Guild, in association
with the Barbirolli Society, gives us
a quintet of Russian performances culled
from the 1950s. Only the last of them,
the Marche Slave, which was recorded
in the Free Trade Hall in Manchester
in 1959, was taped in stereo. The rest
exist in very serviceable mono. Barbirolli
discographers will want to note that
the Rimsky and Tchaikovsky Swan Lake
extracts were in the HMV BLP series
whilst the Liadov was in their HMV 7ER
seven-inch series. Romeo and Juliet
and the Marche Slav date from Barbirolli’s
Pye contract – 1957 and 1959 respectively.
Capriccio Espagnol
gets proceedings off to a rather pot-boiling
but nevertheless very exciting start.
As English conductors went Barbirolli
was not quite in Albert Coates’ league
of incendiary Russian performances,
nor perhaps in Beecham’s, but he proves
to lack for little in this sizzling
traversal. The Free Trade Hall recording
still packs a punch and the solos are
taken with real verve, Laurence Turner
– the leader – prominently, though the
wind principals and the principal cellist
all acquit themselves splendidly. Liadov’s
The Enchanted Lake is suitably languorous
and evocative – there’s a pleasurable
sheen on the fiddles and a sense of
languid movement that gives a sense
of pulse to the impressionism.
Swan Lake was the earliest
of this selection to be recorded, at
Kingsway Hall in October 1950. The selections
were the Swan theme, the Introduction
and Dance of the Queen of the Swans
(Act II), dance of the Little Swans
(also Act II), the Act I Waltz and finally
the Hungarian Dance (Czardas – Act III)
– in that order. It’s obviously a more
boxy recording than its more up-to-date
disc confreres – the later Free Trade
Hall was distinctly more diaphanous
than the 1950 Kingsway, at least in
this set-up - but we can hear Barbirolli
in all his balletic warmth in this selection.
Though well balanced the Hallé
brass does sound a little recessed –
no Stokowski blockbuster, this – but
there are compensations once more in
Turner’s eloquent playing of the Introduction
and Dance; similarly the principal cello
once again. There’s real vitality in
the Act I Waltz, which is programmed
after the Act II Dance of the Little
Swans and before the Act II Czardas.
Romeo and Juliet is the only complete
recording Barbirolli left of the work
– his 1969 traversal is missing the
coda. It’s a considered, powerful reading
and though not always flattered by the
mono sound, a valuable example of Barbirolli’s
way with the work.
Three of these performances
are making their first appearance on
CD, another inducement to purchase,
along with the characteristically fine
notes.
Jonathan Woolf
Hallé Orchestra/John Barbirolli 
