Time was when the National Anthem added a sense of
occasion to a concert, whether as arranged by Elgar in its three verse
form for choir and orchestra with which Sargent opened his Royal Choral
Society concerts (‘Confound their politics, Frustrate their knavish
tricks’), in its other more rarely used Elgar setting with soloists,
choir and orchestra, in the splendid choral arrangement by Britten,
or more generally in its single-verse purely orchestral version with
or without Gordon Jacob’s fine harmonisation. Beecham always made something
of it (listen to BBCL 4044-2), so did Barbirolli. Those who attended
his concerts will remember, as Michael Kennedy reminds us in his sleeve
note, how Sir John habitually conducted the first half of the Anthem
facing the audience before turning to the orchestra.
This CD begins with a weighty ‘straight’ Anthem, with
full organ, at the start of a St. Cecilia Festival Royal Concert
in 1969, on this occasion attended by the late Queen Mother. (It was
actually preceded by a fanfare by Ketèlbey, presumably omitted
as that was not conducted by Barbirolli). The concert continued with
the Walton and Delius items, not as they appear on this CD. (Oddly enough,
neither work is listed on the front cover.) This Cuckoo, while
pleasant enough, has nothing special to recommend it. Crown Imperial
here is a bit sluggish and more of interest for the use of the Kneller
Hall brass in the final statement of the trio. The Rawsthorne overture
was also in that programme, beginning the second half (after another
fanfare), but the performance we have here instead is from an earlier
Festival Hall concert in April 1968. (Barbirolli also took it to the
Edinburgh Festival.) A 1967 Proms performance of VW’s Eighth Symphony
and a studio performance in November 1968 of the Bax Oboe Quintet as
arranged for strings by Barbirolli are the two substantial works on
the CD which ends with further pageantry: an extract from the re-opening
of the Free Trade Hall, Manchester, with Kathleen Ferrier singing Land
of Hope and Glory. Pure nostalgia, for which, considering the occasion,
we might forgive the funereal pace. (For those troubled by such things,
this rarity comes from an acetate with a certain amount of surface noise.)
So altogether this is a bit of a mishmash.
The Bax is certainly the most valuable item as it is
otherwise unrecorded (and rarely performed). While Barbirolli’s arrangement
of the quintet is no improvement on the original, it might at the time
have given the work a wider circulation. It is a welcome rarity. If
only it could have been coupled with a Bax symphony under Barbirolli!
There are two commercial recordings of the Delius with Barbirolli, and
two also of the Vaughan Williams (one a 1961 public concert from Lugano
on ERM 181-2). A good coupling for the Eighth might have been the Sixth
Symphony which Barbirolli never recorded commercially and although two
performances with foreign orchestras have been available on CD, one
with the Hallé would be well worth issuing. A 1969 performance
exists. Perhaps the Beethoven Fourth Piano Concerto with Gina Bachauer
(the other work in the first half of the St. Cecilia concert) does not
exist, but I sometimes wish that the BBC Legends releases were more
concerts and records of special occasions instead of a miscellany
of recordings thrown together, here using five different occasions.
At least, unlike LSO Live releases, BBC Legends preserve audience applause.
But while this CD is certainly not without interest, surely a more worthy
tribute to Sir John could have been assembled from the Archives?
Stephen Lloyd
Hallé Orchestra/Sir
John Barbirolli