Early years Giovanni Battista Barbirolli was born on 2 December 1899 in
Southampton Row,
Holborn, London, the second child and eldest son of an Italian father and a French mother. He was a British national from birth, and as Southampton Row is within the sound of
Bow Bells, Barbirolli always regarded himself as a
Cockney. His father, Lorenzo Barbirolli (1864–1929), was a
Venetian violinist who had settled in London with his wife, Louise Marie,
née Ribeyrol (1870–1962). Lorenzo and his father had played in the orchestra at
La Scala, Milan, where they had taken part in the première of
Otello in 1887. In London they played in West End theatre orchestras, principally that of the
Empire, Leicester Square. The young Barbirolli began to play the violin when he was four, but soon changed to the cello. He later said that this was at the instigation of his grandfather who, exasperated at the child's habit of wandering around while practising the violin, bought him a small cello to stop him from "getting in everybody's way". His education at
St Clement Danes Grammar School overlapped, from 1910, with a scholarship at
Trinity College of Music. As a Trinity student, he made his concert debut in a cello concerto in the
Queen's Hall in 1911. which he attended from 1912 to 1916, studying harmony, counterpoint and theory under J. B. McEwen and the cello with
Herbert Walenn. In 1914 he was joint winner of the academy's Charles Rube Prize for ensemble playing, and in 1916
The Musical Times singled him out as "that excellent young 'cello player, Mr Giovanni Barbirolli." The principal of the Academy,
Sir Alexander Mackenzie, had forbidden students to play the chamber music of
Ravel, which he regarded as "a pernicious influence". Barbirolli was keenly interested in modern music, and he and three colleagues secretly rehearsed Ravel's
String Quartet in the privacy of a men's lavatory in the Academy. From 1916 to 1918 Barbirolli was a freelance cellist in London. He recalled, "My first orchestral engagement was with the Queen's Hall Orchestra – I was probably the youngest orchestral musician ever, joining them in 1916. We had an enormous repertory – six concerts a week, three hours or more rehearsal a day. In those days we were happy if we began and finished together". While playing in the Queen's Hall Orchestra, Barbirolli also played in the opera pit for the
Beecham and
Carl Rosa opera companies, in recitals with the pianist
Ethel Bartlett, with orchestras in theatres, cinemas, hotels and dance-halls, and, as he said, "everywhere except the street". During the last year of the First World War, Barbirolli enlisted in the army and became a lance-corporal in the
Suffolk Regiment. After demobilisation he reverted to the original form of his name, using it until 1922. On re-entering civilian life, Barbirolli resumed his career as a cellist. His association with
Edward Elgar's
Cello Concerto began with its première in 1919, when he played as a rank and file member of the
London Symphony Orchestra. He was the soloist at another performance of the concerto just over a year later.
The Musical Times commented, "Signor Giovanni Barbirolli was not entirely equal to the demands of the solo music, but his playing unquestionably gave a considerable amount of pleasure." At the
Three Choirs Festival of 1920 he took part in his first
Dream of Gerontius, under Elgar's baton, in the LSO cellos. He joined two newly founded string quartets as cellist: the Kutcher Quartet, led by his former fellow student at Trinity, Samuel Kutcher, and the Music Society Quartet (later called the International Quartet) led by
André Mangeot. He also made several early broadcasts with Mangeot's quartet.
First conducting posts 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 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. 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 he 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". He was followed by the composer-conductors
Igor Stravinsky,
Georges Enescu and
Carlos Chávez, each conducting for two weeks, and finally by
Artur Rodziński of the
Cleveland Orchestra, for eight weeks. , New York, where Barbirolli conducted from 1936 to 1943 Barbirolli's first concert in New York was on 5 November 1936. The programme consisted of short pieces by
Berlioz and
Arnold Bax, and symphonies by Mozart (the
Linz) and
Brahms (the
Fourth). During his ten weeks, he programmed several American novelties including
Charles Martin Loeffler's tone-poem
Memories of My Childhood, a symphony by
Anis Fuleihan, and
Philip James's
Bret Harte overture. He also conducted
Serge Koussevitzky's Double Bass Concerto. The players told the Philharmonic management that they would be happy for Barbirolli to be appointed to a permanent position. The outcome of this was an invitation to him to become music director and permanent conductor for three years starting with the 1937–38 season. At the same time as this great change in his professional life, Barbirolli's personal life was also transformed. His marriage had not lasted; within four years he and Marjorie Barbirolli had been living apart. In 1938 she sued for divorce on the grounds of his desertion. The suit was undefended, and the divorce was granted in December 1938. and
Britten's
Sinfonia da Requiem and
Violin Concerto; he also introduced pieces by
Jacques Ibert,
Eugene Goossens, and
Arthur Bliss and by many American composers including
Samuel Barber,
Deems Taylor and
Daniel Gregory Mason. The new works he presented were not avant-garde, but they nevertheless alienated the conservative subscription audience, and after an initial increase in ticket sales in his early years sales declined. Barbirolli also had to cope with what
The Gramophone described as "a rough press campaign in New York from interested parties who wished to evict him from his post". The influential critic
Olin Downes had opposed Barbirolli's appointment from the outset, insisting that, though "we abhor chauvinism", preference should have been given to "native conductors". Downes had a grudge against the Philharmonic: shortly before Barbirolli's appointment Downes was sacked as the commentator for the orchestra's prestigious Sunday broadcasts. He and the composer
Virgil Thomson continually wrote disparagingly about Barbirolli, comparing him unfavourably with Toscanini. The management of the orchestra nevertheless renewed Barbirolli's appointment in 1940. In 1942, when his second contract was reaching its expiry, he was offered 18 concerts for the 1943–44 season, and the
Los Angeles Philharmonic invited him to become its conductor, but he accepted neither offer as he had decided to return to England. Barbirolli's first reason for leaving was local musical politics. He later said, "The Musicians Union there ... brought out a new regulation saying that everyone, even soloists and conductors, must become members.
