Word: ngler
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...Vienna, Wilhelm Furtwängler, famed prewar conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic (but officially cleared of Naziism), fared less well as he appeared for a concert at the music hall. A mob met him outside with boos and catcalls, and began shoving; a Soviet sentry fired a warning shot and Furtwängler got in. But shortly the mob got in, too. The concert and the hissing began about the same time. The demonstrators: former concentration camp inmates...
Before the rehearsal, the musicians were tense and worried; no one knew what kind of reception Wilhelm Furtwängler would get, even though he had been cleared of all charges of friendship and collaboration with the Nazis. "Politics somehow always get mixed up with these things," said one of the Berlin Philharmonic's violinists. But when their old maestro walked in, with the dignified and austere manner the oldtimers knew so well, the tension disappeared. Every man in the orchestra got to his feet; the violinists tapped their bows on the instrument stands in tribute...
Tall, gaunt Wilhelm Furtwä1;ngler, in his shirtsleeves, rehearsed the orchestra with patience and exactitude. In the first half-hour he had shaped only four bars of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony to his satisfaction. One-third of the orchestra was new, and he had only two days to rehearse it. He had arrived from Switzerland to find that his annotated scores had disappeared from his Potsdam home. But the concert had been postponed once and the Titania Palast was nearly sold out. He decided to go on with...
...ovation that greeted Furtwä1;ngler this week might have been bigger-the audience was willing-but he cut it short. As soon as he reached the podium he raised his arms for silence, launched into his all-Beethoven program. Furtwä1;ngler's performance of the Fifth Symphony, whose first notes had been the Allies' wartime theme, brought down the house. People crowded down the aisles, cheering and calling him back time after time...
...Russians had already reached the same conclusion. It remained only for the U.S. members of the Allied Denazification Committee to change their minds (they were expected to) and Wilhelm Furtwängler could once again conduct his Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra...