Furtwängler and the
Vienna Philharmonic
After Weingartner left, the Vienna Philharmonic had to find a new conductor. The manager of the orchestra, Alexander Wunderer, proposed Wilhelm Furtwängler, who was at the time 41 years old and who had conducted the orchestra for the first time in 1922 (March 25, on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the death of Brahms). He then returned repeatedly for non-season concerts (in 1924 and 1925), and greatly impressed one part of the orchestra whereas the other part remained faithful to Weingartner and had many doubts about Furtwängler and his conducting technique. It took all Wunderer's influence and diplomacy to convince the orchestra to accept Furtwängler, even if acceptance wasn't unanimous. That first year, Furtwängler managed to accept only five out of the eight proposed concerts (Franz Schalk replaced him in three concerts) because of his engagements with the Berlin Philharmonic and the Leipzig Gewandhaus (at the time the key-positions of the musical activity in Germany).
In Autumn 1927 (November 19 and 20), Furtwängler took on his post as steady conductor of the Vienna Philharmonic. Thus started a cooperation that lasted till the end of his life and that was marked by their common sensibility and love for the great Masters of the classical and romantic age. The early days of this «marriage» with the orchestra weren't easy mainly because of his many concerts in Berlin, Leipzig and Vienna, causing insufficient and stressful rehearsals. Once, for a Saturday concert he arrived on the eve and on Saturday morning, as he stood on the podium, he manifestly wore under his coat his pyjamas (1)! The rehearsal turned into a plain performance of the works on the programme, and during the concert of Saturday afternoon (January 14 1928), the orchestra made a gross mistake in the overture of Mendelssohn's Hebrides not only out of lack of rehearsals but simply because it wasn't sufficiently accustomed to Furtwängler's conducting technique yet, which was quite different from that of Weingartner. His gestures, the expression on his face and the typical movements of his left hand of course indicated the intensity and expression he demanded of his musicians, but this had nothing to do with a kind of schoolteacher's beat. (2)
In his text « Ton und Wort », Furtwängler defended his baton and demanded from his musicians a maximum of concentration, mutual listening and dynamic differentiation. He knew how to concretise his intentions and ideas and it was precisely his conducting that made orchestras play as they would never manage under any « normal » baton. For Furtwängler, each beat, each melody, each chord is an event. He loved rehearsals because they were for him a sort of sketches that a painter puts on paper before starting his painting on the canvas. He was a born romantic who could lose himself in beauty (or: who loved losing himself in beauty - horrible translation, sure you find something more adequate). As far as his famous «starts», a musician of the Berlin Philharmonic declared once: « At the beginning it was very difficult, but we agreed on a system. We waited for his right arm to form a corner of 45° with the upper part of his pulpit: at that moment we'd start».
But the orchestra needed time to understand, recognize and decode his intentions which was one of the major difficulties of his first year with the Vienna Philharmonic and one of the reasons of the antagonism of a few older musicians when he asked something new and unusual. As time went by, things improved and when the orchestra played with him, it slowly turned into a completely different orchestra. But how that typical «Furtwängler sound » came into life from the very first rehearsal remains a mystery. Furtwängler always introduced a new and interesting vision and one never had the impression that he prepared what he said to the musicians. But what he said was entirely different from any other important conductor and often unique. For example, in the funeral march in Eroica, he asked to play it less sentimentally, since there «grief was tearless... ». In the storm scene of the Pastorale, he used to talk about « torrents of rain, yellow lightning». In Bruckner's Romantic symphony, he asked that the pizzicato chords of the strings that sustain the magnificent theme of the violas in the second movement, « sound as many falling drops ». To say what he wanted he used earth-to-earth themes and he was a perfect master of the art of transitions and of crescendi that he would prepare and lead towards impressive heights. He also knew how to use pauses as a means of expression, a characteristic that increased the art of moulding music like, for example, in Schubert's symphony in C major. Even the most resisting musicians were finally conquered when Furtwängler conducted the Vienna Philharmonic from the piano in Bach's Fifth Brandenburgh Concerto (April 14 1928). In this work, the orchestra that had often accompanied a cembalo - that had to be amplified to be heard in the great concert hall -, this time accompanied Furtwängler who played on a Bösendorfer piano. Even his greatest antagonists recognized at long last the great artist who conducted them. Thus the second season of 1928/29 started under much more favourable auspices: he conducted all nine season concerts and the public was delighted.
