MovieChat Forums > Taking Sides (2002) Discussion > music in this movie

music in this movie

posted 21 years ago by zizimouse
24 replies | jump to latest

Is any music in this movie from original recordings of Furtwangler's performances?

[–] lawprof 21 years ago

Yes, Furtwangler's recordings are used. All are in print and are readily available.

[–] chouhy 20 years ago

In one scene during the film they play a Quintet? piano and String quartet I think. I got the idea that it was Schubert's. Could you tell me what music was?

[–] 20 years ago

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[–] badboy2k 20 years ago

Yes, it was Schubert,
Adagio from String Quintet in C major Op. post. 163 D956
Performed by the Manon Quartet, Berlin
and Natasha Farny (Cello)

[–] pb-2 20 years ago

At the end of the film "Conspiracy," about the Wannsee Conference, Stanley Tucci, at his smarmy best playing Eichmann, puts the same music, played at an appropriately slower pace, on the phonograph. When a member of the waitstaff seems profoundly moved, Eichmann says "I've never understood the passion for Schubert's sentimental Viennese *beep*."

[–] mlewis78 17 years ago

[–] kaream 15 years ago

The credits name Daniel Barenboim as the conductor and the Staatskappelle Dresden as the orchestra in recordings used. I wondered if they didn't use authentic Furtwangler recordings because they may have wanted something with more modern recording technology?

In the music credits at the very end it shows both Daniel Barenboim conducting the 1st movement of Beethoven's 5th Symphony with the Staatskapelle Berlin (on Teldec) and Wilhelm Furtwangler conducting the same symphony with the Berliner Philharmoniker in a 1943 recording (on Deutsche Grammophon). The Furtwangler recording is heard at the beginning of the film, in the great concert hall, while the Barenboim is used at the end of the film and through the credits sequences, precisely because the audio technology is so much better; theoretically we're not supposed to be able to tell them apart. Many surviving Furtwangler recordings sound almost as though bombs were falling all around - they're generally not in the best of shape.

The recording of Bruckner's 7th Symphony that Major Arnold plays for Furtwangler near the end of the movie is another of his wartime performances with the Berlin Philharmonic (on EMI).

badboy2k's identification of the Schubert Quintet is exactly correct. No recording is cited, so apparently this was a live performance done for the film.

[–] jscb 13 years ago

The recording of Beethoven's Fifth that Arnold listens to must be an advanced version for 1945-7. The second movement starts up right after the first movement ends - surely Furtwängler's recording would have been on four 78 rpm records, one movement each (split over two sides)?

Apparently, Daniel Barenboim conducts in a similar style to Wilhelm Furtwängler - Furtwängler's widow, Elisabeth, saw Barenboim conduct and said "Er Furtwängelt!"

I know Furtwängler's last wartime concert included Brahms 2nd Symphony but not what else. I have the recording of the Brahms performance (Archipel, so not cleaned up very much, but a very stirring performance).

I gather the source of the story about Albert Speer advising him to get out now was... Albert Speer. Not exactly an objective historical source!

[–] kaream 13 years ago

It's been a while since I saw the movie, but I'm not sure I understand your point. We saw Arnold playing the 2nd movement of Bruckner's 7th for Furtwängler, but if we watched him playing the transition between the 1st and 2nd movements of Beethoven's 5th, I'm not recalling it. Regardless of how this now plays on a CD, these would definitely have been on separate sides of 78s.

You are correct that the 5th would have needed at minimum four records for a ~30 minute recording. A 12-inch 78 rpm shellac record held only about 5 minutes per side:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/78_rpm#78_rpm_disc_size
and a full symphony required an entire album (back when an "album" really was just that, with multiple sleeves, rather like a photo album). You had to constantly turn over or change the records, so the sound was always discontinuous.

