by Daniel Hathaway
HAPPENING TODAY:
This is a week full of competitive activity as both the Paris Olympics and the Cleveland International Piano Competition will be running at full tilt.
After preliminary rounds earlier this year in Paris and Berea, the Cleveland competition — now in its 50th year — continues with Quarter-Finals in Reinberger Recital Hall at Severance Music Center. This week, the sixteen remaining pianists will each play 35- to 40-minute programs of pieces they have chosen, “including cherished favorites, bold new works, and repertoire from underrepresented composers.” You can attend the sessions in person (tickets here) or watch a live stream. Read our overview of CIPC here.
INTERESTING READ:
Conductor Leonard Slatkin sat for an interview with the British magazine Gramophone on the occasion of his 80th birthday. Speaking about repertory, among other subjects, in a conversation with Thomas May published on July 16, he said “I’m leaving it to the younger generation to figure out what’s important.”
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
By Mike Telin
We remember today British conductor Sir John Barbirolli, who died on this date in 1970.
Born into a musical family in London, Barbirolli began his professional life as a cellist. As a young freelancer, he played in the Queen’s Hall Orchestra and in the pit of the Beecham and Carl Rosa opera companies. Never turning down a gig, Barbirolli played with orchestras in theaters, cinemas, hotels, and dance-halls.
His first conducting experience occurred during WWI while he was serving as a lance-corporal in the Suffolk Regiment. In a 1969 Gramophone interview Barbirolli told Alan Blyth:
…. In our battalion of the Suffolks we had a number of professional musicians. So we formed an orchestra and played in the equivalent of the NAAFI [Navy, Army, and Air Force Institutes] during our spare time. I was the principal cello and we were conducted by the bandmaster, one Lieutenant Bonham. The other boys knew that I was longing to conduct and one day when Bonham fell ill with flu, they thought “old Barby” – as I was known – should have a go. It was really rather romantic — I was scrubbing the floor in the Officers’ Mess when they came and invited me to take over. We did the Light Cavalry overture and Coleridge-Taylor’s Petite Suite de Concert but I can’t say I recall the rest of the programme.
His early conducting gigs included the Guild of Singers and Players Chamber Orchestra which he helped establish in 1924, and was soon invited to lead performances of the British National Opera Company, and made his debut at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in 1928. He would go on to be named Arturo Toscanini’s successor as music director of the New York Philharmonic, serving from 1936 to 1943, when he was asked by the Hallé Orchestra in Manchester — which was in danger of becoming extinct — to become its conductor. Barbirolli jumped at the opportunity to help revive the orchestra. He remained there for the rest of his life.
Click here to listen to a 1944 recording of Vaughan Williams’ Symphony No. 5 with the Hallé Orchestra conducted by John Barbirolli.
Another recording Barbirolli is remembered for is the Elgar Cello Concerto with Jacqueline Du Pre and the London Symphony Orchestra. The album also includes the composer’s Sea Pictures with mezzo-soprano Janet Baker. Click here to listen.