Furtwängler didn't behave like a star but he could react quite vehemently to critics; he used to read them carefully and if they didn't satisfy him, he said he wouldn't conduct in Vienna again! He didn't put much care in the way he dressed, took one of the less expensive apartments in the luxurious Hotel Imperial and sometimes ate at the canteen. After one concert, the orchestra itself started to applaud him with the public, quite spontaneously, and one day one of the clarinets exclaimed after a concert: « and they even pay us for this! ». Furtwängler had a very personal way of making sure of the audience's attention and tension: before appearing in the concert hall he would wait long enough to be greeted by an audience that had waited for him as long as possible. On the other hand, with the musicians he behaved in the most natural way, they called him « Herr Doktor » and could speak with him without any problem. He was very strict about physical tenure and the visual side of a concert was for him just as important as the sound. For example he asked the strings to play the middle part of Eroica's funeral march with great bow movements: this didn't change much the sound but it assured a visual effect. His conducting technique was the same, in rehearsal and in concert and he said that the gestures of a conductor are there to serve the work and the musicians but not the audience. During that season, Schalk left his post as director of the Opera and Franz Schneiderhan, who became Generalintendant, asked Furtwängler to succeed him in order to tie him even more to Vienna. But Berlin didn't want Furtwängler to really get involved with the Vienna Opera. Berlin was « the » Opera of the time and often Vienna didn't have the money to pay for the artists who sang on the Berlin stages. In the end, Furtwängler put an end to the negotiations and gave way to Clemens Krauss.
During the third season 1929-1930, Furtwängler only managed conduct seven season concerts due to illness. The fact of conducting both great philharmonic orchestras, that of Berlin and that of Vienna, became a sort of handicap to his work with the Vienna Philharmonic and even though he toured with it to Budapest, he hesitated to take it to Germany which was the domain of the Berlin Philharmonic... and this would have been embarrassing for him. Yet, in April/May 1930, Furtwängler conducted four concerts with the Vienna Philharmonic in Germany and two in London, all very successful. After a Bruckner's Fourth at Queen's Hall (April 29), at the dinner table he told the orchestra that after a rather difficult start, they had « found » each other and that if the musicians wanted, they could be the best orchestra in the world. That evening, they had been the best! Furtwängler then returned to Berlin from where he sent a cable to Wunderer putting an end to his concert activity in Vienna...! Wunderer travelled to Germany to persuade him to come back but in vain: he only got that Furtwängler conduct every year, graciously, the « Nicolaï-Konzert ». This decision had been dictated by the sponsors of the Berlin Philharmonic who menaced stopping to finance the orchestra if Furtwängler didn't assure his definite and total presence.
But Furtwängler returned to Vienna every year. The season concerts of 1936/7 were programmed with Walter, Weingartner, Knappertsbusch, Klemperer, Victor de Sabata and Toscanini. Was it Toscanini's success in Vienna that induced Furtwängler to say that he would conduct one season concert? Finally it was the orchestra that profited most from this situation: with Toscanini it worked precision, clarity and beauty of sound whereas Furtwängler put more emphasis on expression and « climaxes». The musicians soon divided into two groups around the big question: who of the two was the greater conductor? Whereas Toscanini stuck to the principle of being faithful to the notes, Furtwängler was always looking for was behind the notes, i.e. all the excesses of emotion that simple notes cannot transmit. Furtwängler had a unique way of interpreting the Beethoven symphonies, particularly his Ninth, and those of Bruckner.
