主播大秀

Suzy Klein presents an evening of music and conversation devoted to the great British conductor Sir Thomas Beecham, who died 50 years ago this spring. Over a career spanning half a century, Beecham was a major influence on British musical life, using family money (his grandfather established the Beechams Pills factory) to finance opera seasons at Covent Garden, Drury Lane and other London theatres, with international stars and a wide repertoire - he gave the British premieres of operas by Richard Strauss and Delius, among other major composers. In the 1930s Beecham and his younger colleague Malcolm Sargent founded the London Philharmonic Orchestra, and after a spell in the USA in the 1940s, he returned to Britain to found another major London-based orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic, which he conducted from 1946 until his death in 1961. Never a fan of Bach ("too much counterpoint - and what is worse, Protestant counterpoint"), Beethoven ("a tub-thumper") or Brahms ("that old bore"), he preferred the music of Haydn, Berlioz, Schubert, Delius, Richard Strauss, Wagner and Sibelius, and revered Mozart above all others ("If I were a dictator I should make it compulsory for every member of the population between the ages of four and eighty to listen to Mozart for at least one-quarter of an hour daily for the coming five years"). With the help of contributors including Rob Cowan, Beecham's son, Paul Strang, his biographer John Lucas and musicians who played under him including former violinists Raymond Ovens and John Ludlow, Suzy Klein will explore Beecham's extraordinary legacy both as a musical entrepreneur and a fearless champion of little-known composers and repertoire, who nevertheless described himself as "very, very low-brow" [hence his celebrated collection of orchestral 'lollipops'. Drawing on a wealth of recordings (many recently released), archive material of Beecham himself talking and examples of Beecham's famously coruscating wit (recreated by actor Timothy West who played Beecham on stage), this evening aims to build up a picture of a much-loved pillar of the British musical Establishment.