert he conducted an account of
Brahms's
Second
Symphony that was caught on tape and is considered one of
his greatest recordings.
At his
denazification trial,
Furtwängler was charged with supporting Nazism by remaining in
Germany, performing at Nazi party functions and with making an
anti-semitic remark against the part-Jewish conductor
Victor de Sabata. However, he was
eventually cleared on all these counts.
As part of his closing remarks at his denazification trial,
Furtwängler said,
- "I knew Germany was in a terrible crisis; I felt responsible
for German music, and 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 and Beethoven, of Mozart and 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.
- "Does Thomas Mann [who was critical
of Furtwängler's actions] really believe that in 'the Germany of
Himmler' one should not be
permitted to play Beethoven? Could he not realize that people never
needed more, never yearned more to hear Beethoven and his message
of freedom and human love, than precisely these Germans, who had to
live under Himmler’s terror? I do not regret having stayed with
them."
(quoted from
John Ardoin's
The
Furtwängler Record)
The violinist
Yehudi Menuhin was
among those in the Jewish music community and the United States who
had a positive view of Furtwängler. In 1933 he had refused to play
with him, but in the late 1940s after a personal investigation
about Furtwängler, he became supportive of him, and performed and
recorded alongside him.
British
playwright Ronald Harwood's play
Taking Sides (1995),
set in 1946 in the American zone of occupied Berlin, is about
U.S. accusations against Furtwängler of having served the Nazi
regime. In 2001 the play was made into a motion picture
directed by
István Szabó and
starring
Harvey Keitel and featuring
Stellan Skarsgård in the role
of Furtwängler.
In 1949 Furtwängler accepted the position of principal conductor of
the
Chicago Symphony
Orchestra. However the orchestra was forced to rescind the
offer under the threat of a boycott from several prominent
musicians including
Vladimir
Horowitz and
Arthur
Rubinstein. According to a
New York Times report,
Horowitz said that he "was prepared to forgive the small fry who
had no alternative but to remain and work in Germany." But
Furtwängler "was out of the country on several occasions and could
have elected to keep out". Rubinstein likewise wrote in a telegram,
"Had Furtwängler been firm in his democratic convictions he would
have left Germany".
Career
Conducting style
Furtwängler had a unique conducting technique. He saw symphonic
music as creations of nature that could only be realised
subjectively into sound. This is why composers such as Beethoven,
Brahms and Bruckner were so central to Furtwängler's repertoire,
because he identified them as great forces of nature. He disliked
Toscanini's approach to the German repertoire. He walked out of a
Toscanini concert once, calling him "a mere time-beater!".
Furtwängler did not have a strong beat, as can be seen in video
recordings
[13424] that show him making awkward, gawky
movements like a medium in a trance. He wished that the sense of
time be established by the players in themselves, as in chamber
music. Furtwängler would then show the orchestra when he wished to
use rubato. His gestures bear seemingly little relationship to the
rhythms of the music, while his physical motions were described as
"like a puppet on a string" by one orchestra member
[13425]. Furtwängler would generally hold his baton
hand closer to his body and his left would be outstretched giving
the expression of the phrase to the orchestra. On occasion he would
violently shake his baton hand when he would get into conducting
fits onstage. In the video above Furtwängler can be seen conducting
Beethoven's Ninth Symphony on April 19, 1942 in celebration of
Hitler's birthday. In the symphony's coda, Furtwängler can be seen
having tremendous fits as he leads the orchestra through the
chorus's final cries of "Götterfunken, Götterfunken!".
Despite, or perhaps because of, this unorthodox style, musicians
were mesmerised by his leadership. His best performances are
characterized by deep, bass-driven sonorities, soaring lyricism,
and wrenching extremes of emotion co-existing with logical cogency.
Neville Cardus wrote in the
Manchester Guardian in 1954 of
Furtwängler's conducting style:
"He did not regard the printed notes of the score as a
final statement, but rather as so many symbols of an imaginative
conception, ever changing and always to be felt and realised
subjectively...Not since Nikisch, of whom he was a disciple, has a
greater personal interpreter of orchestral and opera music than
Furtwängler been heard."
Many commentators and critics regard him as the greatest conductor
in history. However, on the website
Classics Today, critic
David Hurwitz sharply
criticizes what he terms
the Furtwangler wackos, who are
willing to forgive the flaws in even the worst performances led by
the conductor - perhaps implying that just as some speak of a
"Toscanini cult", there also exists a Furtwangler one.
Conductor and pianist
Christoph
Eschenbach has said of Furtwängler that he was a "formidable
magician, a man capable of setting an entire ensemble of musicians
on fire, sending them into a state of ecstasy".
