Sir Thomas Beecham remembered

Sir Thomas Beecham was born on April 29, 1879. His impact on music in the UK in the 20th century was immense and his recorded legacy remains a rich and rewarding one. In this, the week of his birthday, we revisit an obituary tribute by Alec Robertson published in April 1961…

SIR THOMAS BEECHAM

(born St Helens; April 29, 1879; died London; March 8, 1961)

THE death of Sir Thomas Beecham will have brought a sense of loss even to those who knew him only from reports of his famous witticisms in the popular Press, or from stories about him, mostly true even if exaggerated in being passed on, recounted by their music-loving friends. How infinitely greater the loss felt by those who knew him in the concert hall or, all too infrequently in later years, in the opera house: and, above all, by those who had the privilege of knowing him personally.

There was a time when Beecham's great work for music – the foundations for which were laid in the early years of this century – threatened to be obscured by the legend he became in his lifetime: but in the last decade or so the true nature of his genius has been fully appreciated: a Beecham concert, a Beecham recording of a major work were events eagerly to anticipate and rarely to disappoint. Nevertheless the glowing and detailed tributes to his life work in the Press may well have come as a revelation to many of those not of his generation. As Martin Cooper well said in his tribute in The Daily Telegraph: Beecham "may well have done more for music in this country than any one man before". That is indeed the truth. His spiritual and material wealth, his outstanding artistic gifts, his extraordinary energy, and phenomenal memory were all prodigally devoted to the art he loved – however much he tried to conceal it in ordinary life – so passionately.

The orchestras he founded – the Beecham Orchestra of 1909, the London Philharmonic of 1932, the Royal Philharmonic of 1946 – were the best in England of their different times: his opera seasons in English from 1914 to 1919 were a revelation of what could be achieved with vision and an admirable group of singers. To realise what Beecham accomplished in opera one should turn to his most entertaining autobiography (up to 1924), A Mingled Chime, and to Harold Rosenthal's invaluable book, Two Centuries of Opera at Covent Garden, which refers also to his seasons at Drury Lane and His Majesty's Theatre and takes on up to his last appearance at Covent Garden conducting Die Meistersinger, in 1951. Beecham became a hero to me as long ago as 1910. I have often alluded in this magazine to my unfading memories of his various operatic seasons, but no words could adequately express one's gratitude for the opportunity he gave us to hear the full range of Strauss's operas from Feuersnot to Ariadne (the first version) – the first nights of all of which I attended – the marvellous Russian seasons of operas and ballets for which he and his father were responsible, an unforgettable performance of The Magic Flute, and a large number of operas, poorly attended by the public, that one might otherwise never have heard. It was typical of Beecham to produce operas he personally liked, however little appeal they might have to the box office.

Consider also what he did for Delius. His performances of Sea Drift, A Mass of Life, and various orchestral works, will live always in my memory, and above all, those he gave during the Delius Festival of 1929. Then there was his early championship of Sibelius, his deep insight into the genius of Berlioz, his love for Bizet, Mozart, Haydn, and Handel. Those pundits who criticised his re-arrangements and re-orchestrations of Handel forgot that it was Beecham who rescued Handel from being a Victorianencrusted composer of oratorios and brought out the sensuous Italianate nature of his music. For me, whatever the critics said, it was always "my Beecham right or wrong", and I was thrilled to learn how pleased he had been with my review in these pages of his recording of Solomon. The fine obituary notice in The Times said that "the legend, like the work he did for our musical life, will survive after the laurels of the dead conductor have inevitably withered". For those of us who treasure our Beecham recordings those laurels will never wither. There we have him, certainly at second-hand but, thanks to the benefits of modern recording, we can savour at will his exquisite phrasing, rhythmic vitality, dramatic power, and sensuously beautiful orchestral tone, as later generations will also be able to do.

We intend to publish, at a later date, a considered appreciation of this great musician's art and so I may perhaps be allowed to conclude this brief tribute of homage and affection with a few personal reminiscences. In a Frankly Speaking broadcast, in which I was one of three interlocutors, and the only musician, I reminded Sir Thomas that in 1927 he had said, at Nottingham, that it would be better to take prussic acid than listen to the radio or the gramophone, and I asked him if he was still of this opinion. "It would be a pleasant alternative", he replied. "But", I went on, "you have made a great many records: don't you enjoy that and isn't it, perhaps, profitable?". "My dear sir", said Sir Thomas with assumed indignation, "we are not going to discuss my income tax". I was amused to be rebuked by the then Music Critic of The Listener for "impertinence". As for Sir Thomas, he was delighted at my part in the proceedings. On another occasion we were working together in the large EMI Abbey Road Studio, and as I didn't know well the eighteenth-century French music which he was recording, and I was introducing, for the broadcast History of Music in Sound, I asked him if he would indicate – no scores for me being available – the end of one of the suites of pieces he was playing. "Yes", he said, "I shall wave to you like Isolde to Tristan".

It was a delight at rehearsals to see how the members of the orchestra loved him and how they responded to his flashes of wit, counting it an honour if singled out for one of them, however barbed. No looking at the clock to down instruments at these rehearsals. It was the same with the recording staff; and I was touched to read in EMI's tribute that "the right to perpetuate and diffuse widely the art of so great a musician and personality has always been regarded by the Company as a privilege. His death comes as a blow to the many employees connected with his recordings and particularly to those who had the pleasure of working closely with him".

We have, fortunately, his wonderful recordings of Bohème and Carmen, but must always lament that, amongst much else, he did not live to record The Trojans. I have indicated that Beecham read THE GRAMOPHONE and that brings me to a last reminiscence, in this case of his gloriously stately way of conducting business. The afternoon siesta I allow myself at home was disturbed by the telephone, a voice informing me that Sir Thomas wished to speak to me in a quarter of an hour. On the dot the bell rang again and the voice, said, "Sir Thomas is coming to the telephone", which in a minute or so, he did. After greeting me in that unforgettable seignorial voice, he said he was sorry "not to have passed his examination" in the Enigma Variations. This, I discovered, was in reference to Roger Fiske's criticism that in the second and tricky variation only two conductors of the various recordings avail able had passed RF's examination for ensemble. "Tell the young man", pontificated Beecham, "that we repeated the variation four times and that I have played over the disc to friends twice that number of times and that not a quaver is out of balance so perhaps he will inform me where I have gone wrong". This I promised to do and was about to bid him farewell when he said, "One moment, what was the name of the gentleman who completed Mozart's Requiem?". I said, "Süssmayr" and, asked him why he wanted to know. He replied, "Oh. I'm just re-orchestrating the work myself'".

It is often such trivial reminiscences that awaken lively memories of their subject and so perhaps I may be forgiven for relating them. I shall hear always his friendly "Nice to see you" whenever we met, and l am glad I was able to tell him, in carefully muted terms – because he would have hated gush – something at least of all I owed to him; an immeasurable debt indeed. It is to be hoped that he finds a biographer worthy of him.