page_title: John Barbirolli
section_title: First conducting posts
hierarchical_section_title: John Barbirolli / Biography / First conducting posts
caption_attribution_description: English: The Royal Opera House in the London district of Covent Garden. The current building opened in 15 May 1858. It's the third building on the site, which serves the same purpose since the 1730s. Magyar: A londoni Royal Opera House a város Covent Garden kerületében. Az épületet 1858 május 15.-én nyitották meg.
context_page_description: Sir John Barbirolli, CH, né Giovanni Battista Barbirolli, was a British conductor and cellist. He is remembered above all as conductor of the Hallé Orchestra in Manchester, which he helped save from dissolution in 1943 and conducted for the rest of his life. Earlier in his career he was Arturo Toscanini's successor as music director of the New York Philharmonic, serving from 1936 to 1943. He was also chief conductor of the Houston Symphony from 1961 to 1967, and was a guest conductor of many other orchestras, including the BBC Symphony Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, the Philharmonia, the Berlin Philharmonic and the Vienna Philharmonic, with all of which he made recordings.
  Born in London of Italian and French parentage, Barbirolli grew up in a family of professional musicians. After starting out as a cellist, he was given the chance to conduct, from 1926 with the British National Opera Company, and then with Covent Garden's touring company.
context_section_description: Barbirolli's ambition was to conduct. He was the prime mover in establishing the Guild of Singers and Players Chamber Orchestra in 1924, and in 1926 he was invited to conduct a new ensemble at the Chenil Gallery in Chelsea, initially called the "Chenil Chamber Orchestra" but later renamed "John Barbirolli's Chamber Orchestra". Barbirolli's concerts impressed Frederic Austin, director of the British National Opera Company (BNOC), who in the same year invited him to conduct some performances with the company. Barbirolli had never conducted a chorus or a large orchestra, but had the confidence to accept. He made his operatic debut directing Gounod's Roméo et Juliette at Newcastle, followed within days by performances of Aida and Madama Butterfly. He conducted the BNOC frequently over the next two years, and made his debut at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, with Madama Butterfly in 1928. The following year he was invited to conduct the opening work in Covent Garden's international season, Don Giovanni, with a cast that included Mariano Stabile, Elisabeth Schumann and Heddle Nash.
  In 1929, after financial problems had forced the BNOC to disband, the Covent Garden management set up a touring company to fill the gap, and appointed Barbirolli as its musical director and conductor. The operas in the company's first provincial tour included Die Meistersinger, Lohengrin, La bohème, Madama Butterfly, The Barber of Seville, Tosca, Falstaff, Faust, Cavalleria rusticana, Pagliacci, Il trovatore, and the first performances in English of Turandot. In later tours with the company Barbirolli had the chance to conduct more of the German opera repertory, including Der Rosenkavalier, Tristan und Isolde, and Die Walküre. During his years with the touring opera companies Barbirolli did not neglect the concert hall. In 1927, deputising at short notice for Sir Thomas Beecham, he conducted the London Symphony Orchestra in a performance of Elgar's Symphony No. 2, winning the thanks of the composer. Barbirolli also won warm praise from Pablo Casals, whom he had accompanied in Haydn's D major cello concerto at the same concert.  He conducted a Royal Philharmonic Society concert at which Ralph Vaughan Williams was presented with the society's Gold Medal, and another RPS concert at which Gustav Mahler's music, rarely heard at that time, was given – Kindertotenlieder, with Elena Gerhardt as soloist. Although Barbirolli later came to love Mahler's music, in the 1930s he thought it sounded thin.
  When the Hallé Orchestra announced in 1932 that its regular conductor, Hamilton Harty, was to spend some time conducting overseas, Barbirolli was one of four guest conductors named to direct the orchestra in Harty's absence: the other three were Elgar, Beecham and Pierre Monteux. Barbirolli's programmes included works by composers as diverse as Purcell, Delius, Mozart and Franck. In June 1932, Barbirolli married the singer Marjorie Parry, a member of the BNOC. In 1933 Barbirolli was invited to become conductor of the Scottish Orchestra. It was not then, as its successor the Scottish National Orchestra was later to be, a permanent ensemble, but gave a season lasting about six months of each year. Barbirolli remained with the Scottish Orchestra for three seasons, "rejuvenating the playing and programmes and winning most favourable opinions". Notwithstanding his growing reputation in Britain, Barbirolli's name was little known internationally, and most of the musical world was taken by surprise in 1936 when he was invited to conduct the New York Philharmonic Orchestra in succession to Arturo Toscanini.
caption: Royal Opera House, Covent Garden
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "Royal Opera House", "Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon DIGITAL IXUS 980 IS", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS2 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2009:08:08 14:42:15", "Image Rating": "5", "Image Tag 0x4749": "99", "Image XPTitle": "[82, 0, 111, 0, 121, 0, 97, 0, 108, 0, 32, 0, 79, 0, 112, 0, 101, 0, 114, 0, ... ]", "Image XPComment": "[109, 0, 97, 0, 100, 0, 101, 0, 32, 0, 102, 0, 114, 0, 111, 0, 109, 0, 32, 0, ... ]", "Image XPSubject": "[82, 0, 111, 0, 121, 0, 97, 0, 108, 0, 32, 0, 79, 0, 112, 0, 101, 0, 114, 0, 97, 0, 32, 0, 72, 0, 111, 0, 117, 0, 115, 0, 101, 0, 0, 0]", "Image Padding": "[]", "Image ExifOffset": "2296", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "4506", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "7042", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "100", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2009:08:07 12:51:37", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2062", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1654", "EXIF Padding": "[]"}