Barbirolli had a particular affinity for the music of Brahms and Schubert and he conducted their works to critical acclaim. As a young cellist, he gained knowledge and practical experience of their instrumental and chamber works, and as an orchestral musician he became familiar with their orchestral works, whilst still in his teenage years. He included Brahms’s E Minor Cello Sonata op. 38 at an Aeolian Hall recital in November 1917 and played in a trio arrangement of Schubert’s Serenade during his army service. Barbirolli included the Fourth Symphony by Brahms in his first four concerts with the New York Philharmonic in Carnegie Hall in November 1936.
During his seven years with the orchestra, he conducted all the major works of Brahms as well as Schubert’s Second and Fourth Symphonies and Five German Dances. In July 1940, at his debut at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, he conducted Brahms’s Fourth Symphony before an audience of 12,000 and, shortly afterwards, conducted in Chicago at the Ravinia Park Festival where his concerts included Schubert’s Fourth and Ninth Symphonies and Brahms’s Fourth Symphony. Audiences throughout Britain and abroad heard Barbirolli conduct magnificent performances of the works of Brahms and Schubert.
He conducted all the Brahms symphonies in the 1945-46 season in Manchester. Schubert’s Second, Fourth, Fifth and Eighth Symphonies all found their way into his Viennese Night programmes. Barbirolli also conducted several performances of the Brahms Alto Rhapsody (two with Kathleen Ferrier, who also sang the Four Serious Songs) and, in 1955, two performances of the German Requiem. In the late 1960’s, he recorded a Brahms cycle for EMI with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. In his last decade, when he conducted many of the world’s great orchestras, Barbirolli’s outstanding performances of Brahms and Schubert thrilled audiences throughout the world, nowhere more so than in Berlin and Boston where his interpretations (of Brahms’s Second Symphony, in particular) also greatly impressed the orchestral players. This set brings together Barbirolli's HMV recordings of Schubert's Symphony No.9 (1953), the Rosamunde Overture (1948/49), the Symphony No.3 by Brahms (1952) and Mendelssohn's Scherzo (1949). Also included is the famous Pye recording of the Brahms Double Concerto (1959) with André Navarra and Alfredo Campoli as soloists.