After the Anschluss (March 11 1938), the situation became very critical for the Philharmonic: several of its musicians were « dismissed» (Rosé, Buxbaum among others), and several conductors were declared personae non gratae (i.e. Toscanini, Klemperer, Bruno Walter, Weingartner and Knappertsbusch) and the danger of a season 1938/39 without conductor became alarmingly true. Otto Strasser who was at the time the manager of the orchestra, went to Berlin on April 8 to see Furtwängler who started saying: « Ever since the classical era, Vienna is the centre of a musical culture that your orchestra represents and that has to be defended at all costs and protected from all sorts of alignment». (During the celebrations for the hundredth anniversary of the Vienna Philharmonic, the Reichsleiter Baldur von Schirach declared that « the Vienna Philharmonic was not an orchestra but a culture... »). Furtwängler had experienced in Germany what the term « alignment » meant: for the Vienna Philharmonic it would have meant dissolution of the orchestra's association structure, submission to a unitary scheme dictated by the Reich and, therefore, no more music. But above all it meant also « purification », that had such terrible consequences for the artistic world. Furtwängler promised to step in on behalf of the Vienna Philharmonic so that it could save its unity. As far as military service was concerned (the Vienna Philharmonic had many young musicians), he promised to do all what was in his power to ensure that they got the same regime as the Berlin Philharmonic. On that occasion Furtwängler clearly demonstrated how much he appreciated the Vienna Philharmonic and from that moment on the ties between him and the orchestra strengthened and lasted until his death. Strasser came back to Vienna with the assurance that Furtwängler would come back as steady conductor of the Vienna orchestra, that he would take it to Berlin and on tour through the greatest towns of Germany (which he did eleven years after the war). The two concerts he gave in Berlin w<ith the Vienna Philharmonic, on April 22 and 23 1938, in the presence of the Führer, were a great success.
On September 5 1938, Furtwängler and the Vienna Philharmonic performed the Meistersinger von Nürnberg during the congress of the Nazi party (3) and on January 14 1939, he premiered in Vienna his own symphonic piano concerto with his friend Edwin Fischer as soloist. They had already premiered this work together in Munich on October 26 1937, during a tour of the Berlin Philharmonic. An article of the daily paper Neues Wiener Tagblatt of January 15, in an article called « Furtwängler about himself: The conductor as composer» wrote: « During the first rehearsal of his piano concerto, Furtwängler said a few words to the musicians about his unusual position standing in front of his orchestra as composer, and that he felt almost a 'delinquent'. But after the beginning first measures of the « Prestissimo-Feroce » the orchestra answered paying the 'composer' a spontaneous ovation. Furtwängler has much understanding for the preconceived idea that a conductor should remain a conductor and not want to be known as a composer. He remembers how Arthur Nikisch telling his musicians how lucky they were that he only conducted and that didn't compose. But those who know Furtwängler and his artistic drive, know that he didn't just 'also' start to compose.
'from the very first I was a composer; I already composed as a young boy, well before I ever thought of conducting' said Furtwängler. 'At heart I have always been a creating musician. Conducting was for me a 'job' to earn my living and to my great surprise it was only after some time that I became successful as a conductor. And then, my increasing concert engagements slowly confined my composer's work on a second level, even though I never really gave it up. It is only a certain age that I could present myself in front of an audience with my own compositions. As a consequence of this fact and of my renown as a conductor, my compositions are not heard without prejudice. A well-known modern composer told me one day: 'The world as it stands, will only believe in you after you have entirely given up conducting'. Really? I think the compositions have their own word to say as well. And doesn't all that finally depend on them? That's why I don't want to add anything else about them but leave it to the listener to decide' ».
The concerts of the 1939/40 season were conducted alternatively by Furtwängler, Knappertsbusch, Mengelberg and Karl Böhm. Each concert with Furtwängler was repeated three times to satisfy the audience, i.e. on Saturday, Sunday and on Monday (4) (often in another town like Munich or Budapest). The following season was conducted by Knappertsbusch, Mengelberg, Böhm and Furtwängler who accepted this time two conduct five concerts. In March 1941, Furtwängler fell skiing in Sankt Anton, in the Vorarlberg: he injured a nerve of the right arm that remained paralysed. At first, they feared that he wouldn't be able to conduct again but he recovered and resumed his concerts during the season 1941/42, sharing them with Knappertsbusch and Böhm. The season's first part took place during the Mozart festivities and he conducted the Mozart Requiem on December 5 and 6. The second part of the season was marked by the Vienna Philharmonic's centenary that was centred around one main figure: that of Wilhelm Furtwängler. At the opening ceremony of the festival, he held a long speech that was a true masterpiece of rhetoric. He started by listing the errors and weaknesses of the Vienna Philharmonic, then he praised its qualities by comparing it to other orchestras. The difference between the Viennese musicians and those of American orchestras resided in the fact that they had something that money wouldn't buy. Furtwängler spoke openheartedly, giving way to his love for Vienna and its Philharmonic orchestra. The two concerts that he conducted on this occasion - on March 28 he played the only one time in his life Schubert's Third and on March 29/30, Bruckner's Eighth - showed clearly how the orchestra responded to this affection.
