The Signature Collection is a brand new series from EMI Classics featuring the finest catalog recordings released for the first time ever in high resolution format. The expert engineers at Abbey Road Studios who remastered the original EMI recordings for Hybrid Super Audio CD series have breathed new life into these iconic catalog recordings. Each title in the Signature Collection is beautifully presented in a full-color illustrated hardback book. The liner notes explore mot only the rich music but also the story behind original LP covers. Also included are never before seen photographs of the original master tapes.

Sir John Barbirolli began as an orchestral cellist, and played under Elgar's baton in the premiere of the Cello Concerto. Encouraged by Elgar, he moved into conducting and made his mark with the composer's Second Symphony in 1927. After Elgar's death, Barbirolli vowed to make the composer's music his special mission in life and to do his utmost to make it known all over the world. From the performances here, we can judge how well he kept his promise.

On this magnificent audiophile download, world renowned cellist Jacqueline Du Pre renders a gut-wrenching performance of Elgar’s Cello Concerto in E Minor. This standard in the classical repertoire is delivered with unmatched emotion and virtuosity. This recording also features breathtaking vocals by Janet Baker on the Elgar classic, Sea Pictures. The purity of her tone is absolutely stunning. A highly recommended addition to any classical lover’s collection.

John Barbirolli studied cello as a boy, making his debut public appearance at the age of 12. He received a formal education at Trinity College of Music and the Royal Academy of Music, from which he graduated in 1916. Upon graduation, he found a position in the Queen's Hall Orchestra, becoming its youngest member. He made his professional solo debut as a cellist in Aeolian Hall, London, in 1917. During World War I he joined the British Army; while in the service he got his first taste of conducting by leading an all-volunteer orchestra. After his service ended in 1919, he returned to the Queen's Hall Orchestra. He also resumed performances as a cello soloist, appearing with the Bournemouth Municipal Orchestra. He joined and toured with the International String Quartet beginning in 1923. Soon after, he organized and conducted a chamber orchestra in Chelsea. The British National Opera Company engaged him to conduct on tour.

British conductor Sir John Barbirolli is remembered most for his relationship with the Halle Orchestra in Manchester, having saved the ensemble from dissolution in 1943. He spent the rest of his life with this ensemble. This release features Barbirolli conducting the Halle Orchestra, as well as the Philharmonia Orchestra and the Sinfonia of London. The works on this release are all by English composer Ralph Vaughn Williams, and were recorded between 1957 and 1962.

Edmund Rubbra established his reputation with his first four Symphonies. But in many ways, Rubbra’s Fifth Symphony may be considered his most immediately attractive. It was premiered on 26 January, 1949 by the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Sir Adrian Boult at the Royal Albert Hall, but it was Sir John Barbirolli and the Hallé Orchestra’s recording of the work under the auspices of the British Council – the first recording of any Symphony by Rubbra – which had a notable impact and substantially reinforced the composer’s name internationally.

Saluting an extraordinary composer-conductor relationship, this collection presents almost all Elgar's major orchestral works and the Sea Pictures in the classic recordings made by Sir John Barbirolli towards the end of his life. Barbirolli began as an orchestral cellist, and played under Elgar's baton in the première of the Cello Concerto. Encouraged by Elgar, he moved into conducting and made his mark with the composer's Second Symphony in 1927. Elgar's music was to remain a talisman for the rest of Barbirolli's life.

Born in London of Italian-French parents, Sir John Barbirolli (1899–1970) trained as a cellist and played in theatre and café orchestras before joining the Queen’s Hall Orchestra under Sir Henry Wood in 1916.

English Tone Pictures by Sir John Barbirolli - Side One features two very gifted composers in John Ireland and Arnold Bax, Band 1 features John Ireland (1879-1962) who is described as one of the most gifted composers of the English 'Renaissance'. Arnold Bax confessed himself a brazen romantic; yet his romanticism was as much intellectual as purely emotional, and though his music is full of personal feeling he was not an emotionally self indulgent composer.

29 July 2020 marks the 50th anniversary Sir John Barbirolli’s passing. He died at the age of 70, having been born in 1899 in London to parents of Italian and French origin.

The insert-note here relates the remarkable story that Barbirolli, stepping off the boat-train at 11 o'clock one morning in 1935 after a visit abroad, was told that at 2 o'clock he was to record Vieuxtemps's Concerto No. 4 a work he had never even heard, let alone seen with Heifetz. Using a score "so yellow with age that the pages crumbled" as they were turned, the work was nevertheless recorded in a single session a tribute not only to Barbirolli's professionalism and skill but also to Heifetz's confidence in the conductor (then aged 36, two years older than himself), having already recorded concertos by Glazunov and Mozart with him, as the most able of accompanists.