Sir John Barbirolli ( Giovanni Battista Barbirolli; 2 December 189929 July 1970) was a British conductor and cellist. He is remembered above all as conductor of the Hallé Orchestra in Manchester, which he helped save from dissolution in 1943 and conducted for the rest of his life. Earlier in his career he was Arturo Toscanini's successor as music director of the New York Philharmonic, serving from 1936 to 1943. He was also chief conductor of the Houston Symphony from 1961 to 1967, and was a guest conductor of many other orchestras, including the BBC Symphony Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, the Philharmonia, the Berlin Philharmonic and the Vienna Philharmonic, with all of which he made recordings.
Born in London of Italian and French parentage, Barbirolli grew up in a family of professional musicians. After starting out as a cellist, he was given the chance to conduct, from 1926 with the British National Opera Company, and then with Covent Garden's touring company. On taking up the conductorship of the Hallé he had less opportunity to work in the opera house, but in the 1950s he conducted productions of works by Verdi, Wagner, Gluck, and Puccini at Covent Garden with such success that he was invited to become the company's permanent musical director, an invitation he declined. Late in his career he made several recordings of operas, of which his 1967 set of Puccini's Madama Butterfly for EMI is probably the best known.
Both in the concert hall and on record, Barbirolli was particularly associated with the music of English composers such as Elgar, Delius and Vaughan Williams. His interpretations of other late Romantic composers, such as Mahler and Sibelius, as well as of earlier classical composers, including Schubert, are also still admired.
Biography
Early years
Giovanni Battista Barbirolli was born on 2 December 1899 in Southampton Row, Holborn, London, the second child and eldest son of an Italian father and a French mother. He was a British national from birth, and as Southampton Row is within the sound of Bow Bells, Barbirolli always regarded himself as a Cockney.Ayre, p. 18; and Kennedy (1982), p. 34 His father, Lorenzo Barbirolli (1864–1929), was a Venetian violinist who had settled in London with his wife, Louise Marie, née Ribeyrol (1870–1962).Kennedy, Michael. Barbirolli, Sir John (1899–1970), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edition, October 2009, accessed 7 February 2010 Lorenzo and his father had played in the orchestra at La Scala, Milan, where they had taken part in the première of Otello in 1887.Rothwell, p. 1 In London they played in West End theatre orchestras, principally that of the Empire, Leicester Square.Rigby, p. 15
The young Barbirolli began to play the violin when he was four, but soon changed to the cello.The Times, obituary, 30 July 1970, p. 8 He later said that this was at the instigation of his grandfather who, exasperated at the child's habit of wandering around while practising the violin, bought him a small cello to stop him from "getting in everybody's way". His education at St Clement Danes Grammar School overlapped, from 1910, with a scholarship at Trinity College of Music."Miscellaneous Intelligence", The Musical Times, 1 September 1910, p. 599 As a Trinity student, he made his concert debut in a cello concerto in the Queen's Hall in 1911.
The following year he won the Ada Lewis Scholarship to study at the Royal Academy of Music,Kennedy (1971), p. 28 which he attended from 1912 to 1916, studying harmony, counterpoint and theory under J. B. McEwen and the cello with Herbert Walenn.Graves, Perceval. "From Cellist to Conductor", The Gramophone, September 1929, p. 5 In 1914 he was joint winner of the academy's Charles Rube Prize for ensemble playing,"Royal Academy of Music", The Times, 30 May 1914, p. 5 and in 1916 The Musical Times singled him out as "that excellent young 'cello player, Mr Giovanni Barbirolli.""Royal Academy of Music", The Musical Times, 1 August 1916, p. 381 The principal of the Academy, Sir Alexander Mackenzie, had forbidden students to play the chamber music of Ravel, which he regarded as "a pernicious influence". Barbirolli was keenly interested in modern music, and he and three colleagues secretly rehearsed Ravel's String Quartet in the privacy of a men's lavatory in the Academy.Rothwell, p. 19
From 1916 to 1918 Barbirolli was a freelance cellist in London. He recalled, "My first orchestral engagement was with the Queen's Hall Orchestra – I was probably the youngest orchestral musician ever, joining them in 1916. We had an enormous repertory – six concerts a week, three hours or more rehearsal a day. In those days we were happy if we began and finished together".Blyth, Alan. "Sir John Barbirolli talks to Alan Blyth", The Gramophone, December 1969, p. 34 While playing in the Queen's Hall Orchestra, Barbirolli also played in the opera pit for the Beecham and Carl Rosa opera companies, in recitals with the pianist Ethel Bartlett, with orchestras in theatres, cinemas, hotels and dance-halls, and, as he said, "everywhere except the street".Rothwell, pp. 19–20 (Bartlett and quotation); and Kennedy p. 30 (theatres, cinemas, halls) During the last year of the First World War, Barbirolli enlisted in the army and became a lance-corporal in the Suffolk Regiment. Here he had his first opportunity to conduct, when an orchestra of volunteers was formed. He later described the experience:
While in the army, Barbirolli adopted the anglicised form of his first name for the sake of simplicity: "The sergeant-major had great difficulty in reading my name on the roll-call. 'Who is this Guy Vanni?' he used to ask. So I chose John."Ayre, p. 19 After demobilisation he reverted to the original form of his name, using it until 1922."Music", The Times, 27 October 1919, p. 10; "Royal Academy of Music Awards", The Times, 14 June 1922, p. 11; and Kennedy (1971), p. 41