Furtwängler took the orchestra abroad for the first time during the war (in May 1943), to Denmark and Sweden. The concerts were successful everywhere. A crowd of emigrated music lovers attended the concerts in Stockholm and was in tears when, on May 14, the first notes of the Blue Danube resounded in the concert hall. Otto Strasser discussed with Furtwängler about the problem of emigration and Furtwängler said that he had been invited to stay abroad but he declared that he was a German citizen and that he wouldn't leave his country in danger and in need. After the failed Hitler-Putsch and the declaration of total war, theatres and concert halls were definitely closed down. The Salzburg festival was cancelled, only two concerts with the Vienna Philharmonic and Furtwängler and the Schneiderhan quartet took place. On August 14 1944, Furtwängler conducted at the Festspielhaus Bruckner's Eighth, in a very dark ambiance. The Russians were approaching, the British and Americans bombed the country and in this atmosphere of oppression, music seemed to be the only hope. The concert was a moment of grace: Furtwängler managed to draw out of the orchestra the ultimate degree of beauty of sound and of intensity of expression. Never before had Bruckner's Eighth attained such plenitude and interiorization. After the concert, Furtwängler told Strasser: « Wasn't this the greatest confirmation of all what we, as the Vienna Philharmonic, wanted to attain, of what we considered to be our mission and that distinguished us from the other orchestras? ». Then Furtwängler returned to Vienna for three more philharmonic concerts (October 14-16), and told the Philharmonic how to behave with the Russians. He said that they were sensitive to Art and wouldn't damage the orchestra but he also told the musicians to stick together at any cost and always be ready to play.
The post-war period started with great difficulties under the Russian occupation. A denazification commission was formed to judge the orchestra's party members: it was formed by people from the ministry and by a member of the Philharmonic who was the only communist of the orchestra and who previously had been allowed to stay in the orchestra thanks to Furtwängler's intervention in his favour. Now it was his turn to listen to the other musicians: thirteen were asked to retire because they were party members. The Philharmonic started playing Mahler again, and life continued with enormous difficulties. Clemens Krauss, Wilhelm Furtwängler and Karl Böhm were forbidden to conduct. Two conductors committed suicide: Leopold Reichwein, who was a convinced national-socialist, shot himself when the Russians entered Vienna, and Oswald Kabasta, who, without being an important nazi personality, lost his cool during the long interval before his denazification process and took his life.
Furtwängler came back to the Salzburg Festival in 1947, conducting two concerts on August 10 and 13. Bruno Walter took the orchestra to Edinburgh and London (in Edinburgh he conducted Das Lied von der Erde with Kathleen Ferrier who made a great impression on the orchestra). End of September, the orchestra returned to Vienna, Knappertsbusch opened the season and Furtwängler reappeared in Vienna after almost three years' absence, his last concert having taken place on January 29 1945. The communist press attacked him harshly but the first concert for the centenary of Mendelssohn's death on November 8 took place without any problems whilst the week after, on November 16, when the musicians turned up at the Grosser Musikvereinssaal, they found it occupied by demonstrators. And when the vice-president of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde (Society of the Friends of Music), Baron Mayr, appeared at the side of Furtwängler in order to get into the hall, chaos broke out and Mayr had two teeth broken. The concert seemed forsaken. Furtwängler phoned to the cultural attaché Matejka, and said he would never come back to Vienna if the concert didn't take place. One hour later the concert started and Furtwängler conducted as if nothing had happened, but the morning after he complained that the broken teeth of Baron Mayr were a more important topic than his own concert: Furtwängler had a slightly jealous side.... (Another cause for jealousy was the rising presence of Herbert von Karajan...)
The year 1948 was marked by two important events: Bruno Walter's return to Vienna and the tour to Switzerland with Furtwängler in June. When he resumed conducting after his denazification process, Furtwängler was ready to come back as steady conductor to the Vienna Philharmonic. He conducted the philharmonic concerts, made a series of recordings with the orchestra and toured with it in Germany, to Paris and to London (September-October 1949) and to other European capitals. He continued these tours every year, until his death, except for 1952 when he fell ill. Once again, the Vienna Philharmonic became « his» orchestra, and one of the best orchestras in the world. Besides, the relationship between the Vienna and the Berlin Philharmonic improved. Nobody ever dared asking Furtwängler which orchestra he preferred, the Berlin or the Vienna Philharmonic: Furtwängler's relationship with this orchestra was based on faithfulness and Vienna remained faithful to him.
