Search - Bruckner, Bpo, Furtwangler :: Symphony 9 in D Minor

Five Stars are Not Enough

05/03/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Get this performance. It is chilling. Bruckner's Ninth boldly faces mortality, in all its terror, anger, and finally, resolution. And what better person, time, and place to explore these issues than Wilhelm Furtwangler, in Berlin, in October 1944. If ever there was an artist intricately familiar with his subject this is it. This performance was recorded in the Beethovenshal, soon to be obliterated in the waning days of the war. Furtwangler himself had found himself on the wrong side of Hitler, and about the time of this recording was receiving urgent warnings from Albert Speer to get out of Germany before it was too late (he eventually did three months later, to Switzerland).I have heard many performances of the Ninth, but none comes close to the intensity of the work of Furtwangler and the Berliner Philharmonic here. Get this CD. It may change your life."

Inspirational!

08/01/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This was my first recommendation for any serious student of the 9th for the longest time until EMI released the legendary Celibidache/Munich PO September 10th 1996 concert of the symphony. But for an aural snapshot of some remarkably intense playing, the BPO 1944 concert is hard to beat."