I'm not recalling more than 5 minutes of the Furtwängler version of Beethoven's 5th, so there was no need for any discontinuity in the soundtrack - or even so, Szabo undoubtedly would have eliminated it unless he was specifically demonstrating the need to change records.

By the way, note that recording was always a compromise between the performer and the recording engineer. They would go over the score together and determine break points based on what would fit on a single side, with the publisher always pressuring them to keep the number of records to a minimum. This meant that occasionally some passages would have to be played at a slightly faster tempo than the performer would have preferred. Or sometimes a repeat would be omitted. You couldn't sell a set with 8 1/4 sides.

EDIT: If you did hear a seamless transition from the end of the first movement to the start of the second movement - which I'm not recalling one way or the other - then obviously Szabo just wasn't that interested in portraying the mechanics of having to change 78s. Or, it would be very unusual but not unheard of, for the break points in the symphony to incorporate the end of one movement together with the start of the next on a single side, if that's the only feasible way to make the timing come out properly.

[–] 13 years ago

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[–] kaream 13 years ago

As I mentioned, it's been quite a while since I saw this movie, so maybe I have the sequences mixed up. Leaving out the Schubert and the Bruckner, first, I'm not convinced the soundtrack CD will necessarily follow the same sequence as used in the film - they not infrequently do not. In fact most soundtrack CDs will include an entire piece or movement rather than the chopped-up sequences that are actually heard in a movie.

Second, of course Szabo will not have taken his Furtwängler soundtrack pieces directly from 78s, but from a cleaned-up source. It's very doubtful that the original metal stamps could have survived the war (this is what reputable reissuers use to make CDs whenever they're still available); but still there's a lot of audio cleanup that can be done, regardless of the condition of the source. And naturally it will still never sound like a modern digital recording, so it shouldn't be hard to tell the two performances apart, regardless of their conducting styles.

My recollection, very possibly mistaken, was that the opening sequence in the concert hall was Furtwängler's Allegro con brio, and then with the end credits we heard Barenboim in the same movement.

I'm not remembering one way or another what scene the Furtwängler Andante con moto was associated with. Nor, as I noted above, whether we ever heard a direct transition without a break between Furtwängler's 1st and 2nd movements. (Again, the movie soundtrack will not have used actual 78s for any Furtwängler, other than possibly the Bruckner, simply for effect.)

If you think the concert hall performance with the bombs was actually Barenboim, then you also believe the end credits was Furtwängler? Aside from what I heard, or not, somehow this wouldn't make sense to me just from the standpoint of putting a movie together. The concert hall with the visuals of Furtwängler himself, and the bombs and shaking hands with Goebbels, using Barenboim, as opposed to scrolling the credits with an old-sounding recording rather than sending the audience on their way with a clean digital sound swelling in their ears and hearts? Forget the CD - it's put together for an entirely different purpose.

In any case, do you remember where in the movie the Furtwängler Andante con moto was used? I can't associate it with any scene.

[–] kaream 13 years ago

However, I'm overlooking the post from mlewis78, above:

In the extra features on the DVD, there is a behind the scenes section where you see the orchestra playing (the beginning of the film) and it appeared that they were really playing and were actually being conducted by a real conductor on the side while the actor portraying Furtwangler was going through the motions and acting the role of conductor.

I haven't seen this extra feature, but as described it appears to vindicate your position.

[–] 13 years ago

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[–] kaream 13 years ago

A very helpful post - thanks very much for your input.

I do have a 5-sided LP set of an opera, but this decision must be very rare; surely the 33' symphony would have been put onto 8 sides of 78s, with some sides being only partially filled.

I guess I must have been simply presuming what I thought would be the logic of using different sources where in the film, rather than actually hearing the distinction.

So in other words, the note from mlewis78 did give the correct answer concerning the start and end of the film. I ought to rent a copy of the movie again and watch all the extras.

[–] kaream 13 years ago

Interesting about Naxos Historical reissues - thanks also for that info. I have one that simply says "Producer and audio restoration engineer: Mark Obert-Thorn".

