AboutSir Thomas Beecham, 2nd Baronet, CH (29 April 1879– 8 March 1961) was a British conductor. He founded several British orchestras including the New Symphony Orchestra, the London Philharmonic Orchestra and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. From the early twentieth century until his death Beecham was a dominant influence on the musical life of Britain. Beecham was born in St. Helens, Lancashire, England. His father, Sir Joseph Beecham, 1st Baronet (1848–1916), was a wealthy patent pill manufacturer and civic leader, who had been awarded a baronetcy for continuing the work of his father Thomas Beecham (1820–1907), the inventor of Beecham's Pills. His relations with fellow British conductors were seldom cordial. Sir Henry Wood regarded him as an upstart and was envious of his success; the scrupulous Sir Adrian Boult was not in sympathy with him as a man or a musician; Sir Malcolm Sargent worked with him in founding the London Philharmonic, but was the subject of many witty but unkind digs from the older man - for example, he described Herbert von Karajan as "a kind of musical Malcolm Sargent". Sir John Barbirolli regarded Beecham as unreliable. On the other hand, Beecham's relations with foreign conductors were often excellent. He did not get on with Arturo Toscanini, but he liked and encouraged Wilhelm Furtwängler and later Rudolf Kempe, and was admired by Fritz Reiner. Repertoire The earliest composer whose music Beecham regularly performed was Handel. Even by the standards of his day Beecham took an unscholarly approach to Handel's scores, cutting, reordering and re-orchestrating wholesale. In defence of this it may be noted that, first, much of the music revamped by Beecham was not otherwise heard at all in those days and, secondly, except by the out-and-out purist, his arrangements are widely regarded as delicious even now. With Haydn, too, Beecham was far from an authenticist, not that he extensively re-orchestrated (apart from eliminating the harpsichord) but his legato style with 'hairpin' swells was far from today's more sober approach. For Beecham, Mozart was the high point of music, and the conductor treated the composer's scores with more deference than he gave most others (nevertheless, he touched up the orchestration of even the Jupiter symphony here and there). Beecham's attitude to Beethoven was ambivalent. He conducted all the symphonies during his career; he made studio recordings of Nos 2, 3, 4, 6, 7 and 8, and a live recording of the Missa Solemnis. On the other hand, he lost no opportunity to make rude remarks about Beethoven's music. Of 19th century composers, Berlioz is probably the one who was closest to Beecham's heart, and in an age when the composer's works were far from over-exposed Beecham presented most of them and recorded many. It is arguable that the only conductor to do more to bring Berlioz before the musical public is another Englishman, Sir Colin Davis. Beecham was a first-rate Wagner conductor, despite a certain disdain for the composer's excessive length and repetitiousness ("We've been rehearsing for two hours – and we're still playing the same bloody tune!" (Charles Reid, "Thomas Beecham", 1961). He was also a master of Richard Strauss’s music, acknowledged by the composer. In Italian opera he showed curiously little passion for Verdi, but in the middle of the 20th century was one of the few serious rivals to Toscanini and Victor de Sabata as an interpreter of Puccini. His recording of La Boheme, with Jussi Bjorling and Victoria de Los Angeles is justly famous to this day. The only other major 20th century composer to engage his sympathies was Sibelius, who recognised him as a fine conductor of his music (though it is perhaps necessary to bear in mind that Sibelius tended to be lavish with praise of anybody who conducted his music) In the music of his native land Beecham was generally antipathetic to, or at best lukewarm about, the most eminent and acclaimed composers, Elgar, Vaughan Williams, Walton and Britten. His championship of Delius virtually single-handedly rescued the composer from obscurity, and all subsequent performances of Delius' works even in the 21st century are automatically compared to Beecham’s benchmark recordings, and are usually judged wanting. Minor British composers, like many minor European ones (see discography, below) appealed to him, and received performances of their works that possibly made them seem better than they were. By the late 1950s until the end of his life, he made a significant impact on British musical life in London, conducting the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in a series of major concerts and making some important recordings. Among them is his Tchaikovsky 4th Symphony and Rimsky-Korsakov's "Scheherazade". --- Wikipedia contributors. Thomas Beecham. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. June 25, 2006, 07:37 UTC. Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Thomas_Beecham&oldid=60460838. Accessed July 9, 2006. |
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