Search - Sir John Barbirolli, Halle Orchestra :: Glorious John

From the review in 'Gramophone'

Record Collector | Mons, Belgium | 01/25/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

""This is a delightful whistle-stop tour of Barbirolli's career, with first-class remastering. In his dedication on the score of the Symphony No 8, Vaughan Williams aptly referred to Barbirolli as 'Glorious John', so providing the title for this compilation celebrating the great conductor's centenary. On two very well-filled discs it offers 20 historic items, five of them previously unpublished, plus a Berlioz rehearsal sequence of 1957 and a 1964 interview with his recording producer, Kinloch Anderson. The many illustrations in the booklet add to the attractions.



"From 1911 you have the 11-year-old Giovanni Barbirolli, accompanied by his siter Rosa, playing on the cello a long-forgotten piece by Van Biene, full of swoopy portamento but perfect in intonation. From 1925 there is the Minuet from Mozart's E flat Quartet, K428, with Barbirolli as cellist of the Kutcher Quartet. From then on as a budding conductor Barbirolli was regularly in the studio, accompanying star soloists. Even before he was spotted by the legendary HMV record producer, Fred Gaisberg, he recorded for Edison Bell a disc, included here, of the soprano Lilian Stiles-Allen singing 'Voi lo sapete' from Cavalleria rusticana. Stiles-Allen, best remembered as one of the original 16 soloists in Vaughan Williams's Serenade to Music, tends to sing Mascagni as though it is oratorio, but it is still delightfully fresh and clear.



"Once under Gaisberg's wing, Barbirolli blossomed still further on the HMV label, and it is good to have here rare, well-chosen items with the fine tenor, Renato Zanelli, singing Otello, and the powerful baritone (still active in London after the war) Giovanni Inghilleri as Scarpia. A long-buried item (a favourite in the days of 78s), Saint-Saens's charming Valse caprice, is also very welcome, one of the few recordings made by the vivacious actress and pianist, Yvonne Arnaud.



"The items from Barbirolli's long-underprized New York period are even rarer. The rarity of the two items amply justifies their inclusion, with Weinberger's delightful piece, Christmas (surely deserving of a modern recording), and Anthony Collins's overture inspired by Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, Sir Toby and Sir Andrew, sparkling in a Waltonian way. Rounding off the first disc are two recordings with the Vienna Philharmonic made at the 1947 Salzburg Festival, with the orchestra on home ground in Weber, and revealing unexpected sympathy in a heartfelt account of Delius's Walk to the Paradise Garden.



"The second of the two discs is largely devoted to lollipops recorded with the Halle in the 1950s, all of them delightful, and I am specially glad to have as an unexpected choice Barbirolli's pioneering account of Stravinsky's Concerto in D for strings, recorded in 1948, two years after the work first appeared. The rehearsal of Berlioz's Dance of the Sylphs dates from 1957, while in many ways most endearing of all is the 1964 conversation between the gravel-voiced Barbirolli and his recording producer Ronald Kinloch Anderson, covering such subjects as Mahler, the Berlin Philharmonic and Elgar, a splendid portrait. Excellent Dutton transfers admirably iron out inconsistencies.""