"J.B. A Portrait of Sir John Barbirolli" (1965 programme/1992 repeat)

most of the orchestral music I know I heard before I was 20 largely at concerts in Leeds so that my enjoyment of music nowadays carries with it a strong charge of reminiscence this has its drawbacks underneath Cuthbert Broderick's magnificent Victoria Hall where I went to concerts most Saturday nights was in those days a municipal restaurant the smell from which tended to mingle with the music even today I can't hear Delius his walk to the paradise garden without the lingering odor of fish and chips it was a strong hint that born in Leeds one was going to have a hard job turning into Proust the riches of the BBC Arts archive make the choice of a documentary difficult but I've settled for one about Barbirolli made in 1965 by the young Melvin Bragg before that though we're going to see some extracts from John Drummond's 1968 tribute to Kathleen Ferrier few English thing has achieved so much in so short a career and fewer remembered with such a fiction though gramophone records can reproduce the unmistakable sound of her voice they can only hint at the personality behind it and that as much as the artistry is what counted hers while it was an extraordinary life conforms in a profound way to what the public expects an artist's life to be born in Blackburn she was a talented amateur pianist who works as a telephonist at the post office she had no thoughts of a musical let alone a singing career until for a dare she entered a singing competition at the Carlisle Music Festival soon she was performing professionally and in 1943 sang in Messire in Westminster Abbey where she was heard by Benjamin Britten here was a voice that could sing this extremely awkward music without any effort I mean just in the part of the voice which is usually the weakest Katherine's voice was the strongest and so the music sailed across the vast spaces were the confidence and her beauty which I think I'd never heard before [Music] [Music] [Applause] a few years later at the height of her fame she was struck down with cancer the marvelous thing about this Olympian fortitude of this wonderful person that as he grows daring the nearer to the end she became greater and greater as if all my cells arranged that this must fulfill itself the positive and it did and art is struck down as Kathleen Ferrier was at the height of our powers is a dreadful tragedy and he acted an awful way it fulfills what the public expects to be endowed with such talent seems unfair to those not so blessed we call it a gift yet somehow somewhere we expect it to be paid for paid for in unhappiness paid for in poverty and deprivation paid for in an early or a painful death and when it is however tragic something in us is satisfied the gift has been redeemed [Music] [Applause] and you know she's be addicted 50 doses and still when I go abroad or that I meet speak about the what I recall and efficient at all and wonder now this is unique to some we don't produce that just by making lovely sounds you go far beyond that and she was another Lovelace you read wonders world as ABC we get glimpses of the barber Ollie's in the film on holiday with Kathleen Ferrier in 1952 Melvin Bragg's film of him for monitor was made 12 years or so later and though there are some redundant shots of planes taking off it stands up very well he makes much play with great music set against mean streets as monitor films often did but I've no complaint about that because for me is for anybody going to concerts in the North around that time it's exactly how it was because my musical upbringing was in Leeds not Manchester I only heard Barbirolli a couple of times but what stays in the memory from my own concert going was of tram rides home afterwards the top deck full of door men in old raincoats and trill B's their violins and violas on their laps and table ends in their mouths drab on romantic figures who half an hour earlier had been taking you into another world then this Barbarella himself if this one thing puts me off music nowadays it's the heirs assume the privilege is arrogated to themselves by conductors and singers they behave as if their time and their talent are more rare and precious than that of any of the practitioners in the other branches of the arts you'd never catch actors however distinguished giving themselves such airs I shouldn't be the occasion of such arrogance and with Barbirolli it wasn't as this film so delightfully shows already frail when it was made in 1965 he died in 1970 this is a marvelous document of a great and a good man [Music] the Zion Institute Mulberry Street Manchester [Music] inside Sir John Barbirolli and his Halle orchestra which he's directed for over 20 years New York Rome London they've all been after him but he's a moveable this Orchestra and this city is his life the conductor and players who know each other so well were rehearsing the sketch show from Bruckner seventh symphony one of the many works which barber alley first introduced to audiences in this country by what measure exactly the bars so to get it into time hey it's fine the dagger the last might be a little softer daddy does it probably like what now that the scare to itself I'll give you a plenty of time to get over the great thing about this really softly tremendous about and to be once you be back shortened title it's also it's all got they're all got them it's all tied up one bar right to get a lot right [Music] summer taken up a place its to see that's too long I remember him it still I got it up about it up but do try JDate the basis I think