Furtwängler the composer
Martin Cotton’s review of Wilhelm Furtwängler’s First Symphony (Orchestral reviews, November) pretty much hits the nail on the head – I too have this recording – though perhaps he is a little hasty in writing the composer off by suggesting that ‘it’s as a conductor that Furtwängler will rightly be remembered’. True, but it is worth noting that the two further symphonies Furtwängler completed seemed to gain clarity (at least to me), especially in No. 3 which helpfully uses a theme that helps to bind the work
together (it’s also about a quarter of an hour shorter!). Furtwängler himself was
not satisfied with the finale
and preferred it to end with the third movement Adagio (in a manner similar to Bruckner’s Ninth). My own
feelings about the B minor
Symphony is that inside it there is a brilliant musical mind struggling to get out but not quite succeeding. Howard Mcclellan, Amfreville, France