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In the Forum: Musical Discussions
In the Thread: Furtwangler War Years Recording
Post Subject: Furtwangler and the “foreign noises”.Posted by Romy the Cat on: 2/14/2007

Blackmore,

Yes, I head people telling those stories, I heard most of Furtwangler’s war time recordings and I can not recall any bombing sound or sound of sirens. However, to tell you honestly I do not specifically looked for them as I do not really feel it important. Perhaps form historical perspective the fact might be worthy but musically it would be absolutely irrelevant, at least to me.

You see the “foreign noises” that might place accidentally during life-performances might be “interesting” if the musicians “allow” it to be. For instance I head a recording of Michelangeli performance when thunder stroke above the performance hall and musicians actually included that thunder init the performance by changing the music “in fly”.

However, the distant sound of bombings… I do not know it would be influential enough, not to mention that in 40s there was a lot of noise in recordings and I presume that you need to look for those sounds in order to recognize them as the sound of bombings. I personally do not feel that that this search would be necessary to begin with….

Still, If you are interested in it then there are details about the Furtwangler’s discography, here is one that I usealy use:

http://my.dreamwiz.com/fischer/Furtwangler/furtwangler-discography.htm

You might find perhaps what you are looking for. Also in the following thread:

http://www.goodsoundclub.com/Forums/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=765

there is a link to a very good Peter Guttmann’s article about the Furtwangler and the War that you might find worth to read. I think Furtwangler left much more interesting things for us than juts to use his music as a background for the sounds of the Allied bombings.

Rgs,
Romy the Cat

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