Strauss, R: Metamorphosen

These two recordings originally appeared as a 2LP set in 1968, just two years before Sir John Barbirolli’s untimely death.

As Michael Kennedy notes in his authoritative accompanying essay, Barbirolli’s first encounter with Mahler’s music was unpromising. In 1930 he heard the Fourth Symphony and found it ‘very thin’. But in the 1930s and 40s he took up the Kindertotenlieder and Das Lied von der Erde.

Yet it was not until 1954 that he began to explore the symphonies, beginning with the Ninth. Devoting months and sometimes years to the study of each one, he became the leading advocate in Britain of Mahler’s music.

From 1961 Barbirolli was a regular guest conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic, with whom he made a celebrated recording of the Ninth for EMI in 1964. Three years later he took the Philharmonia Orchestra into Kingsway Hall for the Sixth Symphony (the Strauss was done a few days later at Abbey Road).

This CD release settles one point of controversy: that, despite the use of the 1963 Mahler Society edition and the running order of the first LPs, Barbirolli always intended (as Mahler finally did) that the Scherzo stand third, after the Andante.

Kennedy goes on to point out that ‘there is good reason to link Mahler with Strauss in relation to the Sixth Symphony. Although contrasted in approach, the symphony is as frankly autobiographical as Ein Heldenleben, depicting the triumphs and travails of a hero who is indisputably a projection of Mahler. Both composers even brought their wives into the scores. Pauline Strauss is depicted by a long and capricious violin solo, Alma Mahler as the F major second subject of the first movement.’

Both works are remastered to ART standard at Abbey Road Studios.

Awards: Diapason d’Or, 10 de Répertoire