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Editorial Reviews

It doesn't really matter if you have already heard one or a dozen recordings of the works included in this set. It doesn't really matter if you have already heard one or 100 recordings by Wilhelm Furtwängler. It doesn't even really matter if you have already heard enough antediluvian recordings in antique sound to know you really don't like them. The only thing that really matters is that this set includes recordings by Wilhelm Furtwängler, the greatest conductor of the twentieth century and after that everything else, as Rabbi Hillel said, is commentary.

Is there a more profoundly spiritual recording of Bruckner's "Symphony No. 9" than Furtwängler's with the Berlin Philharmonic from 1944? Is there a more deeply moving recording of Strauss' "Metamorphosen" than Furtwängler's with the Berlin Philharmonic from 1947? Is there a more sublimely blissful recording of Bach's "Orchestral Suite in D major" than Furtwängler's with the Berlin Philharmonic from 1948? Is there a more transcendentally hilarious recording of Beethoven's "Symphony No. 8" than Furtwängler's with the Berlin Philharmonic from 1953? Is there a more luminously lovely recording of Schumann's "Spring Symphony" than Furtwängler's with the Vienna Philharmonic from 1951? Is there a more majestically lyrical recording of Mozart's "Symphony No. 39" than Furtwängler's with the Berlin Philharmonic from 1942-1943? Is there a more radiantly autumnal Brahms' "Symphony No. 3" than Furtwängler's with the Berlin Philharmonic from 1954? No, of course not. This is as good as it gets.

Deutsche Grammophon's remastered sound is likely as good as it will ever get considering the age and the origins of these recordings. It doesn't really matter: everyone with a heart and soul should hear them. James Leonard, All Music Guide

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