This collection is intended more as a memorial to the remarkable gifts of Thomas Schippers (1930-77) than as an anomalously filled-out anthology of music by Samuel Barber. But it could hardly avoid being the latter as well: among conductors Schippers was Barber’s pre-eminent interpreter in the latter part of both their lives, and his rhetorical, impassioned, even rather wild eloquence demonstrates how much of that quality is to be found in Barber himself, unrevealed by more temperate interpretations. Indeed, if you wanted to make a case for Barber’s orchestral music, as a corrective to the widespread current view that the best of him is to be found in his songs, you could scarcely do better than with this disc. Even the Adagio is richer, much more intensely emotional than usual, while Andromache’s Farewell (with Arroyo in vibrantly exciting voice) has an almost expressionist vehemence to it. Medea’s Dance of Vengeance also receives an unsparingly eloquent, full-throated reading, and Schippers finds turbulent passion as well as nimble neo-classical qualities in the Second Essay. Barber’s music is neither miniature nor urbane in these readings, but troubled, dark, at times nobly tragic.
As you might imagine, the interlude from Wozzeck is almost overwrought in its histrionic eloquence, but d’Indy’s prelude suggests that Schippers’s gifts were not narrow: he sees how Wagnerian this music is, but underlines also its characteristically French sobriety and economy of means. The recordings are brilliant, with an impressive dynamic range but a tendency to highlight wind soloists. As a tribute to the most gifted American conductor of his generation it is striking and impressive.'