Sir John Barbirolli

Hallé Orchestra & Sir John Barbirolli – Wagner, Mendelssohn & Verdi: Favourite Overtures (Remastered) (1958/2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 58:31 minutes | 2,23 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Warner Classics

Born in London of Italian-French parents, Sir John Barbirolli (1899–1970) trained as a cellist and played in theatre and café orchestras before joining the Queen’s Hall Orchestra under Sir Henry Wood in 1916. His conducting career began with the formation of his own orchestra in 1924, and between 1926 and 1933 he was active as an opera conductor at Covent Garden and elsewhere. Orchestral appointments followed: the Scottish Orchestra (1933–36), the New York Philharmonic (1936–42), the Hallé Orchestra (1943–70) and the Houston Symphony (1961–67). Barbirolli guest conducted many of the world’s leading orchestras and was especially admired as an interpreter of the music of Mahler, Sibelius, Elgar, Vaughan Williams, Delius, Puccini and Verdi. He made many outstanding recordings, including the complete Brahms and Sibelius symphonies, as well as operas by Verdi and Puccini and much English repertoire.

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Hallé Orchestra & Sir John Barbirolli – Sibelius: Symphony No. 1, Op. 39 & Suite from Pelléas et Mélisande, Op. 46 (Remastered) (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 58:45 minutes | 2,25 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Warner Classics

Born in London of Italian-French parents, Sir John Barbirolli (1899–1970) trained as a cellist and played in theatre and café orchestras before joining the Queen’s Hall Orchestra under Sir Henry Wood in 1916. His conducting career began with the formation of his own orchestra in 1924, and between 1926 and 1933 he was active as an opera conductor at Covent Garden and elsewhere. Orchestral appointments followed: the Scottish Orchestra (1933–36), the New York Philharmonic (1936–42), the Hallé Orchestra (1943–70) and the Houston Symphony (1961–67). Barbirolli guest conducted many of the world’s leading orchestras and was especially admired as an interpreter of the music of Mahler, Sibelius, Elgar, Vaughan Williams, Delius, Puccini and Verdi. He made many outstanding recordings, including the complete Brahms and Sibelius symphonies, as well as operas by Verdi and Puccini and much English repertoire.

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Hallé Orchestra & Sir John Barbirolli – Schön Sir John. The Strauss Family (Remastered) (1957/2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 01:02:02 minutes | 1,97 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Warner Classics

Born in London of Italian-French parents, Sir John Barbirolli (1899–1970) trained as a cellist and played in theatre and café orchestras before joining the Queen’s Hall Orchestra under Sir Henry Wood in 1916. His conducting career began with the formation of his own orchestra in 1924, and between 1926 and 1933 he was active as an opera conductor at Covent Garden and elsewhere. Orchestral appointments followed: the Scottish Orchestra (1933–36), the New York Philharmonic (1936–42), the Hallé Orchestra (1943–70) and the Houston Symphony (1961–67). Barbirolli guest conducted many of the world’s leading orchestras and was especially admired as an interpreter of the music of Mahler, Sibelius, Elgar, Vaughan Williams, Delius, Puccini and Verdi. He made many outstanding recordings, including the complete Brahms and Sibelius symphonies, as well as operas by Verdi and Puccini and much English repertoire.

(more…)

Hallé Orchestra & Sir John Barbirolli – Rubbra: Symphony No. 5, Op. 63 (Remastered) (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 33:22 minutes | 642 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Warner Classics

Edmund Rubbra established his reputation with his first four Symphonies. But in many ways, Rubbra’s Fifth Symphony may be considered his most immediately attractive. It was premiered on 26 January, 1949 by the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Sir Adrian Boult at the Royal Albert Hall, but it was Sir John Barbirolli and the Hallé Orchestra’s recording of the work under the auspices of the British Council – the first recording of any Symphony by Rubbra – which had a notable impact and substantially reinforced the composer’s name internationally.