The first tour with Furtwängler to Switzerland in June 1948 risked being cancelled because of the problems the musicians had in getting their passports. It took the Minister of the Interior's courage to even everything out and the orchestra could left on tour. On June they played in Montreux, and Richard Strauss attended the concert. Then again at the cathedral in Lausanne, on June 6, a superb Unfinished - Furtwängler conducted it as if it were a true premiere. Then they played together again at the Salzburg festival of which Furtwängler had become a central figure until his death. The year before he only conducted concerts, but that year he conducted Fidelio (July 31, August 3 and 6). After Salzburg, Furtwängler and the Philharmonic travelled to London and performed all Beethoven symphonies: the public greeted them enthusiastically, but the press attacked both the conductor and his musicians. In Summer 1949, Furtwängler conducted Fidelio again as well as a beautiful Magic Flute.
In Spring 1950 - the Bach year -, Furtwängler and the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde had a disagreement that would have its repercussions on the Vienna Philharmonic. The Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde asked Furtwängler, one of its honorary members, to conduct the Saint-Matthew Passion for the international Bach Festival. Furtwängler didn't accept and the Society asked then Herbert von Karajan who immediately started rehearsing with the Singverein. Once Karajan finished rehearsing with the choir, Furtwängler came back and said he was ready to conduct the work! But the Society kept its word with Karajan. Furtwängler returned his honorary membership, Knappertsbusch supported Furtwängler and both decided not to conduct any more in Vienna. Even if they then changed their mind, neither ever took part again in an event organised by the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde. The antagonism between Furtwängler and Karajan had reached the level where the Vienna Philharmonic couldn't invite both conductors for a same concert season; on the other hand, the Philharmonic was so devoted and felt it owed Furtwängler so much for his help during the Hitler years, that it rather gave up Karajan. On another level, the orchestra was so bound to Furtwängler's art that another choice seemed impossible. The same reaction occurred in Salzburg, keeping Karajan far from the Salzburger Festspiele for quite a number of years. In Summer 1950, Furtwängler conducted Don Giovanni in Salzburg and in September-October, took the orchestra on a tour of 23 concerts through Germany, Holland and Switzerland till Scandinavia: an old dream had come true.
At the end of his life, Furtwängler conducted works that were not part of his usual repertoire in Vienna: i.e. Shostakovitch's Ninth symphony (January 28 and 29 1950) and Bartok's concerto for orchestra (January 20 and 21 1951). On February 20 and 21 1953, he conducted his second symphony that his premiered in Berlin on February 22 1948 and that he had just performed in January in six German towns whilst on tour with the Berlin Philharmonic. In an interview he said to the journalist of an Austrian daily paper, Die Presse (February 21): « I started as a composer and I am still a composer today. Why did I so seldom conduct my own works? Hindemith told me one day: the world will never accept your compositions if you don't give up conducting entirely. For many years I shared his point of view but today I have reached the stage where it doesn't matter what people say. Besides, what was normal for Bach, Mozart, Wagner and Strauss, i.e. that a musician who composes is also interested in interpreting music, vice-versa, an interpreter is also interested in producing: this situation is very rare today, in this age of specialisation.
As a composer, I have followed the first law of natural expression. This spontaneity, if expressed by a living being, cannot contradict our actual reality and must exist very naturally by itself. But then it has nothing to do with the so-called time-bound style of the musical language: it isn't a question neither of language nor of style, but of what is being said. It isn't difficult to recognise the style or the language of a work, but understanding its true significance - as long as the work has a true significance that goes beyond style itself - is just as difficult as with the great works of the past. »
In 1950 Furtwängler made several recordings with the Vienna Philharmonic for Walter Legge (5), a difficult venture since he was resilient to Legge's advice. One day, Furtwängler asked Otto Strasser what made the great success of Karajan's recordings. Strasser said that the Furtwängler's strength, the intensity of his sensitivity, beauty of sound, height of climaxes couldn't come to full expression on record whereas Karajan's brilliance and precision were faithfully reproduced on record. This response satisfied Furtwängler. At that time, the Vienna Philharmonic became the specific Furtwängler orchestra: an important work of adaptation is required for 23 concerts, perfect mutual understanding, so that the music is free from any tension. They then recorded also the concerts in Vienna. In Summer 1951, Furtwängler conducted Othello in Salzburg. In 1952 he programmed the Nozze di Figaro but fell ill during rehearsals and was replaced by Rudolf Moralt. Furtwängler seemed to recover and in November resumed his concerts. His health had nevertheless worsened. In January 23 1953, during the Beethoven's Ninth, he lost consciousness in the adagio, and the concert was interrupted.
