When Michael Kennedy’s
biography of Barbirolli appeared in
1971 it was received with justified
acclaim. The overriding impression when
reading it at the time was the author’s
personal affection for and intimate
knowledge of the man about whom he was
writing (indeed occasionally Kennedy
enters the story in the first person).
Nothing has changed over thirty years
later. I saw the primary task in hand
for this review as comparing new with
old and nothing more, but instead, and
to my great joy, I found myself reading
it from cover to cover, relishing both
style and content as much, if not more
with the passing of the years, as I
had done three decades ago. In the mid-1960s
I was fortunate enough to catch the
last few years of JB at the Hallé
during my own student days at the University
and the old Royal Manchester College
of Music, often attending his rehearsals
and, when I could afford it, his concerts.
Kennedy’s book vividly awakens and recalls
those visual and aural experiences,
for to watch Barbirolli conduct was
as fascinating and enthralling as it
was to listen to him. As the singer
John Goss perceived of the young Barbirolli
way back in 1926, ‘He has infinite delicacy.
He has style’.
The short answer to
any reader wishing to know whether or
not the book is worth buying for its
differences alone is an unequivocal
‘yes’. All the 78 photographs are completely
different from the 35 in the first edition,
and apart from some blocks, they are
also chronologically, and conveniently
for the reader, placed at the relevant
point in the biography. Malcolm Walker’s
comprehensive discography (1911-1970)
has been dropped in favour of one which
lists only those CDs released by the
Barbirolli Society, but there is a promise
that ‘The Complete Discography of Sir
John Barbirolli will be published by
the Society in 2004’. Typo spotters
will have a hard time of it, though
Marjorie Barbirolli (JB’s first wife,
singer Marjorie Parry needs a further
index entry for page 159, Emmie Tillett
has none despite being mentioned on
page 193, the date April 20th is missing
for the letter beginning ‘Rather a lovely
concert tonight’ on page 158, and an
extra ‘i’ extends the year to a thirteenth
month on page 153). Readers may also
like to know that the unnamed fourth
person in the upper photograph on page
205 is Kathleen Ferrier’s doctor Reginald
Hilton. Publishers MacGibbon & Kee
insisted on cuts back in 1971. Presumably
all these have been restored, and while
the bulk of them tend to be letters,
there is also material which is missing
from the first edition as the rest of
this review will describe.
According to Jelka
Delius, her husband thought Barbirolli’s
performance of his cello sonata was
‘not very well played’ in a 1922 broadcast,
while a notice of the same event in
the Daily Telegraph provided a detailed
description of his rendition of Elgar’s
cello concerto accompanied by pianist
Harold Craxton. Barbirolli’s activities
as a chamber musician are also restored,
with Phyllis Tate’s quartet in 1923
and as a member of the Music Society
String Quartet on a tour to Spain in
1926. His activities at BNOC (British
National Opera Company) are covered
in more detail such as repertoire and
venues in 1927. As for new letters,
there are some to the critic Charles
Parker containing illuminating references
to Nikisch and Meistersinger at Bayreuth
(1933), and to Evelyn Rothwell, such
as one from early in their relationship
(June 1934), a poignant description
of Alexander Mackenzie’s funeral (April
1935), and an account of the problems
of wind intonation and ensemble encountered
in a recording session with Edwin Fischer
of Mozart’s piano concerto K.482 (1935).
New material on the love-hate relationship
with Toscanini begins with a letter
at the same time (summer 1935) describing
a two-hour meeting with the combustible
maestro, but on this occasion Barbirolli
was touched by the Italian’s reaction
to the details he provided of Elgar’s
death the year before. According to
writer and critic Richard Aldrich, while
Toscanini was not very good at programming
his New York Philharmonic concerts,
Kennedy is revelatory on how the hugely
influential American agent Arthur Judson
had a considerable input into Barbirolli’s
initial concerts with the NYPO, with
hardly any of the new appointee’s ideas
getting past the first hurdle. On the
other hand, Judson drew the line at
telling Toscanini what or what not to
do. If, as revealed above, John Goss
astutely spotted the young Barbirolli’s
talent, so did Yehudi Menuhin in America
according to a letter from his father
Moshe to Fred Gaisberg in 1936.
