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New Barbirolli CD reviews

Dutton have now released three volumes entitled The Columbia Masters, spanning the years 1940-2 with the New York Philharmonic. Vol 1 on CDSJB1025 welcomes back Rimsky-Korsakov's Capriccio Espagnol, stunningly colourful and idiomatic in its highly charged rhythms, and Tchaikovsky's Theme & Variations from Suite No 3 in G, where the responsive virtuoso challenge set by strings, winds and brass sections meets the composer's scoring demands throughout. Tiny cuts (mostly phrase repeats in the finale) hardly diminish my overall enjoyment. Sibelius Symphony No 1 compares with Beecham's RPO account for authenticity, but where the older man occasionally spoilt his reputation with wilful gesturings, Barbirolli is far more respectful to details. Super fine transfers.

A Mozart programme on CDSJB1026 features soloists Robert Casadesus and Benny Goodman. The purely orchestral work is Symphony 25 in G minor, sounding hardly inferior to the later masterwork No 40 in the same key. Much of the sweeping phrasework in the first movement characterises JB's predecessor Toscanini, but there is an inner glow and humanity here, a warmth in the slow movement, and vitality to the remainder that places this neglected work on a pedestal for new appraisal. Piano Concerto No 27 in B flat shows that Casadesus was a fine interpreter, while the orchestral backing matches every aspect of his poetic phrasing. Benny Goodman's caressing soft-tones in the Clarinet Concerto -- a first release -- reveals his tender respect for that work. The slower Finale, compared to today's virtuosi of the platform -- means that you hear more subtlety of scoring. A peach of a disc.

Volume 3 on CDSJB1027 starts with the most scintilating performance of Berlioz' Roman Carnival Overture I have ever heard. The celebrated LPO / da Sabata version on Decca sounds dull by comparison. Barbirolli paces the music in unhurried fashion, allowing the players to colour their musical strands to brilliant effect. Debussy's Ballet from Busset's orchestration of Petite Suite is gentler, but no less effective, while Benny Goodman's sultry style and creamy textures in the Première Rapsodie are enhanced by some gorgeous playing from the solo harp. Ravel's La Valse -- an old favourite -- thankfully, with none of the speed excesses of modern performances has the simplest of rubato treatment as and when required. Nathan Milstein's performance of Bruch's G minor Violin Concerto easily eclipses both of his Capitol recordings. The slow movement, particularly, shows the close knit unity and sumptuous qualities of the various New York Philharmonic sections.

These 1940 performances in first class transfers do tend to show what this orchestra missed out on in the post-war decade that followed.

I would like to preface my final review with the first sentence of a letter that JB sent to his close colleague and biographer Michael Kennedy in 1963, reproduced in Barbirolli Conductor Laureate (first published 1971 by MacGibbon & Lee, London):

There can be no orchestra, with a style of its own, without a head of great quality, both as a teacher and as an interpreter, and by style I mean not a particular characteristic but a suppleness and variety of style that can attune itself to music of all kinds and periods ...

The Barbirolli English Music Album, CDSJB 1022 certainly lives up to the international reputation and standing (in this context, understanding) that Sir John achieved with his Hallé Orchestra. Beecham, and perhaps Boult too, also caught Sir Arnold Bax's imaginative powers in re-creating the fairy-tale atmosphere of his greatest orchestral work The Garden of Fand. The constructive level and inspired scoring balances rich melodies and startling harmonies -- an object lesson to all those endeavouring to write comprehensible music at the present time.

I found myself visibly moved during the central subject's climactic high string episodes; likewise during the close of the development. Such inspirational writing carries the listener into sadder, more melancholy and remoter regions in Butterworth's A Shropshire Lad Rhapsody.

Listen to the way solo violin, clarinet, bass clarinet, then shimmering strings usher back the main tune for its final appearance. Ireland's The Forgotten Rite, Mai Dun, These Things Shall Be were recording firsts with Barbirolli, thanks to the British Council. The range of emotions contained therein are an expression of a bygone age almost vanished from the feelings of caring individuals, never to recur with their younger offspring. This is prophetic music, brought again to life through Barbirolli's inspired interpretations.

Vaughan Williams and Elgar's claims to fame have luckily survived the mediocre achievements of a later age more used to wholesale slaughter and abstract mental vision on a high scale. Fantasia on Greensleeves and the Tallis Fantasia are represented here in slightly postwar recordings from Manchester's Houldsworth Hall. Elgar's Enigma Variations from the same venue, is a first release. Eight years on, Barbirolli's arrangement of earlier music takes shape in An Elizabethan Suite followed by Purcell Suite -- all very welcome returns to the catalogue in these stylish performances on CDSJB 1022 (2 discs).