Barbirolli conducts Elgar | Barbirolli Society SJB107576

Barbirolli conducts Elgar

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Label: Barbirolli Society

Cat No: SJB107576

Format: CD

Number of Discs: 2

Release Date: 7th October 2013

Contents

About

Elgar’s friend, the arts patron Frank Schuster, wrote to the composer after Barbirolli’s 1927 debut concert with the London Symphony Orchestra performing the Second Symphony: ‘I must just tell you that to my thinking Barbirolli gave a remarkably good account of your No 2, playing it as it is written and, what’s more, as it is felt.

In this 1954 recording of the Symphony (the first of two Barbirolli was to make), his overall timing for the Scherzo is identical – to the second – to Elgar’s own 1927 recording, yet it is true that Barbirolli is more expansive in the other movements. But too much can be made of comparative timings - if the conductor is true to the character of the music and reveals it as such through the performance as he feels it at the time, then the listener is convinced. After all, for most music there is no one way of performing – although occasionally the results are so good as to virtually silence criticism.

If Elgar’s Cockaigne had a special place in Barbirolli’s heart, as had the Second Symphony, Elgar’s Enigma Variations had a similar claim on his affections. The Enigma Variations was a work Barbirolli himself took wherever he went. It was a major part of his first New York Philharmonic programmes, and he included it in his debut concert at the Hollywood Bowl. At the 1948 Edinburgh Festival, with Barbirolli conducting the Berlin Philharmonic, it was another notable success, and the Enigma also featured in Barbirolli’s programmes on his famous ‘return tour’ of major American orchestras during 1959. In this 1956 stereo recording, his account is certainly in the highest class and is additionally notable for including Elgar’s optional organ part in the finale, the last variation EDU (No.14 – a self-portrait), to impressive effect.

Of all the great musicians of the 20th-century to have come from the North of England, the contralto Kathleeen Ferrier has to be numbered as arguably the finest and best-loved. It was during World War II that she came to prominence. The Free Trade Hall in Manchester had been the home of the Hallé Orchestra prior to Barbirolli’s appointment, and it was reopened on November 16, 1951, the year of the Festival of Britain, the occasion being marked by a magnificent orchestral concert in which the concluding item was Kathleen Ferrier singing of Elgar’s ‘Land of Hope and Glory’. Reporting in the Manchester Guardian on the event, Norman Shrapnel wrote: ‘..lovers of this tune will fear that never again can they hope to hear it in such glory.’ Sixty years and more later, we have to agree with him.

The Cockaigne Overture is heard in two recordings on this release: 1949/50 and 1954.

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