he's doing I do P mistake they've both come over us to see our yep but yeah if you give you a dial with lift it quick after the see I get I think it's not nervous enough it's not soft enough is not important about it behind [Music] but to smell snow in the sweet it's not a comfortable schedule come on a path to death [Music] oh don't write hold the full value da-da-dah otherwise you'll be behind all the time I got a little show you got the accents to make a [Music] don't heavily pass the don't laugh a heavily but the tremendous rhythm [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] father Ali was in his forties before he landed up in Manchester before that he'd held very big appointments indeed including being the conductor of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra he joined them in Tuscany in his day and when Toscanini left father Allah had taken over but at 43 he left what was possibly the richest of all orchestras to take on one of the oldest and at that time tourists since then the Italians the Berlin Philharmonic Covent Garden the BBC they've all made offers but nothing will persuade him so far anyway to leave the Hallie [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] he conducts of course all over the world but from a firm base in Manchester thus he spends six weeks twice a year in Houston Texas where he's the principal conductor of their Symphony Orchestra [Music] [Music] last year he drove his Houston tears through a tremendous to her and in one blow translated into one of the leading orchestras of America [Music] the Texans are vividly aware of what he's done for Houston and don't hesitate to say sir I think he gets as much out of the symphony is any man possibly can in fact I'm quite sure there's no greater conductor in the world today than Sir John Barbirolli he's meant a great deal to Houston we're very fortunate to have him the orchestra has blossomed under his leadership they say much the same thing in Manchester terrific sometimes and I do remember once conducting the great C major by Schubert was so a rather long symphony rambles and he seems to keep the coherence you know keep dogs together you know normally some sort of smile assets or ramble on but a fantastic number of people travel quite a distance to come into the Halleck for the concerts and the Holly Society it's on the outskirts of Manchester places like Marple and so and they're quite strong and have a quite wide membership I can imagine if I was in the orchestra I could be I don't know how to describe it taken away and worked up you know into the feeling that bar but only seems to instill into them I think that he is without any doubt at all the greatest conductor in England today and one of a handful of the finest conductors in the world Sir John is tops he has done wonders for this Orchestra and being a little bit of a musician myself I can appreciate his decisive beat which gives the musicians everything that they want so they can read him exactly like it's supposed to be read [Music] father Allah Himself is a Londoner born and bred born in 1899 to be exact he spent his childhood in drury name his father and grandfather had come together to London from the village near Venice they were both orchestra musicians and when he was a little boy John Barbirolli used to listen to them they were both violinists playing in the orchestra of the alam breh and Hippodrome in the old Queens hotel [Music] Manchester again and here the normal routine is of lady barbara Lee picks her husband up after the concert and they drive to their home which is insourcing [Applause] if his wife is away he cooks for himself quite often is in professionally evil in Roswell the oboe player they've been married for 25 years alone or together this is Barbara Lee's only meal of the day this regimen is absolute one meal a day at midnight breakfast lunch dinner don't exist he takes an occasional cup of coffee perhaps even a sandwich but only the one meal another curious thing about three hours sleep is apparently all he needs anyway that's all he takes four hours sleep is a long night and exceptional the remainder of the hours of darkness have taken up entirely with what seems from the outside and probably is a quite obsessive reading and marking of scores what he says is so he must have any work note by note learned tune in his head before he brings it to an orchestra is to get them to play it as he has heard it early in his life he was persuaded to conduct Elgar two with short notice he knew it is a player but not as a conductor and he had to work so he told us without sleep for 48 hours flat to get it ready he just made [Music] he started as a cellist by the time used to steal the hope clutch of scholarships and prizes behind him he was earning a living with his cello in theatres cinemas restaurants musicals but at the same time giving solo recycles and being described as a future pablo casals he stopped playing with cello seriously when he began conducting at the age of 25 we filmed one of his rare appearances as a cellist in Westminster Abbey where he was rehearsing a concert for the Kingsmen quartet [Music] we also filmed bother ollie talking to Charles Reed an old friend 20 years standing and the music critic The Spectator they were onto when exactly Barbirolli had first started as a conductor for that we have to go to the army and I joined the army 1917 because I didn't want to be a constrict I went a little earlier on the range and I have I was in the first reserve garrison at that end of the suffix I'm remember my number five two five three seven and