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Hallé Orchestra & Sir John Barbirolli – Nielsen: Symphony No. 4, Op. 29 “The Inextinguishable” (1963/2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 35:14 minutes | 1,30 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Warner Classics

Sir John Barbirolli was a champion of both Jean Sibelius and Carl Nielsen. He recorded all the Sibelius Symphonies and many of the orchestral works, but this 1959 recording of the Symphony No.4 ‘The Inextinguishable’ is Barbirolli’s only commercial recording of the music of Nielsen.

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Hallé Orchestra & Sir John Barbirolli – Grieg: Lyric Suite, Op. 54 & Norwegian Dances, Op. 35 (Remastered) (1971/2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 45:54 minutes | 1,64 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Warner Classics

Born in London of Italian-French parents, Sir John Barbirolli (1899–1970) trained as a cellist and played in theatre and café orchestras before joining the Queen’s Hall Orchestra under Sir Henry Wood in 1916. His conducting career began with the formation of his own orchestra in 1924, and between 1926 and 1933 he was active as an opera conductor at Covent Garden and elsewhere. Orchestral appointments followed: the Scottish Orchestra (1933–36), the New York Philharmonic (1936–42), the Hallé Orchestra (1943–70) and the Houston Symphony (1961–67). Barbirolli guest conducted many of the world’s leading orchestras and was especially admired as an interpreter of the music of Mahler, Sibelius, Elgar, Vaughan Williams, Delius, Puccini and Verdi. He made many outstanding recordings, including the complete Brahms and Sibelius symphonies, as well as operas by Verdi and Puccini and much English repertoire.

(more…)

Hallé Orchestra & Sir John Barbirolli – Delius: Orchestral Works (Remastered) (1957/2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 47:51 minutes | 1,81 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Warner Classics

Sir John Barbirolli was nearly as fine an interpreter of Delius as Beecham. But where Sir Thomas liked to bring out the sun, Sir John was at his best shading in the darker tones of the Delian palette. There is a starkness to the “Nordic” moments in these pieces which serves to remind us that Barbirolli, again like Beecham, was an outstanding interpreter of Sibelius’s music. What is unique to Barbirolli is the searing emotion he finds in the music, especially in Delius’s writing for the strings. His accounts have a high expressive profile, and an intensity of expression bordering on the incandescent. Although there is a slight amount of grain to the sound, the recordings, which date from the mid-’60s, are well balanced and have an appealing “live” ambience to them. – Ted Libbey, author of The NPR Guide to Building a Classical CD Collection.

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Hallé Orchestra & Sir John Barbirolli – Berlioz: Symphonie fantastique, Op. 14 & Extraits de La Damnation de Faust, Op. 24 (Remastered) (1964/2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 01:05:23 minutes | 2,38 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Warner Classics

Born in London of Italian-French parents, Sir John Barbirolli (1899–1970) trained as a cellist and played in theatre and café orchestras before joining the Queen’s Hall Orchestra under Sir Henry Wood in 1916. His conducting career began with the formation of his own orchestra in 1924, and between 1926 and 1933 he was active as an opera conductor at Covent Garden and elsewhere. Orchestral appointments followed: the Scottish Orchestra (1933–36), the New York Philharmonic (1936–42), the Hallé Orchestra (1943–70) and the Houston Symphony (1961–67). Barbirolli guest conducted many of the world’s leading orchestras and was especially admired as an interpreter of the music of Mahler, Sibelius, Elgar, Vaughan Williams, Delius, Puccini and Verdi. He made many outstanding recordings, including the complete Brahms and Sibelius symphonies, as well as operas by Verdi and Puccini and much English repertoire.

(more…)

Hallé Orchestra & Sir John Barbirolli – Bax: Symphony No. 3 – Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 5 (Remastered) (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 01:21:45 minutes | 1,48 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Warner Classics

Saluting an extraordinary composer-conductor relationship, this collection presents almost all Elgar’s major orchestral works and the Sea Pictures in the classic recordings made by Sir John Barbirolli towards the end of his life. Barbirolli began as an orchestral cellist, and played under Elgar’s baton in the première of the Cello Concerto. Encouraged by Elgar, he moved into conducting and made his mark with the composer’s Second Symphony in 1927. Elgar’s music was to remain a talisman for the rest of Barbirolli’s life.

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