Saturday, December 12, 2020

Barbirolli and the Two Philharmonias

The Philharmonia Orchestra occupies a somewhat interesting place in the history of performing ensembles. It was founded in London in 1945 by Walter Legge, who produced classical music recordings for EMI. In spirit it could be considered a “house orchestra” for EMI, someone similar to the NBC Symphony Orchestra, best known for its performances with Arturo Toscanini, founded in New York in 1937. Toscanini was one of the first conductors to lead the Philharmonia, along with Richard Strauss and Wilhelm Furtwängler. However, its recording legacy is probably best associated with Herbert von Karajan and Otto Klemperer.

In 1964 Legge tried to disband the Philharmonia. The players, with support from Klemperer, reorganized the ensemble as self-governing, changing the name to the New Philharmonia Orchestra. The ensemble did well under new management, continuing to work with Klemperer and many notable guest conductors. In September of 1977 the “New” was dropped from the name, restoring its historical ties (if not its model of management) to the original ensemble. (San Francisco readers may wish to know that Esa-Pekka Salonen is currently the Principal Conductor and is due to serve in that capacity until next year.)

Barbirolli was one of several conductors to work with the orchestra under both of its names. In the collection Sir John Barbirolli: The Complete Warner Recordings, his recording legacy with the group is second in size only to that with the Hallé Orchestra. Indeed, the Philharmonia provided him with a platform to revisit several of his Hallé selections. Where Edward Elgar is concerned, this included revisiting both the Opus 55 (first) symphony in A-flat major and the Opus 36 “Variations on an Original Theme” (the “Enigma” variations). Similarly, the New Philharmonia provided him an opportunity to record his rearrangement of sonata movements from Arcangelo Corelli’s Opus 5 into an oboe concerto for his wife, Evelyn.

That said, the New Philharmonia allowed Barbirolli to venture into repertoire more adventurous than his Hallé selections. From a personal point of view, I was most surprised by the appearance of Arnold Schoenberg’s Opus 5 tone poem “Pelleas und Melisande.” This composition was completed in February of 1903, almost a year after the Opus 4 “Verklärte Nacht” was given its first performance. Both of these pieces are tonal, both are based on literary narratives, and each is structured as a single uninterrupted movement. However, while Opus 4 can be parsed in terms of the verses of Richard Dehmel’s “Verklärte Nacht” poem, Alban Berg presented an analysis demonstrating that Opus 5 is basically a four-movement symphony folded into a single movement. These days the piece is probably best known through the recording that Pierre Boulez made with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, which was released in 1992; but Barbirolli’s recording sessions took place in 1967, a time when the music was more talked about than performed.

In a somewhat similar vein, Barbirolli’s Hallé venture with Gustav Mahler never progressed beyond that composer’s first symphony in D major. The New Philharmonia provided him with a platform for both the fifth symphony in C-sharp minor and the sixth (“Tragic”) symphony in A minor. These are both intensely visceral scores organized around intricate structural plans (although there remains a question of how the second and third movements of the sixth should be ordered). Barbirolli presents both with a clear account of structure, while his expressiveness is downright hair-raising. It is also worth recognizing that the New Philharmonia was the ensemble for Barbirolli’s recording of the so-called “Rückert-Lieder” collection with mezzo Janet Baker.

If I have any quibbles, one would be that I really did not feel a need for another recording of Giuseppe Verdi’s setting of the Requiem text. I am quite satisfied with my Arturo Toscanini CDs, and I feel no need for regular reminders of the flaws in this composition! However, my greatest disappointment came with the recordings of the two piano concertos by Johannes Brahms, Opus 15 in D minor and Opus 83 in B-flat major. These recordings were made in 1967 with pianist Daniel Barenboim when his career was beginning to rise along with those of the other “Kosher Nostra” musicians, Itzhak Perlman, Zubin Mehta, Pinchas Zukerman, and Barenboim’s wife-to-be Jacqueline du Pré. In both concertos, particularly the first, Barenboim sounds as if he is determined to beat his piano to a pulp, never paying very much attention to how Barbirolli could present a more intense account of Brahms through a more restrained approach.

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