Furtwaengler or Brahms?

[Charles B. Francois]

Although I can't quote from Greg Paley's article on the subject (we
recently lost all of our .classical backlog), I would like to second
wholeheartedly his thoughts about Furtwaengler's conducting style. Yes
a musical score should simply be a guideline, but within its frame,
there are definite relationships whose alteration transforms the music
into something else, not necessarily better or worse, just inherently
different from the composer's intent.

With that in mind, I'm especially distracted by WF's behavior in music
which is very close to my heart. His classic Brahms One comes to mind.
The way I think of it is: on the rare instances that the urge strikes
me to listen to Furtwaengler's Brahms' First, then I do so, fully aware
that Brahms is being refracted through the mind of a very important
artist with definite ideas about the music which have more to do with
his philosophy than the composer's; when I just want to listen to
Brahms' First symphony (i.e. to my own humble idea of how the score
of Brahms' First symphony is best realized), then more often than
not I pull out my unheralded, overlooked and underappreciated old
Concertgebouw/Haitink recording on Philips, and start dreaming I'm on
the podium.

Aimez-vous Brahms?
--Charles B. Francois {...,decvax,allegra}!yale!francois