we found after bit ever quite a lot of good players there dotted about so we decided to form an hour Colonel was very bad wireless but very enthusiastic and he encouraged it only said you mustn't expect any time off for this it was call it the voluntary Orchestra the rate which fine Weaver or stationed at a mud island and a month of the Thames the Isle of grain was terrible plays nothing to do and so we had really quite a quite a good all stuff I remember there yeah elbow prairies are old Indian army regular drunken old Irish member the most enchanting person you've ever met and he christened me Baba O'Riley when I got my degree in Dublin the Chancellor said you don't know that Israelis an Irishman named Bubba Riley's you know father Ali and so we had this altar we had a lot of fun you taking your cello there I read what we found we could pass the time and the greater cry we gave mr. Bishop layer overtures a bitter Symphony good good program we were conducted by an old army band master who was on there it was one of our offices one day and we stressed you and we can give her that concert in the Neffe in the canteen on Saturday night unsated him or leaders before the afternoon Reza he was taken ill and I talked to my these boys these pals of mine about this you know wanted to be a conductor so they said what about John to conduct tonight and when the summons came I was on fatigue duty in the officers miss scrubbing the floor so I wasn't summers from the pit and some harmonies and so it came about and that night I conducted the concert and it will appear later you know I have a small and a strong belief the conductors are born and not made and I conducted that night technically as I do today and Nevada sticking my hand and the first piece I conducted was that Tommy sweets of courage Taylor the petite sweet the Corsair and so that actually my first experience of conducting but when he heard I conducted and have been a great success he recovered remarkably quickly from his illness officer as you said Sir John that conductors are born not made does it fall from there but it's impossible to teach conducting I say yes but then I'm talking about you know there's a really great conductor you see the you gotta this is a long subject I can go into now but you've got two sides of Kentucky you have the physical act of conducting which is the one that has the effect on the orchestra and then of course there is the musical side what you can't teach is the power to make an orchestra sound as you want it to sound and reflect all your thoughts upon the music so there are people who think that if they go to John Barbirolli John bother or is capable of turning them into copies of himself are you often approached by people who think that yes time and time again and for all over the world no but I won't do it because it's dishonest because see they don't want to learn score reading from mill pallet they think I could teach him to do the things that the foot thing that could do Tommy be some research others and that is absolutely see when I boasted I conduct the same when I started I did now I'm talking about not technically I'm not ready mostly because there's nothing to do with me they would Lord however the thing is put it into my arms you see it once I've learned the music mentally the translation into physical terms for the Hulkster is absolutely unconscious and then you have to make tiny different gestures for different players you get very sensitive people that I only only look at those otherwise you have some of you pull it out of and some you just met me let it emerge students at the Royal Manchester College of Music an annual event they're working on the last movement of Tchaikovsky's force sensitive but I all hit it together there's not a door back [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] don't forget just a little bit yeah be from the end count 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 12 13 14 15 16 17 from the far right last 17 they all stopped so we supply the gap [Music] the Hallie perhaps more than other orchestras be far from rich and having to make almost all the money needed to run it as members being tempted away by bigger offers time and time again barber alley is convinced that the north of England can keep up with any rate of replacement needed particularly in the brass sections and particularly from places like the Royal Manchester College of Music the orchestra itself has probably worked harder than any other Orchestra in this country the Institute whether a hearse was once the centre of the pleasant Sunday afternoon Society and now my fellow sings is the home of the Citizens Advice bureaux and of the overflow classes - lovely Street Primary School [Music] Berlioz Hungarian much Barbirolli is far from being simply the musical director and principal conductor since he took it over he's constantly fought for better conditions for the Halle and often threatened to leave or to change his conditions of work used his own position as a lever in fact to raise the salaries of the members of his orchestra he enters into the my new Shyam organization and is in constant contact for the administration of the hell a concert society particularly with chives smart the general manager I reckon if we allow a sort of a couple of hours to clear the airport you never know what's going to happen we better lay reasonably safe safe if we get that at 1:30 we should be away by 3:00 and it's about an hour from Geneva to loosen and you won't be much rehearsal because you'll have completely rigid order here to sound before you're sorry