A box of Barnes: Group records all professor’s symphonies
LAWRENCE — Like thespians who refer to “Macbeth” as “the Scottish play,” classical music composers have a superstition about the number of symphonies they may write. Beethoven and Mahler died shortly after completing their respective ninth symphonies.
So for 74-year-old James Barnes, professor emeritus of music at the University of Kansas, his Ninth Symphony will be his last, he said. He doesn’t want to tempt fate.
Now, though, Barnes has a boxed set of all nine of his symphonies, performed and recorded last year and released this year by the Osaka Shion Wind Orchestra. The 70-piece group was rehearsed and performed for a month under the baton of the dean of the KU School of Music, Paul Popiel.
Barnes, then still recovering from gallbladder surgery, couldn’t make the trip himself, but said Popiel “knows my music better than anyone else.” The two men have worked together for the past 14 years, since Popiel joined the music faculty.