In Summer 1953 he conducted in Salzburg Don Giovanni and the Nozze di Figaro and shared with Bruno Walter the concerts with the Vienna Philharmonic in Edinburgh. It was the last time he conducted it abroad. On May 30 1954, Furtwängler came to Vienna for the last time and conducted the all-Schubert opening concert of the Wiener Festwochen. The rehearsals of Freischütz, in Salzburg, in July 1954, turned out to be difficult both for him and the orchestra. His hearing had worsened, specially from in left year but the performance was very beautiful. These problems were less manifest in concert, specially in a Beethoven concert he conducted during the Festival, on August 30 1954. That was their last public performance together. In September, the Philharmonic and Furtwängler rehearsed for the recording of Walkyrie: Furtwängler seemed in high spirits. But at the end of Autumn he was taken ill again and on November 30 the radio broke the news of his death. In the Viennese paper Die Presse of December 1 Heinrich Kralik wrote the following article:
« It is always sad and painful to take leave from an artist who was so near us during the last forty years and who took part in the most important events of our musical life. A few days ago he was still standing in front of us, a musician who transmitted his musicality in a truly physical way: his eyes would light up when he was happy with a performance. He was the only conductor who knew how to fill music with poetry. He was a poet of the orchestra, of the colour of sound and of expression, but he never forgot to give this poetry the right spiritual texture. The artist Furtwängler didn't blindly and one-sidedly concentrate on the sensual element in music: the music's poet was at the same time and almost to the same extent, also a philosopher of music. This is what made his grandeur, his spiritual richness and his moral strength. (...)
We are surely right in saying that he felt at home wherever there was a good orchestra. But Furtwängler was not a man of no country, by right he felt that he was a conductor of the German people. He was the last great representative of the great romantic style and as such he belonged to us, to Vienna, to Austria and to our musical culture. Our Furtwängler, the Furtwängler whose performances vibrated in the music of Beethoven, Brahms or Bruckner... The artist who filled the concert halls with the warmth of his musicality, the artist and the man who took the audience into a far and beautiful musical world.
notes
[ 1 ] Several works describe Furtwängler's activity with the Vienna Philharmonic, i.e.: Plusieurs ouvrages évoquent l'activité de Furtwängler avec la Philharmonie de Vienne, en particulier : Das Buch der Wiener Philharmoniker, par Hans Weigel, Residenz-Verlag Salzburg 1967 ; Und dafür wird man noch bezahlt, par Otto Strasser ....., et surtout, Demokratie der Könige, par Clemens Hellsberg, Schweizer Verlagshaus Zürich ; Kremayr und Scheriau Wien et Schott Mayence, 1992.
[ 2 ]The article about the Beethoven's Ninth in the Neues Wiener Tagblatt of January 14 1936, says: « Furtwängler's conducting technique is as follows : his is a vibrating baton that beats with precision the doubles croches, the right hand guides the musicians, the left hand gives the colour but, above all, there is this invisible « third hand », i.e. the spirit that guides individually each musician and each singer of the choir. »
[ 3 ]The archives of the Vienna Philharmonic don't mention this performance of September 5. The radio review Funkstunde states that the Meistersinger, (at least the first act) were given in Nuremberg on Sunday September 3 and broadcast by the German radios, particularly in Breslau, between 17.45 and 19.30. Among the interpreters Rudolf Bockelmann, Josef von Manowarda, Eugen Fuchs, Set Svanholm, Tiana Lemnitz, Ruth Berglund... and Rudolf Hartmann was stage-manager. This gala performance (Festaufführung) was part of the official opening ceremonies of the nazi party's congress, (the Reichsparteitag des Friedens).
[ 4 ]The season concerts of the Philharmonic were held on Saturday afternoon and on Sunday morning.
[ 5 ]Furtwängler made 59 recordings for His Master's Voice (to whom he was bound by an exclusive contract from September 1st 1946 to his death) and for Decca (Franck's symphony).
