Wilhelm Furtwängler - Biography
Wilhelm Furtwangler one of the greatest conductors of the 20th Century was born on January 25th 1886 in Berlin and died on November 30th 1954 in Ebersteinberg. Furtwangler came from a highly cultured family, his father Adolph was an archeologist his mother was a painter. Furtwangler was privately educated until he in his late teens and then received advanced music instruction from the composers Von Schillings and Rheinberger. He also had early ambitions as a composer which he maintained for the rest of his life and was also a superb pianist. At the age of 20 he had his conducting debut in Munich where prophetically he conducted the Bruckner Symphony # 9 (which had its premiere only three years earlier) a composer who was to be very close to his heart. He was then an assistant to the great conductor Felix Mottl in Munich. He then in the nineteen teens held chief conducting positions in Lubeck, Mannheim and Vienna before he was to inherit the celebrated conductor Artur Nikisch positions as conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic and Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra upon his death. Furtwangler now only thirty six was one of the world’s most prominent conductors. In 1925 he debuted in New York to great acclaim. Furtwangler as evidenced by early recordings from the period already had his romantic musical style wherein he exhibit considerable freedom in tempos and infinite care in phrasing and dynamics. He was also in 1929 to take on the position of chief conductor if the Vienna State Opera. Furtwangler’s critical successes in New York were somewhat compromised by the arrival of Toscanini to conduct the New York Philharmonic in the late 1920’s. Toscanini literalist approach to music would always split followers of the conductors into two different camps (they also didn’t like each other).
Furtwangler was invited to the 1931 Wagner Festival in Bayreuth where he shared the season with Toscanini. Furtwangler was to emerge as perhaps the greatest Wagner conductor for whom we have an aural record of. Though Furtwangler had a reputation as a musical conservative he did conduct modernist composers like Hindemith, Schoenberg, Stravinsky and Bartok. The rise of Hitler and the Nazi regime created difficulties for Furtwangler and controversy that exists till this day. Furtwangler naively asked Goebbels who was besides his role as propaganda minister was the Gauleiter of Berlin “why great Jewish conductors like Walter and Klemperer could no longer conduct in “ was told the times were not right. All this was to come to a head when Furtwangler in 1934 conducted Hindemith’s Symphony Mathis Der Maler and was strongly condemned by among others Goebbels who called Hindemith a cultural Bolshevik and semi Aryan (Hindemith had a half Jewish wife). Furtwangler initially resigned from all government posts he held but within a year he was mollified and returned as conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic, but no longer held governmental posts. To the greater musical world this seamed a fatal compromise. A year later his rival Toscanini recommended Furtwangler to succeed him a conductor of the New York Philharmonic. Possibly to sabotage the appointment Goering announced that Furtwangler was to be made the director of the Berlin State Opera. There was a huge storm of protest from Jewish and liberal Philharmonic subscribers and opinion makers. Furtwangler was forced to withdraw with statement that he was a musician not a politician. Furtwangler was invited in 1937 to conduct Wagner’s Ring in Covent Garden during King George the Sixth coronation year. His English engage was a great success and during a tour with the Berlin Philharmonic in England had made his finest recordings to date of works by Wagner, Beethoven and Tchaikovsky for EMI.
With the outbreak of war in September 1939 Furtwangler’s career was limited to Germany and Austria (He refused to conduct in occupied countries even though for instance he was revered in Paris). Furtwangler who was to use an old fashioned term was a ‘ladies man’ and had children out of wedlock decided to marry in 1942 a young attractive war widow with an infant son, Elisabeth. Ones ambivalence about Furtwangler the man can be summed up by a filmed performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in 1942 to celebrate Hitler’s birthday, the stage is decorated with huge swastika banners and after the great Symphony that celebrates the brotherhood of men is over Goebbels rushes the podium Furtwangler bends down to shake his hand and Furtwangler after shaking it wipes his hand with a handkerchief. A nervous gesture or a show of contempt? Furtwangler recorded a series of performances for radio broadcast during the war; many of these tapes were captured by Russian forces and didn’t see the light of day for 25 years. These recordings have a searing intensity, particularly notable were great performances of Bruckner’s Fifth, Eighth and Ninth Symphonies. Furtwangler by the end of 1944 was warned by Armaments Minister and music lover Albert Speer that he was on a list of subversives to be round up by the Gestapo and was told to escape to Switzerland after a concert in Vienna in January of 1945.
Furtwangler needed to appear before an allied de Nazification board in 1946 where he was absolved of pro Nazi activities in December of 1946. He resumed his career in 1947 making recordings for Walter Legge and including a beautiful performance of Mozart’s Divertimento # 13, K 361 for winds. He made a triumphant return in Berlin in May 25th 1947 with an all Beethoven concert. Furtwangler was welcomed back in England and France but he was to have more difficulties in America. The Chicago Symphony perhaps prematurely wanted to hire him as music director in 1949 and this created a firestorm of criticism and a threatened boycott by musicians like Heifitz, Rubinstein and Milstein along with the Musicians Union and the orchestra withdrew the offer (the only American musician who stood by him was the violinist Yehudi Menuhin). Furtwangler led a famous performance of Wagner’s Ring at La Scala Milan that has maintained a legendary status. He made a number of symphonic recordings of Beethoven, Mozart, Haydn and Brahms with the Vienna Philharmonic for EMI and great recordings of Schubert’s Symphony # 9 in C major s and Schumann’s Fourth Symphony. These performances were controversial in the U.S and U.K because the tempos fluctuate in transitional passages and the phrasing was not literal and post-war critics were not used to his style. One thing that critics were in agreement in was that he was an incomparable conductor of Wagner and his 1952 EMI recording of Tristan und Isolde with Kirsten Flagstad was an instant classic. He also reopened the Bayreuth Festival in 1951 with a celebrated performance of Beethoven’s Ninth which was thankfully recorded. Furtwangler’s health was beginning to fail him ,he was prematurely aged and was losing his hearing. He was enthused about a planned tour of America with the Berlin Philharmonic in 1955. He contracted a pulmonary virus and was treated in a sanatorium near Baden- Baden and was not thought to be in danger, but he developed Pneumonia and died on November 30th 1954. His archrival Herbert von Karajan was appointed Conductor of the Berlin in 1955 and led the 1955 tour.
Wilhelm Furtwangler outside of Germany and Austria went through something of an eclipse after his death. Then in the 1960’s with issues of his live recordings which were often more inspired then his studio recordings there was a great revival of interest in his work particularly in England. Young musicians like Barenboim, Abbado, Ashkenazy and Mehta became strong supporters of Furtwangler’s free but informed performances of the classical repertoire. Though Furtwangler’s alternately acquiescent and defiant dealings with the Third Reich will always be troubling one never doubt’s that he wasn’t in sympathy for Hitler. He was at worst a misguided patriot who couldn’t abandon Germany. The music he composed is getting performed and recorded. While somewhat derivative of Bruckner, Pfitzner and Richard Strauss the music is always noble and of stature. He was a tall gangling man who was balding at an early age and had a mesmeric personality that compensated for his eccentric beat. Furtwangler didn’t record that much commercially but there is a huge amount of broadcast material particularly of Wagner and Beethoven. Furtwangler may well be the most influential performing musician of the Twentieth Century.