The whole American
episode and its musico-political cauldron,
with his homeland soon to be at war,
and the question of the compulsory taking
of American citizenship if he wanted
to stay, put Barbirolli into an impossible
situation. As Judson himself said, ‘I
made two mistakes. I engaged you and
you made a success’. But any notions
that he lowered standards after Toscanini’s
reign, that he was overawed by or cowed
by a hostile orchestra are completely
without foundation, as emerging recordings
now testify. The letter about Elgar’s
‘practically unknown and certainly misunderstood’
violin concerto after Barbirolli conducted
it with Heifetz (‘played with not quite
enough hurt’) is now joined by a new,
brief but succinct one (2 March 1939).
‘The Enigma created the greatest enthusiasm
and I confess I had a little cry before
I was fit to have the people come and
see me after the concert. There are
moments in this music which touch me
beyond all words!’ He also had kind
words a few weeks earlier for Vaughan
Williams’ Pastoral symphony ‘which moves
me as I never thought possible’. Since
Klemperer died after Barbirolli, the
first edition missed the German conductor’s
extremely churlish comments in 1972
to his future biographer Peter Heyworth
on his colleague’s New York appointment,
‘They treated him worse than he deserved.
He wasn’t so bad, even if he wasn’t
so good either’. Barbirolli and the
NYPO episode is best summed up by the
man himself (also new material) when
talking of the orchestra. ‘I am so proud
of the great artists who under T[oscanini]
and others had become so unkind and
who seem now to glory in their talents
and humanity. Posterity will perhaps
judge of my value as a musician, but
I am rather grateful that my coming
has not only retained their standards
of playing (I think it has) but given
them a conception of kindliness and
happiness’.
Kennedy now includes
more details of Barbirolli’s programmes,
particularly his third (1939-1940 season
and the inclusion of many new American
works. As far as British works performed
for the first time in America or elsewhere
were concerned, those of Britten stand
out, in particular the Violin Concerto
and the Sinfonia da Requiem. On a lighter
note, who of us knew that Judy Garland
loved Delius, Mickey Rooney had a penchant
for Ravel, or that Edward G Robinson
(he of the villainous face) enjoyed
turning pages at private chamber music
soirées at which Barbirolli played?
Also amusing is an account by the widow
of one of Barbirolli’s four fellow passengers
of the hazardous journey home on a Norwegian
freighter in a convoy, and the Lake
District walk to Dale Head during a
week’s working holiday preparing programmes
for the forthcoming season.
We get new insight
into the last unhealthy days of conductor
Leslie Heward, a sad loss to British
music making, but someone, who had he
lived, would have been ahead of Barbirolli
to receive the timely invitation to
Barbirolli to take over the Hallé
Orchestra. Neither had we known before
that, imitating his esteemed predecessor
Hans Richter, he hoped ‘to make Manchester
the Vienna of England, with the great
symphony orchestra playing for opera
as well as in the concert hall’. There
are some extracts from Evelyn Barbirolli’s
recent book ‘Living with Glorious John’,
which provide an interesting insight
by two Hallé string players into
their conductor’s exacting demands as
a string player himself.
Further new letters
describe (to Evelyn in 1944) an attack
of dysentery in Naples, instructions
sent in 1966 to leader Martin Milner
on what to rehearse before Barbirolli
takes over. There are also some new
ones written on his travels in the 1960s
to his close friend and correspondent
Audrey Napier Smith when he was at last
an international conductor, and one
to Evelyn’s aunt about his encounter
with clothes and jewellery worn by King
Charles I on his execution day. Since
Robert Beale’s ‘The Hallé: a
British orchestra in the 20th century’
appeared in 2000, we have new facts
not only about the orchestra’s finances
but also revelations of Barbirolli’s
selfless demands on its budget. As Kennedy
reveals, in 1950, he earned less than
Richter half a century before him (a
meagre £50 per concert), and by 1967
this sum had risen to a meagre £300
for Manchester dates, £250 for those
in provincial towns, and expenses only
(which he usually waived) for tours
abroad. Only at the end of his life
did he have financial worries brought
on by the shady activities of his manager,
over two years of worries he could have
done without considering the serious
effect it was having on his health.
This all makes a fascinating,
absorbing read, and Michael Kennedy
deserves all the praise and accolades
he will undoubtedly get. He has improved
upon what was already a fine book worthy
of the love, admiration and respect
he clearly has for his old friend.
Christopher Fifield
