Word: conductor
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...near-miracle which Barbirolli wrought with the Halle Orchestra is legendary. The orchestra had been without a permanent conductor since the retirement of Hamilton Harty, a decade before Barbirolli's arrival in 1943. Barbirolli managed to make Halle one of the world's leading orchestras, and in the process gained more control over his own florid style. The recordings which he made with the Halle during his decades of association with it are some of the finest in the literature. The Mahler First Symphony which he did with them for Vanguard is a definitive version, a masterpiece which puts...
...unpopularity, Barbirolli was an impressive conductor. He was the embodiment of the classic American caricature of the maestro. His stature, his long flowing hair, his stately appearance, and his knighthood completed the effect. Appearance does not assure good press, though, and Barbirolli never got it. While most of the great British conductors-Beecham, Goossens, Sargent, Boult-stayed primarily in their native country, Barbirolli came to America to conduct the New Pork Philharmonic when Toscanini left it in 1937. His disastrous career here insured him of a bad critical reputation for the rest of his life...
...Barbirolli's career was long, and certainly distinguished. Educated at the Royal Academy of Music, he was a successful cellist while scarcely out of his teens. In his early twenties, he began his conducting career, first as a choral conductor, then as a conductor with the British National Opera. It was here that his conducting style was shaped. For years, he concentrated on Italian opera, almost to the exclusion of every form of music, and developed his free-wheeling, easy, unquestionably romantic form of conducting. After some years with the British National Opera, and later the Scottish Symphony, came...
...young conductor's electric glow first became visible last October when William Steinberg, music director of the Boston Symphony, fell ill midway through a visiting concert, also at Philharmonic Hall. Thomas, the orchestra's new assistant conductor and Steinberg's understudy, took over after intermission and handled Strauss's familiar Till Eulenspiegel and Robert Starer's new Concerto for Violin, Cello and Orchestra with ease, poise and cool. Said the New York Times next day: "Mr. Thomas knows his business, and we shall be hearing from him again...
...audiences and orchestras with him. But reach does not always equal grasp-in conducting, particularly. With all his gifts, Thomas has a long road ahead. It will take years, as well as accession to the control of a symphony orchestra, for him to set his mark-as a great conductor must-upon a repertory of music and a group of musicians. No one is more willing to learn, however. It is probably lucky for him, and for the Boston Symphony, that he puts himself to sleep at night reading Haydn scores instead of mystery stories...