The orchestra did not particularly like his music

'Mahler was not often played in Berlin and the orchestra frankly confess that they did not particularly like his music - "but," said one of the principals, "Sir John made us love it as much as he did himself..."'
That quote from Michael Kennedy's biography of Sir John Barbirolli dates from Glorious John's 1963 performance of Mahler's Ninth Symphony with the Berlin Philharmonic. I was reminded of it hearing Claudio Abbado conducting the BPO in the same symphony on BBC Radio 3 this afternoon. The recording that resulted from Barbirolli's 1963 Berlin visit features here.

Also on Facebook and Twitter. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Comments

Recent popular posts

Crouching composer, hidden dragon

The Berlin Philharmonic's darkest hour

Who am I?

Philippa Schuyler - genius or genetic experiment?

Why cats hate Mahler symphonies

Nada Brahma - Sound is God

There is no right reaction to great music

Classical music's biggest problem is that no one cares

Music and Alzheimer's

David Munrow - Early Music's Pied Piper