Given the outlay and the amount of historic and lighter material I wasn't tempted, but I did re-explore his Sibelius Symphonies: Sir John's last big EMI project with the Hallé, as Warner also offers these as individual high-resolution downloads (192kHz and 96kHz/24-bit).
Bernstein had some telling observations on the final spaced chords in No 5, which you can see (online) in his marked score archived by the New York Philharmonic.Īpropos of Sibelius: in the autumn Warner Classics issued a large box set of all Sir John Barbirolli's former Pye/EMI recordings and Jim Lesurf wrote enthusiastically about it in his Opinion. I'd have a hard time if pinned down to vote for a single version but I'd probably opt – contrary to my Classical Companion conclusion on this work – for the 1959 NYPO/Bernstein on Sony or the Karajan CD reissue set, with Nos 4, 6 and 7, Tapiola and 'The Swan of Tuonela'. Ĭelibidache also did a spacious and epic Sibelius Symphony No 5, with the Swedish RSO in 1971. īut the one that sticks in my mind, not least for the wonderful principal flautist in the Deutsches SO, is Robin Ticciati's Linn version listed in the boxout opposite, although I am torn between this and the intriguing and utterly different Celibidache/Munich PO account. Of course, there was the marvellous BPO/Karajan LP with Debussy's La Mer and the early Cantelli, now on Warner Classics. This set is detailed in the concluding boxout here: just eight recordings of pieces of music I'd always want to hand (one for personal reasons described later) or specific interpretations which left an indelible impression – like the Furtwängler Schubert 'Great C major', which the Chilean pianist Claudio Arrau said was one of the greatest he had ever heard.Ī colourful orchestral piece which I certainly would never have heard programmed by the CBSO in its more provincial pre-Fremaux/Rattle days (that was the orchestra I heard 'live' as a student) is the Suite No 2 from Ravel's ballet Daphnis et Chloé.
And it's certainly the cycle I most often turn to: strong in the 'Eroica', Nos 5 and 9, even if the 1953 Philharmonia 'Pastoral' remained Karajan's best version. Karajan had made a piecemeal set of the nine Beethoven Symphonies with Legge (Nos 8 and 9 belatedly found as stereo tapes) but moving to Berlin his first stereo cycle, produced in the sympathetic acoustics of its Jesus-Christus Kirche, was his first big project for Deutsche Grammophon. In 1959 Klemperer was appointed principal conductor of the Philharmonia – already being developed by Legge in conjunction with Herbert von Karajan (they had made immediate postwar 78s in Vienna even before the occupying authorities permitted concert performances with him).Īnything these two conductors recorded we eagerly bought, although by 1959 Karajan had switched to DG – R Strauss's Ein Heldenleben his debut LP: reissued on vinyl in 2017 and still one of my favourites.
When I began collecting, EMI's producer Walter Legge was reviving Otto Klemperer's recording career after his fallout with Vox, and we had Beethoven's Leonora Overtures and Symphonies Nos 3, 5 and 7 (the 'Eroica' my very first LP).
#Celibidache sibelius 5 series#
As Christopher Breunig prepares to take a short sabbatical on a series begun in 2014 (continuing under new management) he adds a comment or two on some favourites
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