There is no greater pleasure – and alas no rarer one
– than that of discovering new qualities in a piece of music that you
believed you knew all too well. I have known Rimsky-Korsakov’s "Spanish
Caprice" for as long as I have been listening to music and
have always liked it well enough without ever supposing it to be more
than an agreeable pot-boiler, its Mediterranean colours more the fruit
of the drawing-board than the heart. After all, have not conductors
from such opposing ends of the expressive spectrum as Lorin Maazel and
Sir Adrian Boult been pretty well agreed that all you can do with it
is to play it briskly and brightly?
After the flamboyant opening Barbirolli had me listening
with amazement as he revealed that this music has poetry and, yes, heart.
While the woodwind have that melancholy mystery which we know from Manuel
de Falla’s Spain but which usually seems lacking in Rimsky-Korsakov’s,
when the strings take up their long melodies they are genuinely affecting
and involving. As the pace quickens Barbirolli finds countless details
of balancing and phrasing which give the music not just colour – plenty
of others have done that – but also humanity. The music is made to speak
of real joys and sorrows – and I didn’t know it could. And, in
case you are getting the idea that this is very dolce but under-powered,
let me assure you the final pages are absolutely incandescent. A great
performance of a work which on the face of it hardly needed one.
I recently spoke of Markevich’s hard-hitting performance
of the Chabrier. How much more complete an experience do we get from
Barbirolli who can be brilliant when needed but also has warmth, humour
and love.
Love. This is always the word which comes to
mind when the name of Sir John Barbirolli is mentioned. Other conductors
have been worshipped, respected, feared, but was any conductor more
loved than Barbirolli? I don’t suppose the precise chemistry
of this could be identified any more than that of love itself, but Barbirolli
always gave his all to his public, warts and all, and they rewarded
him with loyalty, devotion and love, not only in his beloved
Manchester but in many other parts of the world. Italian orchestras
would play their hearts out for him as for few other conductors and
he is the only British conductor to have inspired affection in the Italian
public. Orchestras and the public warmed to him in Berlin, Vienna, Paris
and – in spite of his unhappy pre-war period in New York – the United
States. It is notable how many of his fellow-conductors – not by nature
a breed given to generosity towards their rivals – have spoken warmly
of him. Listen to him starting the "Elizabethan Suite",
in principle a ridiculously anachronistic affair which even in 1961
must have come to seem so. The first piece is the well-known "Earl
of Salisbury’s Pavane" and what an arresting concert opening,
how he digs into it with a Mahlerian intensity. In theory it’s all wrong,
but how we love him for it.
When solemn discussions are in progress about the interpretation
of the classics, the name of Barbirolli is not often cited beside the
likes of Toscanini, Klemperer, Walter, Furtwängler and so on. He
doesn’t belong to a particular "school"; even beside his compatriot
Boult he appears a brilliant loner. This may not be just, but this record
is hardly the occasion to reassess his Beethoven or his Brahms. Being
unforgettable is no mean achievement anyway. However, in one field he
was of course an incontestably authoritative interpreter – that of British
music, and here he is conducting the symphony Vaughan Williams actually
dedicated to "Glorious John".
The Lugano recording has a remarkably wide dynamic
range for its date. If you set your volume level right for the magical
opening, with its vibraphone, you will be knocked for six when the strings
enter. There is a certain predominance of the violins in this really
rather brilliant recording, but the Hallé violins can certainly
withstand it. Perhaps if they’d been recorded on home ground on a "normal"
evening, well, by 1961 people were saying that the Hallé was
not quite what it was. Here they are geared up for a European tour (we
don’t get specific information but I take it they didn’t just go out
to Lugano and then home again), have been thoroughly rehearsed and we
can admire the wonderful phrasing Barbirolli extracts from them as well
as the brilliance and accuracy of their attack. The first movement is
passionately presented, the second brilliant and humorous in turn, the
third pliant and gentle, Barbirolli giving shape to music which can
seem to meander in lesser hands. An exuberant finale concludes a piece
that might have been made for Sir John – and in fact was. I haven’t
Barbirolli’s Pye recording to hand for a comparison but I feel all his
admirers should be glad to hear him conduct it live, and so loyally
plugging British wares in a foreign clime. I wonder if it has ever been
played again in Lugano in the intervening forty years?
And if not, why not? I have recently had a box of Shostakovich
Symphonies to review. VW’s 8th is not even judged to be his
best and yet, quite seriously, how many of the Shostakovich Symphonies
reach or surpass it in strength of invention or clarity of form? Two
of them? Three of them?
Having begun this review in the middle, as it were,
I should now go back to the beginning and explain that Aura is an Italian
company which has a particular link with Swiss-Italian Radio Television
in Lugano. Not much information about the actual history of the release
is given but these certainly appear to be proper official releases through
the correct channels and the sound quality confirms this. Notes to the
series are written by some of Italy’s leading critics – in this case
Michele Selvini – but a common feature (by editorial request?) is that
they present the artist general without much reference to the particular
programme on offer. Maybe Selvini’s excellent assessment of Barbirolli’s
career and artistry is what Italian buyers need. I for one would like
to know what the Lugano press thought of the VW.
Aura have by now quite an extensive catalogue, with
much interesting Lugano material but also some from other sources. You
can follow this up in their website www.aura-music.com.
It only remains for me to extend the warmest recommendation
to all who love passionate, committed music-making. If this were the
only record we had of Barbirolli, it would be enough to prove that he
was one of the greats.
Christopher Howell
Hallé Orchestra/Sir
John Barbirolli