150 Years Of The Halle

The latest issue of BBC Music magazine arrived with a cover disk celebrating the 150th anniversary of the foundation of the Halle Orchestra. The disk includes both newly recorded and vintage archive performances. Those newly recorded are conducted by Mark Elder and are of works by Sibelius, Butterworth and Debussy arr. Colin Matthews. The Sibelius is his Third Symphony, maybe my favourite and one whichj I also have played by the BBSO under Simon Rattle. This live Halle recording more than holds its' own with that. George Butterworth's A Shropshire Lad occupies that English pastoral territory but is none the less moving and evocative for that, a fine orchestral showcase and a work which adds to the thoughts of what might have been for the composer if WW1 hadn't intervened with such disastrous consequences. Colin Matthews is a composer in residence with the Halle and has transcribed several of Debussy's piano pieces for orchestra, the one in question here being Prelude - Les Collines d'Anacapri. The vintage recordings sound a bit rough but I'm sure will be appreciated by those for whom there is a significant nostalgia value. Hamilton Hardy conducts Dvorak's Carnival Overture, Leslie Heward conducts Elgar's quintessentially sentimental Salut d'Amour and the final movement of Bax's Symphony No 3 is conducted by probably the foremost of the Halle's principle conductors, Sir John Barbirolli.