Beethoven: Symphony No. 5
No work appeared more frequently in Furtwängler's concert programmes than Beethoven's Fifth. Between 1918 and his death in 1954, he conducted more than a hundred performances, including a superbly realised 1937 HMV studio recording with the Berlin Philharmonic and this formidable studio remake with the Vienna Philharmonic in 1954, further proof of his astonishing ability to penetrate a work to its core yet preserve it as a living entity.