I'm pretty sure that, for instance, the Columbia reissue of the 1938 Benny Goodman Carnegie Hall concert went back to metal parts; and that RCA did the same for their Fats Waller sets - but in the US, there wasn't the same necessity to melt down metal masters as was true in Europe.

Sometimes you'll see No-Noise or Cedar credited as proprietary audio restoration tools, but apparently Naxos and some other issuers use in-house filters.

On the other hand, both Pearl/Flapper and Biddulph appear to refuse to use any type of audio cleanup at all. And at the other extreme, a small publisher called Avid filters the crap out of its stuff, leaving only a bare skeleton of what was originally there - it's pretty terrible sounding.

[–] 13 years ago

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[–] kaream 13 years ago

This is indeed fascinating stuff (to me anyway), although I don't know diddly about sound engineering. Marston's name is very familiar to me, just as a name; and Mark Obert-Thorn pops into my head.* I should go back and look at some of my other AADs and ADDs - I have a whole bunch of remastered EMIs and others.

Essentially I've collected performers that I grew up with, and who I generally tend to prefer stylistically. A man named Reinhold Barchet, who I'll bet you've never heard of, made two different sets of the Quattro Stagione, one with Münchinger at Stuttgart, and another with Friedrich Tilegant and the SWDKO. It has always seemed to me that Barchet is the only violinist who could make you sweat and bat away the flies in summer, and huddle shivering in winter, rather than just playing notes. I finally found a CD of the Tilegant on Denon Japan.

One set I've always loved but simultaneously been very disappointed in is Schneider with Kirkpatrick doing BWV 1014-1019. It was poorly recorded to start with in the studio - I still have R-to-R tapes I made from the 78s, as well as an LP of only two of them - but still worthwhile listening to for the playing. I very much wish DG would reissue the marvelous Oistrakh/ Pischner set on CD.

And no one has ever played Sei mir gegrüsst like Szigeti.
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*Well, no wonder this name pops into my head - I had just mentioned him myself yesterday.

[–] 13 years ago

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[–] kaream 13 years ago

"Le Quattro Stagione": Vivaldi's "The Four Seasons" - four violin concerti representing Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter.
:-)

Surely you've heard these at some point. If you might be at all interested, try Georges Armand with Louis Auriacombe, as the next best after the unavailable Barchet. Amazon has an in-print EMI for $30, and an identical OOP Seraphim for $0.01 (!) Most other performers just make me think of plastic for some reason - they get the notes right, but have no understanding of the music. A VERY common situation with so many post-mid-20th C technicians - I need for some personality to shine through. You really ought to try that Szigeti Schubert Fantasia "Sei mir gegrüsst" on CBS that I mentioned, OOP but available for under $20. With some composers/ compositions he can be so idiosyncratic as to seem wayward, but here he takes your breath away.

I think Schubert is the only one I could listen to every day, but with Shostakovich running a close second. I'm definitely more partial to chamber music, or piano solo, than to orchestral, though.

If you ever listen to opera, Shostakovich's early "The Nose" was released relatively recently. An amazing and very funny piece. I have the Rozhdestvensky on Melodiya; don't know the other recording. And the Rostropovich/Vishnevskaya/Gedda Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk on EMI is stunning.

[–] kaream 13 years ago

And speaking of specific performances, do yourself a big favor and get a copy of "Koussevitzky conducts Prokofiev", on Pearl. Koussevitzky was an early and important interpreter of Prokofiev, but the real gem on this disc, believe it or not, is the 1939 Peter and the Wolf. Some unknown guy named Richard Hale did the narration, and it completely blows everything else out of the water - even the Basil Rathbone with Stokowski from a couple of years later. This last was on one of those terrible Avid reprints I mentioned above, and it's gone now. Captain Kangaroo, eat your heart out - there's stupendous, there's exellent, and there's people who should have stood in bed.

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