Beethoven - Symphony 9 - Furtwangler - BPO - March 1942

Tilla Briem (Soprano)
Elisabeth Hongen (Alto)
Peter Anders (Tenor)
Rudolf Watzke (Bass)
Bruno Kittel Choir
1942.3.22-24 Berlin

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yqff1F0Ijn0

From: http://thebetterpartofvalour.wordpress.com/2009/01/27/war-and-the-agony-of-th...
Berlin, 1942
What a different world is this. It is the time of Hitler's birthday, 24th March. Among the audience are Himmler, the chief of the SS, and Goebbels, master propagandist. From the very first bars, the orchestra cries: We are lost! No light hearts, only sad memories. Wildness, abandonment, a sense of being caught up in the sweep of events that no-one could control -- almost the hopelessness of being only human. The orchestra gives us jagged edges of violence, but also moments of reflection. The drums roll on, steady, purposeful, heavy with dread. There is a sense of watching unimaginable horror, with stoicism, with numbness. Whilst we're periodically overwhelmed, there is at other times a sense of frozen, appalled aloofness, of detachment.

This is the most perfectly crafted symphonic performance you will ever hear. Indeed, it is not "crafted" at all. It emerges from the roots of experience, the condition of the time. It is a long scream at the world for being the world, broken off at the end of every movement, then taken up again. Ego is forgotten, and art seamlessly reflects the actuality of the real. The orchestra under Furtwangler are responding to something beyond and behind them: the beating of the wings of the angel of death, perched that night on the roof of the Philhamonie, and never to depart.

Time and again the horror breaks through. Time and again, Furtwangler unleashes Beethoven's fury. The echoes of the Pastoral 6th are there, it is true, but they are swallowed up at once and thrown mockingly aside. We are in the Third Movement now. We see under the sweet pastoral strains to the anguish beneath. Where five years earlier, Beethoven had welcomed us to his world, he now bids us an unforgiving farewell. The abandonment of all promises, conveyed by an orchestra playing with all the delicacy of a string quartet. Hope is recalled, but is no longer believed in.

And then the war drums and the trumpets end it. Here is the tearing anger of the finale, waves of rage over an ocean of anguish, as Furtwangler signalled his farewell to everything he had known and loved of Germany. A metallic drum punctuates the tenor's first solo. The quartet of soloists sound frantic. The pipe-and-drum march would have fooled no-one: it is a dirge. No calm consolation here: the horror swells, it does not recede. The chorus are not singing "Ode to Joy", but the Prisoners' Chorus from Fidelio. This is the song from within the prison.

One wonders what on earth Himmler and Goebbels would have made of it.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• beethoven
• symphony
• war
• furtwangler
• berlin
• 1942
• march

[papadako]

@skillet5151

Thanks for noticing! You are correct. There is a recording from that date available by Archipel.

[skillet5151]

Outstanding performance and many thanks for the upload, but the description seems a bit misinformed. The "Hitler's birthday" performance took place on April 19, 1942 and I have not heard of any published full recordings of it.