Sir Thomas Beecham, Bt, CH</small> (29 April 1879 – 8 March 1961) was an English conductor and impresario best known for his association with the London Philharmonic and the Royal Philharmonic orchestras. He was also closely associated with the Liverpool Philharmonic and Hallé orchestras. From the early 20th century until his death, Beecham was a major influence on the musical life of Britain and, according to the BBC, was Britain's first international conductor.Born to a rich industrial family, Beecham began his career as a conductor in 1899. He used his access to the family fortune to finance opera from the 1910s until the start of the Second World War, staging seasons at Covent Garden, Drury Lane and His Majesty's Theatre with international stars, his own orchestra and a wide repertoire. Among the works he introduced to England were Richard Strauss's Elektra, Salome and Der Rosenkavalier and three operas by Frederick Delius.Together with his younger colleague Malcolm Sargent, Beecham founded the London Philharmonic, and he conducted its first performance at the Queen's Hall in 1932. In the 1940s, he worked for three years in the United States, where he was music director of the Seattle Symphony and conducted at the Metropolitan Opera. After his return to Britain, he founded the Royal Philharmonic in 1946 and conducted it until his death in 1961.Beecham's repertoire was eclectic, sometimes favouring lesser-known composers over famous ones. His specialities included composers whose works were neglected in Britain before he became their advocate, such as Delius and Berlioz. Other composers with whose music he was frequently associated were Haydn, Schubert, Sibelius and the composer he revered above all others, Mozart.
Rossall School (1892–1897), Wadham College, Oxford
Awards
Grammy Hall of Fame Award, Grammy Award for Best Choral Performance
Star Sign
Taurus
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Quote
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The English may not like music, but they absolutely love the noise it makes.
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When a horse defecated on stage during a Covent Garden performance of Verdi's "Aida": "A distressing spectacle, to be sure, but, Gad, what a critic!"
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There are two golden rules for an orchestra: start together and finish together. The public doesn't give a damn what goes on in between.
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All the arts in America are a gigantic racket run by unscrupulous men for unhealthy women.
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[Describing the harpsichord] "Like two skeletons copulating on a corrugated tin roof."
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[To lady cellist playing badly at rehearsal] "Madam, you have between your legs an instrument capable of giving pleasure to thousands - and all you can do is scratch it."
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Fact
1
Met future wife Betty Humby when she was 12. She played at several of his concerts.
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He sincerely and honestly believed that the works of George Frideric Handel had to be re-orchestrated and edited before they were acceptable to a modern audience, and he often did exactly that. Today this attitude would be considered sacrilegious by some; however, Beecham, unlike Leopold Stokowski, never re-orchestrated just for show, and CDs of Beecham's versions of Handel's works continue to be released to great acclaim.
3
In 1959, he recorded a drastically re-orchestrated stereo version of Handel's "Messiah", rescored by Sir Eugene Goossens for a huge chorus and a modern symphony orchestra, complete with cymbals and tam-tams. Purists were horrified, but today the recording has been critically re-assessed and found to be immensely entertaining.
4
His early stereo recording of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's "Scheherazade" is widely considered the finest performance of the work.
$12 Million
