I wrote:

>>...  One thing that threw me for a loop was in the liner notes to
>>Barbirolli's Mahler 5 in the new EMI packaging, they say that Beecham
>>recorded Mahler's 9th in 1937.  Now of that I have absolutely no idea
>>what to think.  Ever heard it?

and Deryk Barker replied:

>Frankly I don't believe it.  I can just about believe that he might have
>performed it, but I'm unaware of any recording og the 9th between Walter's
>1938 VPO and, proabably, Horenstein's 1952 VSO.

I'll bet it's either a mistake or a badly constructed sentence.  Here's
what it says exactly:

   "...Thus [in 1954] began 16 years of intensive study of Mahler's
   symphonies during which Barbirolli conducted all except the Eighth
   (although he prepared the score) and the Cooke performing version of
   the Tenth. He conducted them in Manchester and as part of the Halle's
   British itinerary, but in the United States, Italy, Rusiia, Austria
   and Germany, particularly Berlin. He recorded the Ninth with the
   Berlin Phimharmonic, the first British conductor to do so with this
   orchestra since Beecham in 1937."

The writer is Michael Kennedy.  Perhaps he merely means to say "the first
British conductor to *perform* it with this orchestra since Beecham in
1937" ...? Or perhaps Beecham recorded it for radio broadcast but the
tapes are too deteriorated even for Italian bootleg companies? Oh well,
liner notes are never a good source of facts.

Jon Lewis
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