John Barbirolli earned recognition as one of the foremost conductors active during the middle decades of the twentieth century, particularly for his distinguished performances of Vaughan Williams, Mahler, and late-Romantic repertoire in general. He devoted an extended tenure to Manchester’s Hallé Orchestra, transforming the ensemble into an internationally respected organization.
Born Giovanni Barbirolli on December 2, 1899, in London to a family of Italian and French ancestry, he retained that given name through early adulthood. During childhood he first took up the violin before turning to the cello; his initial recording, made on cello, appeared in 1911, followed soon afterward by his public debut as a performer. He pursued cello studies at Trinity College of Music and the Royal Academy of Music, completing the latter program in 1916. The Queen’s Hall Orchestra then engaged him as its youngest member. World War I interrupted yet also propelled his progress when he enlisted in the British army and assumed substitute conducting duties for a volunteer ensemble on the Isle of Grain, where he continued playing cello. Upon discharge he joined the London Symphony Orchestra as a cellist, appeared several times as soloist, and performed with multiple string quartets. An encounter with Edward Elgar while performing the composer’s The Dream of Gerontius in 1920 inspired his determination to pursue conducting. He established a private chamber group, John Barbirolli’s Chamber Orchestra, for rehearsal purposes and later received a touring appointment with the British National Opera Company. In 1927 he substituted for the indisposed Thomas Beecham with the London Symphony Orchestra; HMV promptly offered him a contract, initiating an extensive recording career. The following year brought regular opera engagements at Covent Garden and other houses.
His first full-time conducting positions arrived in the mid-1930s with the Scottish Orchestra and the Leeds Symphony Orchestra. A decisive advance occurred in the 1936–1937 season when he undertook a ten-week guest engagement with the New York Philharmonic. The musicians responded favorably, leading to a five-year contract that kept him in New York until 1942 as Arturo Toscanini’s successor. During that period he introduced several significant contemporary scores, including works by Benjamin Britten. Although offered a renewed contract and attracting interest from the Los Angeles Philharmonic, he chose to return to England. Among the factors cited was a musicians’-union stipulation requiring American citizenship, which he declined to pursue while England remained engaged in World War II. Exchanging plane reservations with actor Leslie Howard, he reached England in 1943; Howard’s flight was subsequently downed by German forces.
He assumed leadership of the struggling Hallé Orchestra in Manchester, then reduced to roughly thirty players. Improvement was evident from his opening concert, and he subsequently shaped the ensemble into one of Britain’s foremost orchestras. His earliest recordings with the group, issued by HMV, comprised Arnold Bax’s Symphony No. 3 and Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Symphony No. 5. Over the ensuing quarter century he continued to record extensively for HMV and for Pye, establishing the subsidiary label Pye-Barbirolli. Numerous guest appearances and permanent offers followed, yet he accepted only one: at the urging of Texas patroness Ima Hogg he served as chief conductor of the Houston Symphony Orchestra from 1961 to 1967. Many of his recordings of English composers, notably Elgar and Vaughan Williams, retain benchmark status, while his accounts of Mahler and Sibelius likewise command widespread admiration. In his final decade he appeared frequently with the Berlin Philharmonic. He relinquished the Hallé’s chief conductorship in 1968 yet remained active with the orchestra as conductor laureate until his death from a heart attack at his London residence on July 29, 1970, amid numerous unfinished projects.