Horowitz,
Heifetz and the rest were shocked by this but there was little they could do about it. They also said that conductors must become American citizens. I couldn't do that during the war, or at any time for that matter." Barbirolli's plane landed safely;
Howard's was shot down. The Hallé board resolved that its orchestra must follow the example of the
Liverpool Philharmonic, which the Hallé's former conductor
Malcolm Sargent had transformed into a full-time, permanent orchestra. Only four of the players shared with the BBC chose to join the Hallé.
The Times later wrote of Barbirolli's first actions for the orchestra: "In a couple of months of endless auditions, he rebuilt the Hallé, accepting any good player, whatever his musical background – he found himself with a schoolboy first flute, a schoolmistress hornist, and various brass players recruited from brass and military bands in the Manchester area ... The reborn Hallé's first concert somehow lived up to the Hallé's great reputation." Further afield, critics, audiences and players in Europe and the United States commented on the improvement in the playing of their orchestras when Barbirolli was in charge. Later he extended his teaching skills to the Royal Academy of Music, where he took charge of the student orchestra from 1961. Barbirolli refused invitations to take up more prestigious and lucrative conductorships. and in the early 1950s the
BBC sought to recruit him for the
BBC Symphony Orchestra. Also in the early 1950s the head of the Royal Opera House,
David Webster, wanted him to become the musical director there. Barbirolli conducted six operas for Webster,
Turandot,
Aida,
Orfeo ed Euridice,
Tristan und Isolde,
La bohème and
Madama Butterfly, 1951–53, but he declined to be wooed away from the Hallé. His biographer Charles Reid wrote, "His Manchester kingdom is a kingdom indeed. He is not manacled or chivied in his choice of programmes. Broadly speaking he conducts only what he loves ... His kingdom approximates to a conductor's paradise." Nevertheless, in 1958, after building the orchestra up and touring continually, conducting up to 75 concerts a year, he arranged a less onerous schedule, allowing him more time to appear as a guest conductor with other orchestras. He also appeared at the
Vienna State Opera, and
Rome Opera House, where he conducted
Aida in 1969. In 1960 he accepted an invitation to succeed
Leopold Stokowski as chief conductor of the
Houston Symphony in Texas, a post he held until 1967, conducting an annual total of 12 weeks there in early spring and late autumn between Hallé engagements. In 1961 he began a regular association with the
Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, which lasted for the rest of his life. At one 1958 promenade concert Barbirolli and the Hallé played a replica of
Charles Hallé's first concert with the orchestra in 1858. Barbirolli's interest in new music waned in post-war years, but he and the Hallé appeared regularly at the
Cheltenham Festival, where he premiered new works of a mostly traditional style by
William Alwyn,
Richard Arnell,
Arthur Benjamin,
Peter Racine Fricker,
Gordon Jacob,
Alan Rawsthorne,
Kenneth Leighton and others. For its hundredth anniversary in 1958 the Hallé commissioned several new works, and gave the British premiere of Walton's virtuosic divertimento
Partita. Increasingly, Barbirolli concentrated on his core repertory of the standard symphonic classics, the works of English composers, and late-romantic music, particularly that of Mahler. In his last years a propensity to concentrate on detail at the expense of the whole of a piece became marked. His loyal friend and admirer the critic
Neville Cardus wrote privately in 1969, "he seems so much to love a single phrase that he lingers over it, caressing it; meanwhile the general momentum is lost." His final year, 1970, was dogged by heart trouble; he suffered collapses in April, May, June and July. His last two concerts were with the Hallé at the 1970
King's Lynn Festival. He produced "inspired" renderings of Elgar's
Symphony No. 1 and
Sea Pictures. The last work he conducted in public was
Beethoven's
Symphony No. 7 on the Saturday before his death. On the day he died, 29 July 1970, he spent several hours rehearsing the New Philharmonia Orchestra for a forthcoming tour of Japan that he was scheduled to lead. Barbirolli died at his London home of a heart attack, aged 70. Among planned engagements forestalled by his death were a production of
Otello at the Royal Opera House, which would have been his first appearance there for nearly 20 years, and opera recordings for EMI, including Puccini's
Manon Lescaut and Verdi's
Falstaff. ==Honours, awards and memorials==