Furtwangler Beethoven 7th 1943 Mvt. 1 (1/2)

[9InfernoDrako]

The perfect conductor?...Perhaps

[mountainrover]

i like furtwangler's slow interpretations. i think there's more beauty and majesty in the music

[francescaemc2]

Che meraviglia!!!!!

[anisuthideyakoindu]

I hear how they couldn't do like they normally could ...

whithout their most brilliant musicians,

...

THEIR LIVES DID DEPEND ON IT!!!

still, I must admit, Furtwängler was one of the greatest

the other one got gassed

[francescaemc2]

@anisuthideyakoindu

Who got gassed? Please tell me. Thank you.

[connell212]

After being used over the years to von Karajan's march-like (deterministic) versions, hearing this is surprisingly young and exploratory.

[Monomakh]

kinda slow, isn't it?

[mohaa279]

@Monomakh very true

[revpgesq]

this is the first version i ever heard of the 7th, and still the best. when i hear others, they don't really sound like the same opus. there is something about this version that lets the full spring of the music unwind....especially about the 5 minute mark...

i had a collection of Beethoven's symphonies on LP, and this was the jewel of the bunch, imho. please never take this down from YouTube. I would gladly by a CD of this version, but from where?

[paulostroff99]

@revpgesq This is one of the best of Beethoven's symphonies and referred to as the dance symphony.Probably the most musical of all the works and easily one of the most enjoyable if not profound.

[revpgesq]

@paulostroff99 thank you..... i love this symphony, and Furtwangler's interpretation in particular...

i cannot imagine playing a violin as if my life depended upon it, but i think this sounds like just that....and maybe in some instances folks may have been doing just that...tremendously sad and sickening affair, but when i hear this music i hear defiance in beauty to all that Nazi stupidity and horror...most likely i am projecting my own freedom and love loving prayers and thoughts. so be it.

[paulostroff99]

@revpgesq -Glad that you too love this symphony and particularly this version of it. Have a great week-end.

[bierbaron6666]

@revpgesq

I agree with you, you can hear a deeper spirit behind this performance.

[waistoi]

Furtwangler has the talent of making everything so dramatic

[Nuker1337]

Superior performance. Greatest Beethoven conductor of the century.

[MusikPiratCH]

Here it is only the music that counts. And Furtwängler if you like or dislike him as a person was IMO the best interpretator of his time and as far as I'm concerned noone can touch him musically! :D

Juast listen to this superb performance!

[paulostroff99]

Superb

[paulostroff99]

Superb!

[revpgesq]

This opening is the most and best for me... my mind and spirit soar away from myself and turn open-hearted toward God, willing to will to recieve Grace.

thank you for posting. THIS version of THIS movement in particular.

[slovenskaglasba]

The GREATEST!!!!

[primobaritono]

I agree 100% !!! This is the most passionate, electrifying and magnificent rendition of the 7th I have ever heard!

[ElisabettaVS]

It is Furtwängler. What do you expect? :-)

[1984robert]

It is THE 7.

[ijrupahsinosub]

and yeah, the attack was sometimes more sharp and sometimes less, but when so, in a visceral sort of way though that goes beyond merely precise playing.

[ijrupahsinosub]

& of course there is the varying degree to which old recording technologies had a hardening effect on the sound.

[uhartchristian]

the sound was hard. its not the recording which gives this impression. this was brutal interpretation for a brutal public.

It reflects the nazimentality of that time. not more not less.

Anybody free to like it or not.... we are in a democracy now and have the freedom to decide what we like and what not.

Those german population did not have that choice under hitlers regime and those who collaborated....

[billyguns2]

We are NOT a democracy. Democracy is an inferior form of government anyway; it is mob rule, which is nearly always wrong. Democracy killed Christ and slaughtered innocents. Shouldn't we return to being a Republic? Furtwangler did NOT work "hand in hand" with Adolf Hitler; that is a vicious lie which us often repeated by ignoramuses.

[JosephGlaser]

@billyguns2 A republic is a form of Democracy.

[billyguns2]

@JosephGlaser While a Democracy and a Republic both represent popular TYPES of government, both are completely different in FORM: Democracy represents the will of omnipotent man over the infividual and the minority, who are therefore unrepresented, A Republic ensures the protection of each citizen.

[JosephGlaser]

@billyguns2 I think you are confusing a Republic with Direct Democracy. Direct Democracy is where each individual has a say in all dealings of the government, a Republic is where groups of people are represented (as in each state in the United States, which is a Republic), and Representational Democracy is where the people are represented by population. I hope you understand the limitations of Direct Democracy when dealing with governments larger than the municipal.

[billyguns2]

@JosephGlaser Whatever term you want to use, I am for the Constitutional Republic of the United States. Do you really believe that is the form of our current government? It seems to me we are ruled by an oligarchy in which our "representatives" are in reality the lackies of corporations and financial owners.

[JosephGlaser]

@billyguns2 With that I agree with you.

[paulostroff99]

@billyguns2-And others much smarter a and less opinionated than you or I.

[paulostroff99]

@billyguns2 -Just because their views are other than ours-does not make them wrong nor inferior to you nor to me. We must be civilized enough to respect their opinions as we would like ours to be respected In many cultures slinging mud make us the automatic losers of that particular point,or even the entire debate.

[billyguns2]

@paulostroff99 I'm not clear to what you are responding, and this happened before with you; if you would be specific and precise as to what you mean, I would be happy to engage in a civilized discussion. However, there can be no compromise when someone other's point of view is threatening to the ultimate well-being and/or survival of another, and I will never respect that point of view. People do have to take a stand, after all.