I suggest six to seven at the concerts about eight well where do they have their their meal well I would suggest tea I have some like tea about 4:30 5:00 to 5:30 like your dad tea wizard in a corner substantial it the team but say no so many we're not used to eating late no well yeah we can put that to the auction themselves yes of their 235 engagements last year the heylia gave only about a hundred dimensions for itself the rest roll over the place they travel around a lot to pay their way to Leeds Sheffield Belgium to Truro Exeter Plymouth to Glasgow and so on the average age of the players is 37 and a half from the average salary something under 25 pounds a week there are 88 pairs altogether [Music] very much the hair to attend it and then do we possess Shostakovich one no all we have to hide we have to hide that for these swindling militias that's right the word seller in the Halle library is also in design Institute here there are literally hundreds of scores all personally marked and bowed by so Charbonneau and these serve both the orchestra and the conductor whatever they may be playing anywhere in the world the librarian is Pat Ryan who's still occasionally plays my extreme self got the agent at a juvenile say a Mozart in in the library it's a it's a hoax turn soprano how can you look at the older give me my heart at lost town we had it last time yes did you do the hallway yes sir JJ um Icarus Charles Mackerras we have to hide have you heard it from yes but I sure won't masters of their yes [Music] [Music] father Allah talked very readily about his link with the City of Manchester you'll love the city I've grown to love a the city and the community G nobody by the wireless stretch of imagination call it's a very beautiful city but to have the strange thing that always I find it the nerve center of the highest activity and it takes place in rather drab cities because of the nerve center Milliken attorneys in Milan see nothing Venice Florence sometimes professors of extreme beauty have a little of a decadence and ability about them like these great conductors that Toscanini was never in Rome and then in Leipzig and the fascination of the North becomes and you feel if you achieve anything here that you really achieved it I don't know if I've told you this before soon after I'd arrived I was conducting handing somebody else for an autograph during the interval night said there was a man coming into the concert and it turned out they took a young soldier boy who had to get back to his unit he couldn't stay till the ends I said of course bring him in so he came and he took my hand or forget no grip of iron and he says wonderful concert sir so far and I never forgot that he wasn't the first half had been already when they commit himself and like then I heard that Ernie my career in the notes I saw odd do you think to care damn I came from New York or anywhere else I would not understand and that was that and the space and but I've heard from these people is something worth acquire when I had my last operation jokesters to tell me if they got in a bus with a fiddle or indeed look like an instrument they conduct above in least interesting mood would say as the governor so I become a part of the city in a way and then I say cities like this by their mere travelers the people have to find the country you can concentrate in the city like this I think and then it's a city of any great achievement in other spheres that you take them as I say it might be a mixed blessing there Adam was first split here professor Rutherford some of the greatest doctors have come from here the last two presidents of the Royal College of Physicians of all College of Surgeons are both Manchester Maine professors in majesty School of Architecture law it's a city with a splendid tradition and people don't like coming to Manchester for presidents of colleges and and conductors important officers but they add to it but then again as I say it's this georgiana solidity and fitted another thing I'm very proud of is being given the freedom of the city it's not a thing that they'd throw about if you looked at the list it has claimed also a President Wilson Churchill Montgomery and I'm the first members any professor of the Arts to being given the freedom of the city which is a very high honor indeed how did you come to take over the Halle orchestra this stories has been told a few times and initiative the Helen but it really started you know I was in America when the war broke out and I I couldn't get home of course and in 1942 I was very desperate I know my family was here my mother then out of the blue cave this cable from the helots would I be interested in the reconstruction of valuables I was I waiting for many details I said to ev'leen I said this is it we're going home and then I'd very interesting correspondent it'll be published and I can convince both of the Holly and I came home expecting to find an old stove at least set into place but I did find but I got home a lot of the people they thought would have left the BBC but they'd been taken over by the north it's a long story when boiling with now I have found I had 26 players left and in its face about five weeks I was posed to start the season with a full symphony or anybody who knows the difficulties and that we tried to proceed the whole country was mobilized male and female and we Namita anounced auditions which lasted six seven hours a day and I had to look for people we tried say but partially maned that means that they couldn't get into the services but for instance the chap with flat feet might have