Thread: Warner Classics : Furtwängler back, Rattle out

Posts: 7

Post by ramesh April 24, 2014 (1 of 7)
Who would have believed it? Nearly 60 years after his death Furtwängler's SACDs get a new lease of life under Warner at premium price, even as the label is releasing almost all of EMI's non-operatic Karajan and Kempe recordings internationally in bargain box sets!

Late last year, some of my orders for EMI Japan's Furtwängler SACDs came back as 'title deleted.' The listings started disappearing as stealthily as suspect North Koreans in Pyongyang. Then by chance I found some of these 'deleted' titles reinstated as backorders.

Ironically, I've received two of these resurrected SACDs on the same day as I read on Norman Lebrecht's blog that Rattle hasn't had his recording contract renewed by Warner. Interestingly, last year I ordered Rattle's EMI set of Brahms symphonies on SACD to be informed it was deleted. Soon it was reinstated as a backorder, when it arrived with 'Warner Classics' printed instead of 'EMI' on the cover, booklet and SACDs.

The F SACDs of Menuhin in the Beethoven violin concerto with the Philharmonia, and the 2 SACD recital set with DFD and Schwarzkopf in Mahler and Wolf have the same cover art as in this site's database, except 'Warner Classics' appears instead of the familiar red logo.
Beethoven # 4943674173358
Mahler/Wolf # 4943674173389

Post by manticore4 April 25, 2014 (2 of 7)
Thanks for that news. I have most of the Furtwangler EMI SACD issues, and I can't say that they were definitely worth the (substantial) cost vs. any recent red book versions. As much as they are venerated as performances (I wouldn't be without them), personally I find much of EMI's recordings from the early 1950's to be clotted in loud passages, and otherwise veiled sound, nothing approaching the sonic splendour that Decca, DG, and Philips were achieving by that point. Even as great a recording as the 1952 Tristan hasn't aged well purely on a technical (sound-wise) level. The performance is spectacular, and that's what really counts, and the SACD is as good as it will ever be.

Post by feinstei April 25, 2014 (3 of 7)
If you can still get ahold of the SACD of the RAI Radio Ring cycle on Japanese SACD, it's a dramatic improvement over any previous mastering and, along with the Testament Stereo Ring under Keilberth's baton has become my favorite Ring cycle, all due to the fact that it's now listenable and actually enjoyable on the new SACD mastering.

Post by manticore4 April 25, 2014 (4 of 7)
feinstei said:

If you can still get ahold of the SACD of the RAI Radio Ring cycle on Japanese SACD, it's a dramatic improvement over any previous mastering and, along with the Testament Stereo Ring under Keilberth's baton has become my favorite Ring cycle, all due to the fact that it's now listenable and actually enjoyable on the new SACD mastering.

Yes, I do own SACD release of the Rome Ring, too, and it's important to remember the original recording was not a product of EMI engineering. It was recorded by Italian Radio (RAI Radio) one act at a time in concert form (not staged) in Rome. It's a completely different kettle of fish from all of the EMI studio recordings (such as the Tristan I cited). Still, the quality of the RAI Ring still varies quite a bit (as it did on every red book version) from Rheingold to Walküre Act I to Walküre Act II, etc.

Post by ramesh April 26, 2014 (5 of 7)
manticore4 said:
I find much of EMI's recordings from the early 1950's to be clotted in loud passages, and otherwise veiled sound, nothing approaching the sonic splendour that Decca, DG, and Philips were achieving by that point. Even as great a recording as the 1952 Tristan hasn't aged well purely on a technical (sound-wise) level. The performance is spectacular, and that's what really counts, and the SACD is as good as it will ever be.

Hi,
yes, the SACD set of that Tristan was the very first F SACD I bought from the EMI Japan series. Like you, I didn't find a vast improvement on my earlier CD set, which happened to be in the 1997 'EMI at 100' remastered series.
I found that DGG's 1953 studio performance of Schubert's Great C major symphony to have all-round better sound than any of EMI's Vienna F recordings. I actually didn't mind paying the extortionate SHM SACD price for this as it sounds such good mono. The unsurpassed F 1947 Beethoven's Egmont overture and the Great Fugue for the BPO strings also has smoother sound on the SHM SACD, though the difference isn't huge.

I find the 1953 Menuhin studio Beethoven concerto to be excellent as a performance, though he's in better technical form in the late 1940s Lucerne concert performance. However, this studio recording is realistically balanced between soloist and orchestra, unlike Heifetz's stereo RCA releases where the violin is outsize. The best part of this interpretation is the rapt and seraphic slow movement, where Furtwängler elicits wonderfully concentrated soft tones from the strings before the violin's first entrance. I feel this track is an object lesson in how quiet passages in a great performance can radiate 'a quiet intensity', whereas a routine performance has tension ebbing away as the dynamics soften- i.e. 'intensely quiet.'

Post by cpwheeler April 27, 2014 (6 of 7)
Are you sure these are SACDs? They appear as regular CDs on the HMV website.

Post by ramesh April 27, 2014 (7 of 7)
cpwheeler said:

Are you sure these are SACDs? They appear as regular CDs on the HMV website.

The two Warner reissues I listed in post 1 have the SACD and hybrid logos printed on the SACD. Even though they have 'CD' printed on the ink side, the data side has the typical colour of a hybrid disc. The EMI SACDs had like the Warners, the logos etc printed on the left, with the EMI logo also printed on the SACD.

The F 1954 Walküre SACD reissue is listed on my order as 'ready' though I've lumped it in with a preorder for one of the Karajan Strauss SACDs due in June : this has code WPGS-50059/61, which differs from the EMI SACD which was deleted after I ordered it last year.

Closed