Starting in 1947, RIAS broadcast Furtwangler and the Berlin Philharmonic performing a variety of works until 1954. There were tapes made of these broadcasts, and Audite has made an arrangement to issue all of the available recordings, taken from the original tapes. This was released in 2009, and is by far the best sounding set of performances from Furtwangler from that era. Of course sound quality is relative, and these are mono recordings, and if you are only happy with the latest digital surround disks, you should move on. However, all of the recordings go from decent to good, and the performances are downright stellar. Furtwanglers takes on these works are from another era, and a few are not wonderful, but overall this is something that you will not hear from any recording these days. There is Beethoven, Brahms, Bruckner, Schumann, some Bach and Handel, plus a few works that you may never even heard of from composers that are no longer in the Top 20 anymore.

In my view these may be the most balanced performances amogst the XX century great conductors, they are dramatic, intense, fluid and structurally clear. Well worth putting up with the recording quality