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

David Munrow - more than early music

Classical music must be doing something wrong

The purpose of puffery and closed-mindedness

Are top musicians sharing the financial pain?

The Accidental Pilgrim

Soundtrack for a porn movie

Master musician who experienced the pain of genius

But I don't want comfort

Walking the walk with Alma Mahler

Lise Meitner - the forgotten Lady Atomic