Barbirolli - favourite recordings

[Barbirollians]

- and guess whose recording I learnt the work from?

Wise owl, that RO!


Nimrod: thank you for the nudge towards the BPO Live recording - another one for "The List"!

And guess why I find the Bernstein impossibly fast !

[visualnickmos]

It was on BBC Legends . I think it is deleted but second-hand copies may well be about. It was recorded at the King's Lynn Festival on 24th July 1970 . It was his penultimate concert - he died five days later in the very early hours of the 29th July .

It is a wonderful performance .

Many thanks for the details.....

[Nimrod]

I seem to have read in previous comments some discussion of Pohjola's Daughter and a reference to the EMI recording of January 1966 (can it really be 57 years ago!!?). Have any of you heard the performance off PYE which came out on Phoenixa as a coupling to Nielsen 4th? It's almost a minute faster than the EMI, is quite a bit more thrilling and quite well recorded for 1958. In fact having written this, I cannot but help myself by going and hearing it again!! But the point recently made about the performances of Mahler 6 highlight the fact that JB was invariably ( though not always) faster live, than in the studio. I have a cassette of Mahler 6th live at the Proms with the Halle and the overall time is in line wth his other live performances. If only a decent quality recording of Mahler's 5th would pop out of the woodwork! We might be equally surprised.

[amateur51]

I seem to have read in previous comments some discussion of Pohjola's Daughter and a reference to the EMI recording of January 1966 (can it really be 57 years ago!!?). Have any of you heard the performance off PYE which came out on Phoenixa as a coupling to Nielsen 4th? It's almost a minute faster than the EMI, is quite a bit more thrilling and quite well recorded for 1958. In fact having written this, I cannot but help myself by going and hearing it again!! But the point recently made about the performances of Mahler 6 highlight the fact that JB was invariably ( though not always) faster live, than in the studio. I have a cassette of Mahler 6th live at the Proms with the Halle and the overall time is in line wth his other live performances. If only a decent quality recording of Mahler's 5th would pop out of the woodwork! We might be equally surprised.

What riches, Nimrod!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

the EMI recording of January 1966 (can it really be 57 years ago!!?)

No: 47 - which is horrific enough!

[Nimrod]

Yes Barbirollians, I first got to know the work with the Bernstein and then moved on to the JB. What a contrast!? Rob Cowan recently ventered to suggest that JB was the Bernstein of Manchester! Well, his tastes were Catholic, not Jewish, and he loved his women ( JB, I mean!!!) Not sure quite whether to like Rob's comment or not. I find it interesting that you never saw JB. I know a number of music lovers in the same position but who each hold him in very high regard. Quite a legacy he (thankfully) left us and we should be very grateful to the Barbirolli Society for unearthing so many riches. I have just listened to the Pye recording of Pohjola's daughter, what a performance!

[Nimrod]

Sorry, F, maths being over excited tonight!

[Bryn]

... Have any of you heard the performance off PYE which came out on Phoenixa as a coupling to Nielsen 4th? It's almost a minute faster than the EMI, is quite a bit more thrilling and quite well recorded for 1958. ...

Is that the recording which was also released on a Pye Golfen Guinea as a 'fill-up' for the Fifth? If so, it was my introduction to the work and remains my favourite recording of it.

[Petrushka]

I find it interesting that you never saw JB. I know a number of music lovers in the same position but who each hold him in very high regard.

Barbirolli frequently came with the Halle to the Victoria Hall, Hanley, Stoke on Trent (a hall that was one of his favourites, by the way) and just a few miles from here. Alas, I did not get interested in classical music until the very year of JB's death and first went to the hall in 1972. Barbirolli and Boult are the two conductors I regret never having seen.

[Barbirollians]

Yes Barbirollians, I first got to know the work with the Bernstein and then moved on to the JB. What a contrast!? Rob Cowan recently ventered to suggest that JB was the Bernstein of Manchester! Well, his tastes were Catholic, not Jewish, and he loved his women ( JB, I mean!!!) Not sure quite whether to like Rob's comment or not. I find it interesting that you never saw JB. I know a number of music lovers in the same position but who each hold him in very high regard. Quite a legacy he (thankfully) left us and we should be very grateful to the Barbirolli Society for unearthing so many riches. I have just listened to the Pye recording of Pohjola's daughter, what a performance!

I think I was just lucky in that when I was finding out about classical music in the 1980s a lot of SJB's recordings were available on the cheap EMI labels . Mahler 6 & 9 on Classics for Pleasure , the Schubert 9 on EMI Eminence , Enigma etc on HMV Greensleeves in my local WH Smith the only shop that sold classical records in my part of darkest Essex ! I am pretty sure that the Schubert 9 was the first I bought but I had borrowed Du Pre's Elgar and the Sea Pictures from the library.

Then I splashed out on the full price of the legendary English String Music with the Sinfonia of London and ASD 655 of course !

It occurs to me that there are loads more of his records I treasure - the best Madama Butterfly in the catalogue for a start, that English Tone Poems record now a GROC with added Delius , the Appalachia and Brigg Fair coupling , his superb Mahler,Berlioz and ravel with Janet Baker, The last three Dvorak and Tchaikovsky symphonies , the Halle Sibelius , Peer Gynt ...

[BBMmk2]

Now, barbirollians, what is your favourite JB recording? Just one mind!!

[Nimrod]

I saw both of these conductors in action, and what a contrast! Regrettably I only ever saw Boult once with a decent orchestra, the BBC Symphony in the Albert Hall at a Prom including Elgar 1st, but I sat dirctly in line with the podium but across the arena and the symphony evaporated into thin air! I had been most used to Birmingham Town Hall, (close encounters of an orchestral kind!) or the Free Trade Hall which always sounded excellent to my ears. I heard both conductors do the Planets and Boult was better, not least because he managed to galvanise the CBSO into playing half decently and I preferred his way with the work! I rate him and Andrew Davis as the best interpreters. My first Gerontius was Boult/CBSO at the Triennial Festival in the late '60's and that was very good too. Boult always said 'Let the music speak for itself'..........whereas I find JB lifts the notes from the page and breathes life into them. Each is a valid approach, but I know which I'd want on a desert island! ( Mind you, Boults long baton might be useful as an aerial...........)

[Nimrod]

Dear Brassbandmaestro
What an impossible question you ask! With such a huge and enjoyable reportoire even to select 8 for the 'island' would be difficult. If I could only have one it would probably be Gerontius, but there again it might be...........

hope I never have to make that choice!

[Nimrod]

Bryn
I seem to think you might be correct on that, the 5th was recorded in May '57 and the P D on August 23rd 1958. I never owned a copy of the 5th in vinyl and I think the finest rendition of that is from the Proms coupled with the RPO 2nd and now on Testamant.

[Barbirollians]

One JB record alone ! Probably would have to be the Schubert 9 assuming that the du Pre/Baker Elgar coupling does not count !