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.

There is a live recording (in stereo) of Beet 5th piano with Gieseking/Rother/Greater Orch of the 3rd Reich. The concert took place in 1944 and, allegedly, Hitler was present. The conductor is reported as Rother -- but there's a rumour (urban legend?) that in fact it was Furt.

But speaking of Furt's tempi, there are two interesting performances of the 9th each with its own "anxiety inspiring" tempo: one live Berlin in 1942, and another in Stockholm in 1943.

I hadn't until now noticed bombs or gunfire in Berlin -- but will try Romy's trick (as far as I can apply it...) for extra anxiety effect.

I love these "situationally significant" musical testaments.

Finally, among many such recordings, there is an interesting Beet violin concerto with Mitropoulos/NYP/Heifetz recorded live in 1956 (I think -maybe '54). At certain moments it sounds like a "triangular confrontation" concerto: violin vs. conductor vs. orchestra. I have listened to the original LP and the result is captivating; the reissues, some of which I have, are flat by comparison.

Gregm wrote:

There is a live recording (in stereo) of Beet 5th piano with Gieseking/Rother/Greater Orch of the 3rd Reich. The concert took place in 1944 and, allegedly, Hitler was present. The conductor is reported as Rother -- but there's a rumour (urban legend?) that in fact it was Furt.

The Artur Rother is a legitimate conductor; I have some of his recordings. Here is his full discography:

http://www.geocities.com/Vienna/Studio/2891/rother-dis.htm

Still the “urban legend” about Rother/Furt substitution sounds a little fishy. Yes, it is common that some of the musicians and conductors, because of the different reasons, would like do not have own name associated with a specific publicly available recording. They usually invented some kind of fictitious name and print it on a record. The very same Heifetz that you mentioned had for instance a few “second names” that he insisted to print instead of his. However, I never thought that one musician insist that his performance should be attributed to other actual (none fictional) musician. At least I never head about it. If it were true then it would be very interesting to learn about the resins WHY they decided to do it.