Furtwängler was famous for his exceptional inarticulacy. His pupil
Sergiu Celibidache remembered
that the best he could say was, "Well, just listen" (to the music).
Carl Brinitzer from the German
BBC service tried to interview him, and thought
he had an imbecile before him.
A live recording of a rehearsal with a
Stockholm
orchestra documents hardly anything intelligible,
only hums and mumbling. On the other hand, a collection of
his essays,
On Music, reveals deep thought. Still,
Furtwängler remained highly respected amongst musicians. Even
Arturo Toscanini, usually regarded
as Furtwängler's complete antithesis (and sharply critical of
Furtwängler on political grounds), once said – when asked to name
the world's greatest conductor apart from himself –
"Furtwängler!"
Influences
One of Furtwängler's protegés was
pianist
Karlrobert Kreiten. He was also
an important influence on the pianist/conductor
Daniel Barenboim, of whom Furtwängler's
widow, Elisabeth Furtwängler, said, "Er furtwänglert" ("He
furtwänglers"). Barenboim recently recorded Furtwängler's 2nd
Symphony with the
Chicago
Symphony Orchestra. Other conductors known to speak of
Furtwangler in reverent tones include
Valery Gergiev,
Claudio Abbado,
Sergiu Celibidache,
Christoph Eschenbach,
Alexander Frey,
Eugen
Jochum,
Zubin Mehta,
Kurt Masur and
Christian Thielemann.
George Szell, whose precise and martinet-like
musicianship was in many ways antithetical to Furtwangler's, always
kept a picture of his older colleague in his dressing room. Herbert
von Karajan, who was Furtwangler's most detested rival during his
early career, maintained throughout his life that Furtwangler was
one of the great influences on his music making.
Furtwängler's performances of Beethoven, Bruckner, Brahms and
Wagner remain important reference-points today. His performances
are grounded in the spontaneous flexibility which Wagner referred
to as the 'elastic phrase.'
Notable recordings
There is a huge number of Furtwängler recordings currently
available, mostly live. Many of these were made during
World War II using experimental tape
technology.
After the war they were confiscated by the
Soviet
Union
for decades, and have only recently become widely
available, often on multiple legitimate and illegitimate
labels. In spite of their limitations, the recordings from
this era are widely admired by Furtwängler devotees.
This is only a small selection of some of Furtwängler's most famed
recordings. For more information, see his
discography and
list of currently available recordings. The
French Wilhelm Furtängler Society also has
a list
of recommended recordings.
- Beethoven, Fifth
Symphony, live performance with the Berlin Philharmonic, June 1943 (Classica
d'Oro, Deutsche Grammophon, Enterprise, Music and Arts, Opus Kura,
Tahra)
- Beethoven, Ninth
Symphony, live performance at the re-opening of Bayreuther
Festspiele with Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Elisabeth Höngen, Hans Hopf
and Otto Edelmann. (EMI 1951).
Notable premieres
- Bartók,
First Piano
Concerto, the composer as soloist, Theater Orchestra, Frankfurt
, July 1, 1927
- Schoenberg, Variations for
Orchestra, Op. 31, Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Berlin, December 2,
1928
- Hindemith, suite from
Mathis der Maler, Berlin
Philharmonic Orchestra, Berlin, March 11, 1934
- Richard
Strauss, Four Last
Songs, Kirsten Flagstad as
soloist, Philharmonia Orchestra,
London, May 22,
1950
Notable compositions
For orchestra
Early works
- Overture in E Major, Op. 3 (1899)
- Symphony in D major (1st movement: Allegro) (1902)
- Symphony in B minor (Largo movement) (1908; the principal theme
of this work was used as the leading theme of the 1st movement of
the Symphony No. 1, in the same key)
Mature works
Chamber music
- Piano Quintet (for two violins, viola, cello, and piano) in C
major (1935)
- Violin Sonata No. 1 in D minor (1935)
- Violin Sonata No. 2 in D major (1939)
Choral
(all early works)
- Schwindet ihr dunklen Wölbungen droben (Chorus of
Spirits, from Goethe's Faust)
(1901-1902)
- Religöser Hymnus (1903)
- Te Deum for Choir and Orchestra
(1902-1906) (rev. 1909) (first performed 1910)
Media
References
- Cairns, David "Wilhelm Furtwängler" in The New Grove
Dictionary of Music and Musicians London: Macmillan,
1980.
- Kater, Michael H. The Twisted Muse: Musicians and Their
Music in the Third Reich Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1997.
- Spotts, Frederic Hitler and the Power of Aesthetics.
London: Hutchinson, 2002. ISBN 0-09-179394-7
References
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