Furtwängler: Symphony No.1
Fawzi Haimor / Reutlingen Philharmonic (CPO)
(scroll down for English review)
本周推出的新碟中，我覺得最吸引我是這張福特萬格勒《第一交響曲》。今年是福特萬格勒125冥壽，他身為指揮的傳奇地位牢不可固，但他身為作曲家，也寫了好幾首鉅作。他年少時想過做作曲家，但這條路注定難行，而他老早便展現神奇的指揮才華，於是他的作曲夢想便給壓下去。
他人到中年重拾創作，寫出來都是長得很的大型作品，在1943年完成的《第一交響曲》，這個錄音便用了88分鐘。之後的《第二交響曲》也是差不多長度。《第二交響曲》的錄音不少，包括福特萬格勒親自指揮的兩個，巴倫邦也錄過一次，不過絕了版。《第一》就少得多，這個雖然不是第一個，但勝在音響及演奏對辦。
88分鐘卻只得四個樂章，最容易聯想到布魯克納。這張碟的小冊子寫得很長，大致上提到福氏對現代音樂、尤其是以教條或規則驅動創作的反感。假如從這點、以及「像布魯克納」這兩點去看，福氏的作品是反現代，或者浪漫派的。不過到我聽這首《第一交響曲》，聽到的卻不是福氏成長時代流行的華格納或後浪漫主義音樂。因為他這首作品的旋律非常「自然音階」（diatonic），這個字是相對於「半音階」（chromatic），簡單來說是感覺不到華格納影響，聽來很傳統，於是福氏的反前衛其實不只是反對無調音樂，他想回歸的時代可能是他未出世的年代，哪管華格納是他最拿手指揮的作曲家之一。
至於作品好不好聽、是否太長這一點，我會說比我想像中容易聽，更是非常容易聽，可能隨機抽一截都是悅耳，然後又會發展成有對比的音樂，只不過……再變下去，就好像沒有方向，又沒有一個經常重覆的旋律，如同大海中的燈塔讓我們隨時回去。於是，此曲就是容易聽，但不容易聽下去，當做背景音樂也還可以。
2021 is the 125th anniversary of Wilhelm Furtwängler’s birth. Despite of having a cult status as a conductor, he’s also an unrecognized composer who created massive work of Brucknerian lengths. His early dreams of becoming a composer were dashed when his youthful works were coldly received and after his meteoric rise as a young but very able conductor, he gave up composing for good.
But he resumed composing at around age 50. He completed this four-movement First Symphony in 1943 and this recording clocked in at 88 minutes. His Second Symphony has similar length but it has been more recorded than the First. Although this is not the work’s premiere recording, finally we have a Furtwängler First with notable sonics and playing.
The booklet notes writer built his thesis on Furtwängler’s fierce disagreement of modern music, especially the constriction of creativity by dictums. Adding this to the Brucknerian length and momentum we might readily assume that Furtwängler was trying to adhere to late-Romanticism. But actually hearing this music I was surprised with the highly diatonic melodies, which definitely cut off any possible ties with Wagner, thus also late-Romanticism. To me Furtwängler was probably going back further, to the times before he was born.
Now is this work pleasing, or is it too long? I can say it’s far easier than I supposed to be, you might just pick any moment and it’d be pleasing to the ear. Then the music will move on to a contrasting character. Yet, the transformations are endless, without an anchor, a recurring theme to hold on to. So it’s easy to listen, but not easy to finish. Or you might as well play this music at the background if you truly wanted to finish it.