In October 1944 Wilhelm Furtwängler’s ambiguous, much reviled association with the Nazi regime was reaching its end; in January 1945 he finally fled. The valedictory intensity of this famous recording of Bruckner’s last, incomplete symphony is truly alarming. Taped for radio in an empty Berlin Beethovensaal, without audience noise, the Berlin Philharmonic’s playing reaches terrifying heights in the first movement and brutal Scherzo. Furtwängler’s way with the structure is totally flexible: sometimes he seems almost to lose his way, but then pulls the music back together for a shattering climax. This new re-release couples it with the Adagio of Bruckner’s Seventh, recorded in 1942, slow and sublime, swirling with incandescent power. Unmissable.
