Wilhelm Furtwängler: Famous Overtures [Gluck, Beethoven, Schubert, Weber...]

Featuring

Wilhelm Furtwängler
Wiener Philharmoniker
Christoph Willibald Gluck
Ludwig van Beethoven
Franz Schubert
Carl Maria von Weber

Hector Berlioz
Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy
Otto Nicolai

Did you know?

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Performer Biography

By 1922, Wilhelm Furtwängler was appointed successor to Arthur Nikisch as director of both the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.

Interpretation

Wilhelm Furtwängler believed that an interpreter must make music live through rigorous preparation, but also allow for essential improvisation to keep the work alive and not 'prefabricated'.

Performer Biography

Wilhelm Furtwängler resigned his post in December 1934 for political reasons after the 'Hindemith Affair,' where Adolf Hitler and Hermann Göring forbade him from performing Mathis der Maler.

Performer Biography

Wilhelm Furtwängler became a conductor at age 20, leading Anton Bruckner's Symphony No. 9 in Munich.

Interpretation

For Wilhelm Furtwängler, every concert was a unique, non-reproducible experience, as he believed in the fundamental form of musical activity being free improvisation.

Performer Biography

Wilhelm Furtwängler, the conductor on this album, was the son of archaeologist Adolf Furtwängler and grew up in a humanistically influenced home in Munich.

Performer Biography

Wilhelm Furtwängler became joint musical director of the Bayreuth Festival in 1931 alongside Arturo Toscanini, and two years later became its sole director.