barbirolli's interest in new music waned in post-war years, but he and the hallé appeared regularly at the cheltenham festival, where he premiered new works of a mostly traditional style by william alwyn, richard arnell, arthur benjamin, peter racine fricker, gordon jacob, alan rawsthorne, kenneth leighton and others. for its hundredth anniversary in 1958 the hallé commissioned several new works, including walton's virtuosic divertimento "partita". increasingly, barbirolli concentrated on his core repertory of the standard symphonic classics, the works of english composers, and late-romantic music, particularly that of mahler. in the 1960s he made a series of international tours with the philharmonia (latin america, 1963), bbc symphony orchestra (czechoslovakia, poland and the ussr, 1967) and the hallé (latin america and west indies, 1968). it was a lasting disappointment to him that it never proved possible to take the hallé on a tour of the united states.