Radio Recordings 1939-19

As all Furtwangler fanatics do, I own the giant 109-CD Membran box, "The Furtwangler Legacy." It's excellent and well worth owning, but its sonics simply pale before this fabulous set (and the Audite RIAS set of post-WWII recordings). While the sonics in this new set are a bit of a mixed bag (strange mechanical tape recorder noises mar several of the SACDs), when the sound is good, it's GREAT!! I'm listening to the set SACD by SACD (they're hybrid, so they also play on CD decks), from last to first, and am nearly through the second half. Standouts so far:- Der Freischutz Overture (wow!)- Daphnis et Chloe Suite No. 1 (excellent, but only part of the piece was recorded)- Symphonia Domestica (holy cow! - might have been recorded yesterday, other than the mono)- Haydn Variations- Beethoven Violin Concerto (musicians alive in my listening room).Most of the other recordings are vastly cleaner than I've ever heard before, though marred in spots by that periodic strange thump/flutter effect (couldn't the engineers have removed that annoyance with inexpensive audio lab software?) The other sonic flaw in some of the performances is that the technology couldn't keep up with Furtwangler's dramatically wide range of ppp to fff, and there's a buzz that sometimes creeps in to the loudest sections. So far in my listening, the recordings that make Furtwangler Furtwangler - viz., the Bruckner and Beethoven Symphonies - are only so-so sonically, but I'm about to listen to what remains of Furtwangler's Bruckner Sixth and am hoping that's one of the superb, batwing-free renderings. Will plan to post a follow up when I've listened to the whole set - it's super addictive, so that shouldn't take very long. Bottom line: GRAB THIS SET (and the Audite postwar set, too!) and hear how the unutterably great Wilhelm Furtwangler sounded live!!

Review for SACD played on CD player -- I have bought all the iterations of the Furtwangler wartime recordings, from various labels. This one sounds great, compared to the DG releases and the Music & Arts Beethoven Wartime set. Sounds better, particularly the 1942 Beethoven 9, which I consider the best performance recorded. The box packaging is typical of the BPO releases... I have a few of the others, and it is about twice the spine width of the Harnoncourt Schubert set. A pain to shelve, unless you have few others of these releases... then they get their own space. This one totally deserves the space.

Give those Germans credit: Their taping system was years ahead of everyone else. The sound of these CDs is superb. They're pricey, but worth the cost.

Great historical collection

This is a fascinating if very tainted collection. I will not dwell on the stupid packaging (just rip the discs and put them away!) or whether or not it really is necessary to present these low-fi recordings as DSD SACDs (answer: no). Nor will I deal with the two big issues: whether it is MORAL to be selling/listening to this stuff (moral decisions by nature are personal), and whether or not the performances are great/meh/somewhere in between (answer: a real mix of all of the above).Before purchasing this set, consider the Furtie RIAS box on Audite. You might prefer it. Also consider singletons from Andrew Rose's Pristine Audio. Many of those are in even better sound, especially the infamous "Nazi Ninth." The Rose version is the only one that makes that performance sound like something more than a tympani concerto -- it is so much better that it seems like a different performance entirely. The version in this set also is pretty good, but does not correct the horrendous instrumental balance issues.So here is the rub. If you are interested in the wartime material, you probably already have most of it. Are these versions substantially better than what DG has been flogging? The answer is clearly YES, at least for the recovered "Russian tapes." Nonetheless, the vast majority of this collection is available in its DG form at a substantially lower price *if* you are willing to listen to downloads. How much cheaper? Currently just $10. There is a British music company whose name means "soon" in Italian, "very fast" in music, and is used by magicians before the word "Change-o." Downloading that set of these radio broadcasts at so cheap a price is probably the best way to decide if this material in better form is worth the substantial investment.If the answer is "Yes, I gotta have it," then you should do two things. First, talk to your shrink about upping your meds. Second, check out the price directly from the Berlin Philharmonic. They have been hovering at the 200 $/Euro mark, while sets through other vendors have often been much more expensive. The current price on Amazon.US is quite close, but it hasn't always been that way.I think this is an interesting purchase but only for the Furtie completist, of which there are a remarkable number, G-d save us all. Is it better than the recordings in the huge blue Membrane Furtie Legacy box? Hell yes. Is it worth 200 smackers? That is up to you, my friend. But if you are new to Furtie, this is not the place to start.

Soy admirador de este extraordinario y superlativo conductor aleman, y cuento con varias grabaciones del maestro en famosos y serios sellos discograficos, por lo que en un principio dude en adquirir esta bella caja de grabaciones hechas durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial, ya que si lo hacia tendria duplicados de grabaciones con las que yo ya contaba en ese momento. Pero pues bueno, investige y me informe que la fuente de los audios de esta caja, fueron las cintas originales alemanas, que fueron tomadas por los rusos y enviadas a Moscu durante la ocupacion de Berlin en 1945, y que fueron devueltas a Alemania no hace mucho tiempo.El Sonido: Simplemente por dar solo un ejemplo comparativo: La 9na. Sinfonia de Brukner, esta obra solo la grabo una sola vez el maestro durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial, por lo cual siempre que la encuentren, sera la misma grabacion en todos los casos. De esta Sinfonia yo contaba con las ediciones de Music&Arts y la del famoso sello amarillo Deustche Gramaphon, ahora bien, lo que no es lo mismo es la fuente de la que surge dichas ediciones y esta nueva edicion de la "Berliner Philharmoniker", ahi recide la diferencia, el sonido de esta caja de 22 discos mejora notablemente a el de la anteriores ediciones. y si ademas contamos que la resolucion de estos 22 discos hibridos CD y SACD es de 24bit/96kHz, podemos contar que la experiencia sonora es la mejor dentro de lo que cabe en grabaciones historicas de entre 1939 y 1945, Wilhelm Fürtwangler como nunca lo has escuchado. Muy recomendado.