On re-entering civilian life, Barbirolli resumed his career as a cellist. His association with Edward Elgar's Cello Concerto began with its première in 1919, when he played as a rank and file member of the London Symphony Orchestra.Kennedy (1971), p. 38 He was the soloist at another performance of the concerto just over a year later. The Musical Times commented, "Signor Giovanni Barbirolli was not entirely equal to the demands of the solo music, but his playing unquestionably gave a considerable amount of pleasure.""Music in the Provinces", The Musical Times, March 1921, p. 195 At the Three Choirs Festival of 1920 he took part in his first Dream of Gerontius, under Elgar's baton, in the LSO cellos.Anderson, Robert, "Obituary, Sir John Barbirolli", The Musical Times, September 1970, p. 926 He joined two newly founded string quartets as cellist: the Kutcher Quartet, led by his former fellow student at Trinity, Samuel Kutcher,"Concerts", The Observer, 22 June 1924, p. 1 and the Music Society Quartet (later called the International Quartet) led by André Mangeot. He also made several early broadcasts with Mangeot's quartet."Today's Programmes", The Manchester Guardian, 16 November 1925. p. 11; 25 November 1925, p. 11; 16 December 1925, p. 13; and 10 April 1926, p. 12
First conducting posts Barbirolli's ambition was to conduct. He was the prime mover in establishing the Guild of Singers and Players Chamber Orchestra in 1924,Kennedy (1971), p. 43 and in 1926 he was invited to conduct a new ensemble at the Chenil Gallery in Chelsea,"Our London Correspondence", The Manchester Guardian, 25 May 1926, p. 6 initially called the "Chenil Chamber Orchestra" but later renamed "John Barbirolli's Chamber Orchestra"."Wireless Notes and Programmes", The Manchester Guardian, 7 June 1928, p. 12 Barbirolli's concerts impressed Frederic Austin, director of the British National Opera Company (BNOC), who in the same year invited him to conduct some performances with the company. Barbirolli had never conducted a chorus or a large orchestra, but had the confidence to accept. He made his operatic debut directing Gounod's Roméo et Juliette at Newcastle, followed within days by performances of Aida and Madama Butterfly.Kennedy (1971), p. 49 and "British National Opera Company", The Manchester Guardian, 17 November 1926, p. 1 He conducted the BNOC frequently over the next two years, and made his debut at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, with Madama Butterfly in 1928.Kennedy (1971), p. 57 The following year he was invited to conduct the opening work in Covent Garden's international season, Don Giovanni, with a cast that included Mariano Stabile, Elisabeth Schumann and Heddle Nash.Blom, Eric, "Covent Garden Opera: 'Don Giovanni'", The Manchester Guardian, 29 May 1929, p. 8
In 1929, after financial problems had forced the BNOC to disband, the Covent Garden management set up a touring company to fill the gap, and appointed Barbirolli as its musical director and conductor. The operas in the company's first provincial tour included Die Meistersinger, Lohengrin, La bohème, Madama Butterfly, The Barber of Seville, Tosca, Falstaff, Faust, Cavalleria rusticana, Pagliacci, Il trovatore, and the first performances in English of Turandot."Covent Garden Opera Tour", The Manchester Guardian, 7 September 1929, p. 7 In later tours with the company Barbirolli had the chance to conduct more of the German opera repertory, including Der Rosenkavalier, Tristan und Isolde, and Die Walküre."Covent Garden Opera Company", The Manchester Guardian, 4 October 1932, p. 9 During his years with the touring opera companies Barbirolli did not neglect the concert hall. In 1927, deputising at short notice for Sir Thomas Beecham, he conducted the London Symphony Orchestra in a performance of Elgar's Symphony No. 2, winning the thanks of the composer. Barbirolli also won warm praise from Pablo Casals, whom he had accompanied in Haydn's D major cello concerto at the same concert. He conducted a Royal Philharmonic Society concert at which Ralph Vaughan Williams was presented with the society's Gold Medal,"Gold Medal for Dr. Vaughan Williams", The Manchester Guardian, 14 March 1930, p. 5 and another RPS concert at which Gustav Mahler's music, rarely heard at that time, was given – Kindertotenlieder, with Elena Gerhardt as soloist.Blom, Eric, "Royal Philharmonic Society: A Mahler Song Cycle", The Manchester Guardian, 30 January 1931, p. 4 Although Barbirolli later came to love Mahler's music, in the 1930s he thought it sounded thin."John Barbirolli", EMI Classics, accessed 7 February 2010
When the Hallé Orchestra announced in 1932 that its regular conductor, Hamilton Harty, was to spend some time conducting overseas, Barbirolli was one of four guest conductors named to direct the orchestra in Harty's absence: the other three were Elgar, Beecham and Pierre Monteux. Barbirolli's programmes included works by composers as diverse as Purcell, Delius, Mozart and Franck."Concerts", The Manchester Guardian, 6 October 1932, p. 1; and "The Hallé Concert", The Manchester Guardian, 13 January 1933, p. 11. In June 1932, Barbirolli married the singer Marjorie Parry, a member of the BNOC."Decree Nisi for Conductor's Wife", The Times, 6 December 1938, p. 5 In 1933 he was invited to become conductor of the Scottish Orchestra. It was not then, as its successor the Scottish National Orchestra was later to be, a permanent ensemble, but gave a season lasting about six months of each year.Lindsay, p. 233 Barbirolli remained with the Scottish Orchestra for three seasons, "rejuvenating the playing and programmes and winning most favourable opinions". Notwithstanding his growing reputation in Britain, Barbirolli's name was little known internationally, and most of the musical world was taken by surprise in 1936 when he was invited to conduct the New York Philharmonic Orchestra in succession to Arturo Toscanini.
New York Philharmonic