John Barbirolli - Legacy: Sir John Barbirolli - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

J.S. Bach - Sacred Cantatas BWV 7-9 [COMPACT DISCS] date 07/13/1999

Barbirolli made two earlier recordings of Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique in 1947 (mono) and 1958 (early stereo), both with the Halle Orchestra. This new live recording with the SWF orchestra in Baden-Baden from 1969 is in state-of-the-art stereo sound and does full justice to Berlioz's wonderful score. Likewise, Haydn's Symphony No.83 the Hen always remained a Barbirolli favorite. He first recorded it in 1949 in mono but here it is captured in excellent stereo 20 years later and released in 2013 for the first time.

The young John Barbirolli was hardly known in America when the New York Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra chose him to be Arturo Toscanini's successor starting in 1937. The 36-year-old Londoner's first season was a triumph with both players and audiences, and although his years in New York would be increasingly marred by unfair rivalry with Toscanini - lured back to lead a specially created NBC Symphony - and by partisan hostility from two influential critics, Barbirolli's tenure can now be looked back on as a real success. From 1938 until 1943, when he returned to the UK to take over Manchester's Hallé Orchestra, Sir John made a series of recordings in New York for American Columbia and RCA Victor which are still essential for a full appreciation of this revered conductor's career, Inchperformances that are as competitive today as they were when initially releasedInch (Fanfare). Sony Classical is pleased to reissue them in a newly remastered six-album set.