Competition for the title is intense, but I would ask that serious consideration be given to this CD of Wilhelm Furtwängler's Piano Quintet, which appeared on the Bayer label in 1996. The work itself is an immensely earnest mishmash of Brahms, Franck, Bruckner, and Reger, full of unmemorable ideas developed at unrelenting length. The performance is wretched. The recording is badly made. The notes are delusional. And it goes on and on and on — for seventy-three minutes and...
Published on August 12, 2010 14:45