very good fingers so it is nothing wrong about that and sometimes it was very depressing go through a whole day and find nothing and then there were days of rejoicing where the most remarkable talent came to life this is my first fruit Oliver Bannister who's now I've been pinched from him I come God his first will come garden within 16 gem never played an officer and one of the great flute players about time and and we had many remarkable into this a girl who was a school teacher told her splendid on prayer and she's still in the orchestra I couldn't find the first horn anywhere till Ile de vega Lance's daughter came and she became the first hole first trombone I found out to be the day epidermis of the Amanjit Oh marvelous player never heard of symphonies you ready open it last movement of the Brahms oh there's a top a what the most professional Symphony players of treble about that team that was an a like any other day he played it you know for George I wish I could played for the Brahms simply making the difference but one of the funnest instances I remember Darrow boy who came to the double bass audition even attractive chap and hardly play at all but we had a good time so I made by the best pieces is always the sketch of the better don't it a little bit little rum pum pum pum pum pum pumpin so he had to go that they put his hand down and he loved it I just you know moved and even what moved about something I don't think they don't play the same note Joe had a good love heard that then I made him play the solo from a terrace which has a frightful jump and leave flat to the sea flick da da dee da dee and a distance on the bass is quite all that to ever get that say you think there was further up than that say went a bit further no definite last I took all of the bass and I played this tune and he said up there which I mean it never been up there before compensated quite a lot of what we had to go through where to cut the long story short we did find an oxygen and we opened in Bradford and it wasn't a few months before the Hulkster has being quoted as an example for some of the existing orchestras because they take in the studio with tremendous seriousness and that is rotted now known as the legend at that do you find that conditions here nowadays a favor the very thorough preparation Oh perhaps the editing of great musical masterpieces yes and that's one of the main reasons where I've remained here you see an old step which has a permanent conductor and some of you may not realize that I'm only the fourth Berman the conductor of the Holi in 107 years of history 1958 but it's not this is 107 years because an old stretchers are required the stylist she a conductor can't leave anything behind him like a composer almost the only thing he can leave is an auction which has a real tradition and the style of play now you may like that you may dislike it but anybody who is early and I'm conducting knows it stallion and there's very little then today because of these semi-permanent conditions and as I think I was telling with Charles elder Dave T we haven't they have an enormous repertoire which always needs touching up in certain places I could quartet the plays together but it leaves me if I have a great way to prepare I can't big new huge Marla's infinite we but we always place it it's a period when we're playing more or less standard repertory the dough should not let all fresher because of the standard riveting it's called for the same number of vessels which are used for this brickwork they're preparing and it has to fold it keeps them busy and gives them the incentive of preparing something they'd never heard or played before so see this really dependent also has tremendous advantages most musically and morally I see because the standards keep creeping up and that when you begin to feel dissatisfied [Music] father Ali JB is they all calling he's booked up with work for the next two years at least in his first series of big engagements as a young conductor he undertook to handle three massive operas in one week he seems to have Droon himself at that pace ever since [Music] [Applause] New York where he was a principal conductor of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra for over six years and where recently he's stormed through a great season with his host an orchestra Rome where he played Elgar to Pope Pius 2/12 father only holds the order of knighthood of the Italian Republic and is extremely proud of it [Music] Helsinki where they asked him to play not Elgar but their own Sibelius he's taking the helsinki city orchestra on a european tour this year to mark the Sibelius centenary [Music] and Manchester is home and workshop since 1943 [Music] [Music] [Music] but John Barbirolli has done an enormous amount to promote the work of composers unknown Ingram before he introduced their music a great deal tool to disseminate the work of the English composers of this century he himself suggested that we might end this program with a final section of Elgar Sikkim symphony where he asked to nominate the last notes in his very last concert he told us that these are what he would choose [Music] [Music] you

Channel: yamsi bruce

Views: 6,972

Rating: 4.9259257 out of 5

Keywords: Glorious John, Sir John Barbirolli, Evelyn Rothwell, Houston Symphony Orchestra, Martin Milner, Clive Smart, Hallé Orchestra, Hallé Concerts Society, Tchaikovsky Symphony 4, Bruckner Symphony 7, Elgar, Elgar Symphony 2, Charles Reid, Hew Weldon, Conductor

Id: YX5leRghjYk

Length: 51min 56sec (3116 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 01 2019