Jacqueline du Pré (cello)
BBC Symphony Orchestra, Sir John Barbirolli
Testament · SBT1388
There’s something almost unbearable about hearing a 20-year-old play with this much emotional knowledge, and that’s exactly what makes the Elgar so hard to shake. Barbirolli doesn’t just accompany her here — he seems to breathe with her, shaping every surge and retreat like he already understands where she’s headed before she gets there. Decades on, other cellists still measure themselves against this account, and honestly, most performances still come up short.
Awards:
- Gramophone Magazine — February 2006 — Disc of the Month
- Building A Library — January 2026 — Top Choice (Elgar Cello Concerto)
“Jacqueline du Pré was 20 when she recorded Elgar’s Cello Concerto with Barbirolli and the LSO August 1965 – an interpretation universally acclaimed for its profound expressiveness (see above)….”
— Gramophone Classical Music Guide
Janet Baker
Hallé Orchestra, New Philharmonia Orchestra, John Barbirolli
Warner Classics · 5669812 · 71 minutes
Janet Baker singing Mahler with Barbirolli is one of those pairings that just makes sense the moment you hear it — her voice carries this ache without ever tipping into melodrama, and Barbirolli shapes the orchestra like he’s breathing alongside her. The Rückert-Lieder here are especially devastating in their stillness, full of space and restraint that somehow says more than a big swell ever could. Decades on, this recording still gets cited as the benchmark for a reason — it’s the kind of interpretation that makes you understand why people fall in love with Mahler in the first place.
Awards:
- Building a Library — November 2001 — Runner-Up
- Building a Library — First Choice
- Penguin Guide — Rosette
“The songs of the Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (‘Songs of a Wayfarer’) are quoted from Mahler’s First Symphony and the fresh, springtime atmosphere is shared by both works. The orchestration…”
— Gramophone Classical Music Guide
BBC Symphony Orchestra, Leonard Slatkin
Chandos · CHSA5030 · 73 minutes
There’s something delightfully unfashionable about hearing Bach blown up to full orchestral scale, and Slatkin leans into that with real relish rather than embarrassment. These are the transcriptions made by conductors who loved Bach so much they couldn’t resist adding trombones and harps and a wall of strings, and the BBC Symphony Orchestra plays them with the kind of technical swagger the arrangements demand. If you’ve ever wanted to hear the Toccata and Fugue in D minor sound like it’s shaking the foundations of a cathedral, this is the version that delivers.
Awards:
- Gramophone Magazine — October 2004 — Editor’s Choice
“…Leonard Slatkin and the BBC Symphony Orchestra relish the considerable technical challenges posed by these transcriptions… those who enjoy their Bach as a full meat-and-two-veg course will…”
— BBC Music Magazine
Edwin Fischer (piano)
London Philharmonic Orchestra, Unnamed Orchestra, Edwin Fischer Chamber Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, Edwin Fischer (conducted from piano), John Barbirolli, Lawrance Collingwood, Josef Krips
APR · APR_7303 · 3 hours 41 minutes
Edwin Fischer plays Mozart like someone telling you a story he’s told a hundred times but still finds surprising in the details — every phrase breathes, every turn of harmony lands with a kind of unforced tenderness that later, more polished pianists sometimes iron out. These 1930s and 40s recordings crackle with the sound of their era, but that’s part of the charm; you’re hearing someone conduct from the keyboard, shaping the orchestra as an extension of his own hands, and the intimacy of that arrangement comes through even on shellac-era transfers. Three and a half hours in his company and you start to understand why pianists still talk about him in hushed tones.
Awards:
- Building A Library — January 2022 — Also Recommended – K466
“…you will hear a delectably light-fingered virtuosity…combined with a poetic commitment rare in today’s chaotic musical marketplace…APR’s transfers are admirable and all three discs are…”
— Gramophone Magazine
Warner Classics · 2289562 · 12 hours 49 minutes
Nearly thirteen hours sounds like a lot to ask of anyone, but this is really a century of great singing distilled down to its most electric moments, pulled from a series that’s collected multiple Gramophone Awards over three decades for good reason. What gets me is the sheer range of voices you move through — different eras, different schools of technique, all the little quirks of portamento and rubato that later generations trained out of themselves — and how alive it all still sounds. Dip in anywhere and you’ll land on something extraordinary; that’s really the whole point of a compilation built this way.
Awards:
- Gramophone Awards — 1989 — Winner – Historic vocal
- Gramophone Awards — 1979 — Winner – Historical
- Gramophone Awards — 1986 — Winner – Historic vocal
- Gramophone Awards — 2009 — Finalist – Historic Reissue
Sir John Barbirolli
Warner Classics · 9029538608
There’s something wonderfully unpredictable about digging through a box this size, because Barbirolli never quite settles into one identity as a conductor. He can be tender and unhurried in Elgar, then turn around and give you a Vaughan Williams Eighth that’s practically bristling with invention and nerve. What ties it all together is that unmistakable warmth in the string sound — the man clearly loved orchestras the way some people love old friends, and it shows in every phrase.
Awards:
- Gramophone Magazine — August 2020 — Reissue/Archive Issue of the Month
“It soon transpires that there isn’t just one Barbirolli but many… Vaughan Williams is represented by a bold performance of the highly inventive Eighth Symphony…Readers who like to explore beyond…”
— Gramophone Magazine
Sinfonia of London & New Philharmonia Orchestra, with the Allegri String Quartet, Sir John Barbirolli
Warner Classics · 0851872 · 75 minutes
There’s something about Barbirolli conducting this repertoire that feels less like interpretation and more like homecoming — the Elgar Introduction and Allegro and Vaughan Williams’ Tallis Fantasia aren’t just played, they’re breathed through, with that lush, unhurried string tone he coaxed out of these orchestras like nobody else could. The Allegri Quartet’s contribution to the Elgar gives it a chamber-music intimacy inside all that orchestral richness, so you get intensity and tenderness in the same breath. Seventy-five minutes in, you’ll understand why this one keeps landing on best-of lists decades later — it’s the sound of English pastoral music at its most fully realized.
Awards:
- Presto Greatest Recordings of the 1960s
“This is almost certainly the very finest recording of English string music…Moreover it might also be considered one of Barbirolli’s very finest records”
— Penguin Guide
Berliner Philharmoniker, Sir John Barbirolli
Warner Classics · 9187252 · 78 minutes
Barbirolli’s Berlin performance of the Ninth has this strange, aching intensity that a lot of more polished accounts miss entirely — you can hear an orchestra that had never played with him before, feeling its way into something genuinely raw. The final Adagio in particular stretches time in a way that shouldn’t work on paper but absolutely does in practice, with those long dying phrases sounding less like technique and more like someone actually reckoning with mortality. It’s the kind of recording that reminds you Mahler 9 isn’t a showpiece, it’s a confession.
Awards:
- Building A Library — April 2022 — Also Recommended
