The blue plaque
reads:
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Greater London Council
Sir Thomas Beecham,
C.H. 1879 - 1961 Conductor and Impresario lived here
|
|
The Bach-Cantatas
website (visit
link) tells of Beecham:
"Born: April
29, 1879 - St. Helens, near Liverpool, England
Died: March 8, 1961 - London,
England
The celebrated
English conductor, Thomas Beecham, was born to a father, Sir Joseph Beecham, a
man of great wealth, derived from the manufacture of the once-famous Beecham
pills. Thanks to them, young Beecham could engage in life's pleasures without
troublesome regard for economic limitations. He had his first music lessons from
a rural organist. From 1892 to 1897 he attended the Rossall School at
Lancashire, and later went to Wadham College, Oxford. He did not have any formal
music school. Musically he was an autodidact and taught himself everything.
Later on he studied composition in London with Charles Wood and in Paris with
Muszkowski.
In 1899 Thomas
Beecham organised, mainly for his own delectation, an amateur ensemble, the St.
Helen's Orchestral Society. Also in 1899 he conducted a performance with the
prestigious Hallé Orchestra in Manchester. In 1902 he became conductor of K.
Trueman's travelling opera company, which gave him valuable practical experience
with theater music. He led this ensemble until 1904. In 1905 he gave his first
professional symphonic concert in London, with members of the Queen’s Hall
Orchestra. In 1906 he became conductor of the New Symphony Orchestra, which he
led until 1908. Then formed a group in his own name, the Beecham Symphony
Orchestra, which presented its first concert in London in February
1909.
In 1910,
financially backed by his family, Thomas Beecham took over the creative and
business management of Covent Garden in London. In subsequent seasons conducted
there and at other London theatres. He was the first in England to perform The
Mastersingers of Nüremberg by R. Wagner, Elektra and Salome by R. Strauss and
thus enriched the musical life of the English capital. He invited Fyodor
Shalyapin, the Ballets Russes, Wilhelm Furtwängler, Erich Kleiber, in other
words everyone of repute, to give guest performances in London. In 1915, during
World War I, he organised the Beecham Opera Company by which time his reputation
as a forceful and charismatic conductor was securely established in England. His
audiences grew; the critics, impressed by his imperious ways and his
unquestioned ability to bring out spectacular operatic productions, sang his
praise; however, some commentators found much to criticise in his somewhat
cavalier treatment of the classics.
In
appreciation of his services to British music, Thomas Beecham was knighted in
1916. With the death of his father, he succeeded to the title of baronet. But
all of his inherited money was not enough to pay for his exorbitant financial
disbursements in his ambitious enterprises, and in 1920 his operatic enterprise
went bankrupt. He rebounded a few years later and continued his extraordinary
career. In January 1928, lie made his USA debut as a guest conductor of the New
York Philharmonic Orchestra, at which concert Vladimir Horowitz also made his
USA debut as soloist.
In 1929 Thomas
Beecham organised and conducted the Delius Festival in London, to which Delius
himself, racked by tertiary syphilitic affliction, paralysed and blind, was
brought from his residence in France to attend Beecham's musical homage to him.
From 1932 to 1939 he conducted again at Covent Garden. In 1932 he organised the
London Philharmonic Orchestra, which also played at Covent Garden. Contemptuous
of general distaste for the Nazi regime in Germany, he took the London
Philharmonic Orchestra to Berlin in 1936 for a concert, which was attended by
the Führer in person. As the war situation deteriorated on the Continent,
Beecham went to the USA in May 1940, and also toured Canada and Australia. In
1941 he was engaged as conductor of the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, retaining
this post until 1943; he also filled guest engagements at the Metropolitan Opera
in New York from 1942 to 1944. In America he was not exempt from sharp
criticism, which he haughtily dismissed as philistine complaints. On his part,
he was outspoken in his snobbish disdain for the cultural inferiority of
England's wartime allies, often spicing his comments with mild obscenities,
usually of a scatological nature.
After his
return to England he was no longer able to resume his work at Covent Garden; his
former orchestra, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, chose self-administration
and rejected Beecham as its sole manager. As a result he founded, in 1946, still
another orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, which he managed until the
end of his days. In 1950 he made an extraordinarily successful North American
tour with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. He continued to conduct the Royal
Philharmonic Orchestra until ill health led him to nominate Rudolf Kempe as his
successor in 1960. In 1957 Queen Elizabeth II made him a Companion of
Honour.
Thomas Beecham
was married 3 times: to Utica Celestia Wells, in 1903 (divorced in 1942); to
Betty Hamby (in 1943), who died in 1957; and to his young secretary, Shirley
Hudson, in 1959.
Thomas Beecham
published an autobiography, A Mingled Chime (London, 1943), and also an
extensive biography of Delius (London, 1959). To mark his centennial, a
commemorative postage stamp with Beecham's portrait was issued by the Post
Office of Great Britain in September 1980. In 1964 the Sir Thomas Beecham
Society dedicated to preserving his memory, was organised, with chapters in
America and England. The Society publishes an official journal, Le Grand Baton,
devoted to Beecham and the art of conducting.
In spite of
the occasional criticism directed at him, Sir Thomas Beecham revealed a
remarkable genius as an orchestra builder. In addition to his outstanding
interpretations of Haydn, Mozart, and Schubert, he had a particular affinity for
the works of French and Russian composers of the 19th century. He was always an
advocate of English music, particularly Frederick Delius, whose main works he
was the first to play. He fought for the works of Jean Sibelius in England and
defended those of Richard Strauss, to whom he felt greatly attached. In the
field of old music he had affection for the oratorios of George Frideric Handel,
which he performed in highly personal and surprising arrangements. He was also
attracted by French music and it is to him that we owe gramophone recordings of
the major symphonies of the 19th century and a trend-setting Carmen by Georges
Bizet. His humour is legendary and his style of conducting, which tended to be
based rather on instinct than on intellect, may be termed characteristic of a
generation of musicians, to whom enthusiasm was more important than unrelenting
strictness."