Wilhelm Furtwaengler conducted Beethoven's Ninth Symphony more than 100 times. + In August 1954, three months before his death, he directed his last performance in Lucerne, leading the Philharmonia Orchestra and a stellar cast of soloists (Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Elsa Cavelti, Ernst Haefliger and Otto Edelmann), which proved to be an "elemental musical event" (Neue Zuercher Zeitung). + For this release, the original tapes from the SRF archives have been newly re-mastered, and crucially, the pitch adjusted, bringing the audio, for the first time, as close to the original as possible.
