Thomas Beecham by John Lucas

Author:John Lucas
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781782043997
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Group Ltd
Published: 2014-07-17T00:00:00+00:00

a By the beginning of 1927 the British Broadcasting Company Ltd, basically a commercial operation subsidised by a proportion of the licence fees for receiving sets levied by the General Post Office, had been transformed into the public-service British Broadcasting Corporation.

b Much of the credit for the repertoire goes to one of Pitt’s programme-planners, Edward Clark, a one-time pupil of Schoenberg. In the following BBC season Schoenberg conducted the first British performance of his Gurrelieder.

c Earlier in the year a Unionist MP, Sir Arthur Holbrook, had asked in the Commons if the government might establish a committee to look into the possibility of building a national opera house in Britain, ‘the only country in Europe’ without one. The Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, replied – to cheers – that ‘in the present state of the country’s finances no such proposal as is suggested by my honourable and gallant friend could be entertained’ (The Times, 31 March 1927).

d In January 1928 Beecham Estates and Pills Ltd had been split into Covent Garden Properties Company Ltd, which owned the freehold of the Opera House, and Beechams Pills Ltd.

e The three Handel pieces Beecham conducted in America were the Overture to Teseo, Musette (Il pastor fido) and Bourrée (Rodrigo). Programme notes described them as being ‘edited’ by him.

f The singers were two Italians, the soprano Anna Maria Guglielmetti and the tenor Enrico di Mazzei, the Dutch mezzo Maartje Offers and the Russian bass Kapiton Zaporojetz.

g For the Times critic, writing about the Berliners’ first concert at Queen’s Hall on 2 December, ‘it seemed impossible to imagine that the playing of individuals and their balance in ensemble could be bettered in any particular. Such a style in performance is the result of a concentration on the art of symphonic playing which the conditions of the great Continental orchestras make possible, and indeed imperative, and which the conditions of orchestral engagement in this country render unattainable.’

h The first public sign of a reconciliation between impresario and conductor had come a year earlier, when it was announced that Beecham would conduct at a Ballets Russes gala at the Palace Theatre, London, in honour of King Fuad I of Egypt. In the event he withdrew on grounds of indisposition.

i On its first night, The Gods shared the bill with two Massine ballets, Les matelots (music by Georges Auric) and Le tricorne (Manuel de Falla), both conducted by Roger Desormière.

j Karsavina was forty-three at the time and living in semi-retirement in London; Nijinsky was thirty-eight. Petrushka, like the Stravinsky–Matisse Chant du rossignol that opened the evening’s triple-bill, was conducted by Desormière.

k Two years earlier Beecham had campaigned, without success, for Delius to be awarded the Order of Merit, which is in the gift of the monarch (Evening Standard, 14 June 1927).

l No. 2 of Delius’s Nine Songs from the Norwegian of 1888. In June 1929 Labbette had recorded The Nightingale for Columbia, with Beecham accompanying.

m Its first performance had been given at Newport on 28 May 1920, with Percy Heming as soloist and Arthur E.

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