Extraordinarily, Sir John Barbirolli didn’t conduct his first performance of Elgar’s In the South until just two months before his death. The occasion was a Halle concert in Manchester in May 1970, and we are fortunate that, a few days later, the BBC microphones were in attendance at London’s Royal Festival Hall to preserve Sir John’s flexible, yet outstandingly cogent interpretation, brimful of inimitable temperament and towering humanity distilled from a lifetime’s experience. Throughout, the Halle responds to its beloved chief with such wholehearted application that one readily forgives any minor imprecisions along the way.
It was Barbirolli and the Halle who presented the first London performance of Walton’s effervescent Partita in 1958 (the same band under the composer’s baton having given the UK premiere a few days earlier). The version here was recorded at an August 1969 Prom and, provided you don’t expect the razor-sharp discipline and sophistication of Szell’s Clevelanders (whose dazzlingly poised 1959 recording remains a thing of wonder), Barbirolli’s realization has a relaxed bonhomie and witty mischief that are very endearing.
The admirably balanced mono recording of the Sinfonia da Requiem comes from an August 1967 Prom with the BBC SO. As on his historic March 1941 account with the NYPO (only the second account ever, this partnership having premiered the work the day before), Barbirolli takes a weighty view of both outer movements, with the hair-raising central ‘Dies irae’ excitingly propulsive by contrast (that Avanti! marking at fig. 30 – or 3'02'' – brings with it just the right extra surge of momentum). Britten’s own electrifying, magnificently engineered 1964 version with the New Philharmonia may exhibit the greater concision (and his transition into the ‘Requiem aeternam’ finale is much more seamlessly handled), but JB’s performance conveys a declamatory, Mahlerian fervour and emotional clout that are truly heartrending. According to the documentation, the far less congenially recorded Young Person’s Guide dates from just three months previously (and is here transferred nearly a semitone sharp), but such is the brilliant co-ordination and expressive sheen of the orchestral response, it sounds for all the world like the Halle of two decades earlier. It is a patient and affectionate reading, full of character and attaining an immensely satisfying grandiloquence in the closing stages.
In sum, here is another most valuable BBC Legends offering, expertly annotated by Michael Kennedy.'