The Hallé Orchestra
The Hallé Orchestra is one of Britain's oldest symphonic ensembles. The group has been led by several conductors who have achieved international renown and has presented the world premieres of significant works from Elgar's Symphony No. 1 in A flat major, Op. 55, in 1908 to Ralph Vaughan Williams' Symphony No. 7 ("Sinfonia Antartica") in 1953 to Thomas Adès' These Premises Are Alarmed in 1996.
The Hallé Orchestra is named for its founder, Charles Hallé, a German who was tasked with creating a temporary orchestra for an art exhibit in Manchester and decided to keep the group together. What he at first called the Hallé Concerts were quite popular, and Hallé remained the group's conductor until 1895. Several times, the group has gone into decline but has been rescued by a charismatic and energetic new conductor. One of these was another German, Hans Richter, who arrived in 1899 and remained until 1911 despite conflicts between orchestra-goers who favored German music (and a German conductor) and backers of homegrown talent. Both World War I and II affected the orchestra's concert life, with its home venue, the Free Trade Hall, destroyed in 1940 by bombs in the German Blitz, but it bounced back each time, under Hamilton Harty (1920-1934) and, most familiar to modern audiences, Sir John Barbirolli (1948-1970), who built up a substantial catalog of Hallé Orchestra recordings even after his retirement in 1968, when he was named conductor laureate for life. The Hallé Orchestra's recording catalog extends back to the early LP era; an early release, with Barbirolli as conductor, featured Elgar's Enigma Variations.
Under conductors James Loughran, Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, and Kent Nagano, the orchestra continued to face periods of financial uncertainty caused partly by competition with the rival BBC Northern Orchestra. The two groups agreed to share Manchester's new Bridgewater Hall, opened in 1996 by Queen Elizabeth II (the Free Trade Hall, despite poor acoustics, had been repaired after the war), and since 2000, the orchestra has enjoyed artistic stability under music director Sir Mark Elder. The orchestra's recording catalog has grown sharply since the formation of its own Hallé label in 2003; as many as four albums per year have appeared on that imprint, and the Hallé Orchestra has continued to record for EMI, NMC, and other labels. In 2019, Elder led the orchestra in a Hallé label recording of the Shostakovich Symphony No. 5 in D minor, Op. 47.
The Hallé Orchestra collaborates with a Hallé Choir, formed by Charles Hallé himself, and, since 2002, with a Hallé Youth Orchestra. In 2023, the Hallé Orchestra announced that Kahchun Wong would succeed Elder, becoming principal conductor for the 2024-2025 season. During the 2010s and 2020s, the orchestra has been extremely prolific in the recording studio, issuing 15 albums in the year 2020 alone, despite pandemic-era restrictions. Some were on the Hallé label, but the majority were on the major Warner Classics label. By 2023, when the Hallé Orchestra issued an album of works by Dobrinka Tabakova, the orchestra's recording catalog comprised more than 150 digital releases, plus many others from the analog era.
© James Manheim /TiVo
-
Ravel's Bolero
Sir John Barbirolli, The Hallé Orchestra
Classique - Paru chez Everest Records le 10 oct. 1980
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Haydn: Symphony No. 83 in G Minor, "The Hen"
Musique symphonique - Paru chez Past Classics le 2 févr. 2009
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 5 in D
Classique - Paru chez Past Classics le 10 janv. 2010
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Johann Strauss II: Die Fledermaus Overture / Tales from the Vienna Woods / Blue Danube Waltz
The Hallé Orchestra, Sir John Barbirolli
Classique - Paru chez Music Manager le 25 oct. 2012
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Mozart: Symphony No. 41 in C major, K.551
Classique - Paru chez Past Classics le 17 juin 2008
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Brahms: Symphony No. 1
The Hallé Orchestra, Stanislaw Skrowaczewski
Classique - Paru chez imp le 1 janv. 1987
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Brahms: Symphony No. 2
The Hallé Orchestra, Stanislaw Skrowaczewski
Classique - Paru chez imp le 1 janv. 1987
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Elgar: Symphony NO. 2, OP. 63 - Variations on an Original Theme, OP. 36
The Hallé Orchestra, The Royal Albert Hall Orchestra
Classique - Paru chez Altair le 23 sept. 2022
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Evelyn Rothwell Plays Haydn and Corelli
Evelyn Rothwell, The Hallé Orchestra
Classique - Paru chez Past Classics le 10 janv. 2010
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Elgar: Symphony 2 & Enigma Variations
Sir John Barbirolli, The Hallé Orchestra
Musique symphonique - Paru chez Infinity le 8 avr. 2021
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Holst: The Planets – Colin Matthews: Pluto
Sir Mark Elder, The Hallé Orchestra
Classique - Paru chez Hyperion le 1 juin 2001
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Williams: A London Symphony
Classique - Paru chez Past Classics le 1 oct. 2009
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique, Op. 14
Classique - Paru chez Past Classics le 28 avr. 2009
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Sibelius: Symphony No. 1 in E Minor, Op.39
Classique - Paru chez Past Classics le 23 avr. 2008
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Symphony No. 4 (Italian) And Symphony No. 1
Classique - Paru chez Olympic Records le 22 juil. 1974
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Beethoven: Symphony No. 3 'Eroica', No. 4
Sir Henry J. Wood, Sir Hamilton Harty, New Queen's Hall Orchestra, The Hallé Orchestra
Musique symphonique - Paru chez Infinity le 4 août 2020
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Beethoven: Symphony No. 1 & 8
Classique - Paru chez Past Classics le 1 févr. 2011
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Sibelius: Pohjola's Daughter' Symphonic Fantasia, Op. 49
Classique - Paru chez Past Classics le 28 avr. 2009
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Sibelius: Symphony No. 5
Classique - Paru chez Past Classics le 28 avr. 2009
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Mozart: Symphony No. 29 in A major, K.201
Classique - Paru chez Past Classics le 17 juin 2008
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Symphony No. 8 In G Major, Op. 88
Classique - Paru chez Blue Pie Records USA le 1 janv. 1978
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo