For Furtwängler the music of Beethoven, the symphonies in general and the Fifth and Ninth in particular were almost evangelical missions. There are at least eleven performances of the Fifth documented in live, broadcast or commercial recordings. This 1937 recording was his second with the Berlin Philharmonic and is admired as much for sound quality as interpretative prowess. Although, in many respects, Parsifal most suited the great conductor’s temperament, it is the most under-represented of all Wagner’s mature music dramas in the Furtwängler discography. The Adagio solemne from Furtwängler’s own epic Symphonic Concerto for piano and orchestra, completed in 1943, is built upon the bedrock of Brahmsian and Brucknerian experience rather than swimming with contemporary atonal or neo-classical developments.