[paulostroff99]

@billyguns2 -I could not be any thing but clear when I simply state that the opinions of others must be respected by ALL other civilized people. If we wish to read into this what is not there nor implied--that is truly sad. Our opinions especially when they are minority opinions-should be reevaluated. To overly dramatize these truths in no way render them to be untrue.

[billyguns2]

@paulostroff99 I am always wary of any opinion held by the majority, as these opinions have so often been proven to be incorrect. Where would we be as a civilization if not for the often persecuted minority? Our greatest spiritual teachers, inventors, philosophers, and ordinary citizens were almost always ridiculed or persecuted by the majority.

[revpgesq]

@paulostroff99 some opinions must be opposed. there are things worth fighting for...governments killed more people, particulary via political parties, than did war in the 20th Century. Tolerance is an intermediate virtue, not an absolute...otherwise many apologies must be made for the U.S. Civil War, inter alia.

[paulostroff99]

@billyguns2 -It is not for us to be the judge and jury on all these things. Who died and made us god. We are not god,and should not do the judging. Judge not lest you be judged.

[billyguns2]

@paulostroff99 There is a distrinction between having an opinion and stating it and being judgmental; I go through life on earth aware of the difference. Any of my friends will tell you that I am a loving, compassionate person who has strong opinions; it would neevr occur to me to call forth a judgment upon anyone.

[billyguns2]

@paulostroff99 I also do NOT have to respect lies, manipulation, half truths, murder, extortion and theft as "another point of view."

[ijrupahsinosub]

there was variability, not only in the particulars, obviously, among different furtwangler performances, but even in stylistic approach, because in a particularly comprehensive way, furtwangler's art was in a permanent state of flux, shifting among balances of seemingly mutually exclusive emphases and realizations, and it was through a process of such mutability that results of such permanent aesthetic value were yielded. perhaps other musicians should be so "human".

[ijrupahsinosub]

i would not have chosen the words razor sharp to describe those cases, i think they fail to convey a sense of the sonorities initiated by those attacks, & playing in precise unison may produce whipcrack chords, but obviously does not account for furtwangler's unique capacity to bring out the structural fabric of this piece, which is evident in this performance; & might introducing the notion of what "you are used to" in this context perhaps border on the presumptuous?

[ijrupahsinosub]

ultimately, i think furtwangler's art is a "formal" one, and the reason his recordings tend to age better than most others has to do with a plasticity that is antithetical to the precision of some less profound conceptualizations, the characteristic emphasis on the lower registers being consistent with this. it is almost as if his results are achieved either in spite of, or even at the expense, of precision of playing, rather than because of it.

[billyguns2]

The Furtwangler who conducted the Brahms 4th rehearsal in London in 1948; the1943 Bethoven 9th; the 1944 Vienna Phil. "Eroica;" the wartime Bruckner 9th; the 1943 Beethoven 4th Piano Concerto; the 1939 and 1951 Tchaikovsky 6th; the 1950 RING; etc. etc. etc. all on a level not even dreamed of by others.

[uhartchristian]

furtwaengler was the best german conductor as Hitler was the best massmurderer of his time.... both worked hand in hand together....

[billyguns2]

What do you call the slaughter of millions of innocent Iraqi men, women, and children? How about the deaths of six million Asians during VietNam War? How about the indiscriminate slaughter of innocent Afghan families? How bolut the lying, thieving, murderous US government of today? Which conductors are working hand in hand with them?

[revpgesq]

@billyguns2

you meant the mass graves of those who died under Saddam's WMD-enhanced genocide....those innocent Iraqi men, women and children? the ones we have liberated?

i gotcha

[grThetrojan01gr]

Much slower than karajan, but very very very VERY nice!

[billyguns2]

It sounds as if the big chords have grace notes ahead of them in this performance; that is to say, the attacks are not razor sharp. Sorry, I am used to orchestras playing together precisely.  It is not a given that spiritual and profound music making also needs to be sloppily executed, and I rarely hear this kind of sloppiness with Furtwangler. By the way, before the mindless idolaters jump on me, Furtwangler is my favorite conductor; just not here. We are ALL human.

[Rattywotin]

I have to agree this is not his best and I love him to bits, although I have to also say it's still better than the rubbish Karajan comes out with

[toyodafamily2008]

The best 7th ever recorded.

Bravo, Maestro!

[Klangzauberer]

Strange imagination when you think about the fact that the whole world is in the worst war of all time and in Berlin they play such beautiful music if there wasn't anything. I don't critisze people making music during war but it's strange in a way.

[RaoulShade]

Yes, indeed, Berlin was the worst place on earth in the whole history of mankind, so full of racial hatred. Unfortunately, great conductors like Furtwangler were not able to physically dissociate themselves, only spiritually. Such conductors live in a different dimension and cannot grasp very well the reality of things. But certainly he was not actively involved in the Final Solution.

[toyodafamily2008]

Artist like Furtwangler transcends this world like Immanuel Kant or completely loses a touch with realty (probably both are the same things)

He can play beautiful music when Martians are attacking the earth or George Bush becomes an Emperor of the world.

It doesn't matter to him.

[ComradeSephiroth]

Leonard Bernstein conducted the Berlin Philharmonic in Beethoven's 9th on Christmas day 1989, just a few weeks after the fall of the Wall. And they sang Ode to Joy as Ode to Freedom (Freiheit) instead. Now THAT was a fitting event.

Look for it on here; just type Ode To Freedom Beethoven Bernstein and you should find it.

[EdLarsen2]

wie immer, himmlisch!!

[allanyip]

thanks very much in uploading Beethoven's beautiful music!

Awesome, always 5 STARS