Word: barbirollis
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...five years, under the good-natured, timid leadership of Conductor Barbirolli, it acted like a willful nag without a rider. When the directors supplemented Conductor Barbirolli with a string of famous guest conductors, the orchestra became more balky and independent than ever. The visiting conductors began to refer to its undisciplined and arrogant members as "the Dead End Kids." Meanwhile, one-man orchestras like Serge Koussevitzky's Boston Symphony and Frederick Stock's Chicago Symphony continued to take top honors. This year even the Philharmonic's board got around to thinking that the Philharmonic probably needed...
Debussy: Iberia (Pittsburgh Symphony, Fritz Reiner conducting; Columbia; 6 sides). Debussy's moon-drenched impressionist landscape of Spain (one (of his finest orchestral works) has yet to get an ideal recording. The Pittsburghers lack the New York Philharmonic's (Barbirolli; Victor) finish, but Conductor Reiner paints Debussy's highlights more subtly...
...Bruch: Concerto in G Minor for Violin and Orchestra (New York Philharmonic-Symphony, John Barbirolli conducting, with Nathan Milstein; Columbia; 6 sides). One part fireworks, two parts schmaltz, no intellectual bitters, well shaken by a brilliant fiddler and guaranteed to warm the spirits of any fiddle...
When Toscanini left the Philharmonic in 1936, the orchestra was on close competing terms with Serge Koussevitzky's Boston Symphony and Leopold Stokowski's Philadelphia Orchestra. Then the Philharmonic pinned its faith on short, swart John Barbirolli, who proved an able welterweight, but no world champ. The Philharmonic went into a slump. Attendance dropped from 86% of capacity to 81%. This season, partly to celebrate its centennial, partly to lift its dwindling prestige, the Philharmonic gave its subscribers a glittering stream of guest conductors. An erratic season, it produced some half-empty houses, but attendance rose...
...next season the Philharmonic's directors decided on a similar setup. They signed up four of the conductors who appeared this year (Walter, Rodzinski, Mitropoulos, Barbirolli) and a new one, Fritz Reiner of the Pittsburgh Symphony. They also invited Toscanini. Last week, the morning after the second Beethoven concert, came good news. The maestro's son, Walter Toscanini, walked into the Philharmonic office, told Associate Manager Bruno Zirato that his father had decided to accept. He will direct the Philharmonic's first two weeks next fall...