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Although he took up the baton mainly for practical reasons and originally hoped to focus on composing, Wilhelm Furtwängler is remembered as one of the 20th century's most important, most argued-about conductors. The quasi-Brucknerian music he wrote is now of merely passing interest; Furtwängler was a truly personal, original artist only on the podium. He approached performing as a way of re-composing someone else's work, reconstituting it with a strong infusion of the performer's own ideas and personality. At their worst, Furtwängler's performances could sound mannered, full of sudden, seemingly unmotivated tempo shifts. At their best-and, on CD, these instances greatly outnumber Furtwängler's failures -- his performances abounded with unexpected but illuminating touches that generated moment-to-moment thrills while clarifying the music's grand architectural scheme. General acceptance of such an intensely personal approach to performance waned toward the end of Furtwängler's career, an...