rt`vĕng-lər), 1886–1954, German conductor, b. Berlin; son of Adolf Furtwängler Furtwängler, Adolf , 1853–1907, German archaeologist, authority on ancient vases and gems. He made important excavations at Olympia, Aegina, and Orchomenus and wrote the authoritative Meisterwerke der griechischen Plastik..... Click the link for more information. . One of the greatest orchestral conductors of the 20th cent., he studied music in Munich, where he grew up. He began his career conducting opera in Lübeck (1911–15) and Mannheim (1915–20). In 1922 he succeeded Arthur Nikisch as conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and shortly thereafter also became principal conductor of the Vienna Philharmonic. Furtwängler was a regular conductor of the New York Philharmonic from 1925 to 1927 and its permanent conductor in the season of 1937–38. In 1934 he resigned his important posts in Germany when the performance of Hindemith's music was prohibited. In 1935 he returned to conduct the Berlin orchestra.
Furtwängler remained in Germany during World War II and, while he was never a Nazi, his failure to break with the regime led to considerable criticism. After the war he was absolved of a charge of having collaborated with the Nazis. He continued to conduct in Vienna, revived (1951) the Bayreuth Festival Bayreuth Festival, also called the Richard Wagner Festival, annual season of performances of Wagner's works, held in the Bavarian town of Bayreuth. In about 1851, Wagner began to visualize a festival theater that would be devoted to the performance of great German
..... Click the link for more information. , and retained the position of conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic until his death. He was succeeded in Berlin by Herbert von Karajan Karajan, Herbert von , 1908–89, Austrian conductor. Karajan began his conducting career in 1927. After World War II his reputation spread through Europe to the United States.
..... Click the link for more information. . Furtwängler was particularly renowned for his interpretations of the music of Beethoven, Brahms, Bruckner, Wagner, and Schumann. He was also a composer, following in the German romantic tradition.
Bibliography
See M. Tanner, ed., Notebooks 1924–1954 by Wilhelm Furtwängler (tr. 1989); biography by C. Riess (tr. 1955); P. Pirie, Furtwängler and the Art of Conducting (1980) and J. Hunt, The Furtwängler Sound (1985).
Furtwängler, (Gustav Heinrich Ernst Martin) Wilhelm
(born Jan. 25, 1886, Berlin—died Nov. 30, 1954, near Baden-Baden, W.Ger.) German conductor and composer. After private composition studies with Joseph Rheinberger (1839–1901), he debuted in 1906. His revised Te Deum (1910) established him as a composer, and in 1917 his work as a guest conductor in Berlin earned him high praise. He succeeded Richard Strauss at the Berlin State Opera, and Arthur Nikisch (1855–1922) at the Leipzig Gewandhaus and Berlin Philharmonic, becoming especially associated with the music of Ludwig van Beethoven and Richard Wagner. Though criticized for staying in Germany during the Nazi era, he was no friend of the regime, continuing to program modern music and helping Jewish musicians to escape. He was formally exonerated of complicity with the Nazis, but public hostility dogged his later years.
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