Sir Adrian Cedric Boult, CH was a British conductor. Brought up in a prosperous mercantile family, he followed musical studies in England and at Leipzig, Germany, with early conducting work in London for the Royal Opera House and Sergei Diaghilev's ballet company. His first prominent post was conductor of the City of Birmingham Orchestra in 1924. When the British Broadcasting Corporation appointed him director of music in 1930, he established the BBC Symphony Orchestra and became its chief conductor. The orchestra set standards of excellence that were rivalled in Britain only by the London Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO), founded two years later.
Sir Thomas Beecham, 2nd Baronet, CH 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.
Sir John Barbirolli was a British conductor and cellist. He is remembered above all as conductor of the Hallé Orchestra in Manchester, which he helped save from dissolution in 1943 and conducted for the rest of his life. Earlier in his career he was Arturo Toscanini's successor as music director of the New York Philharmonic, serving from 1936 to 1943. He was also chief conductor of the Houston Symphony from 1961 to 1967, and was a guest conductor of many other orchestras, including the BBC Symphony Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, the Philharmonia, the Berlin Philharmonic and the Vienna Philharmonic, with all of which he made recordings.
The London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) is a British symphony orchestra based in London. Founded in 1904, the LSO is the oldest of London's symphony orchestras. The LSO was created by a group of players who left Henry Wood's Queen's Hall Orchestra because of a new rule requiring players to give the orchestra their exclusive services. The LSO itself later introduced a similar rule for its members. From the outset the LSO was organised on co-operative lines, with all players sharing the profits at the end of each season. This practice continued for the orchestra's first four decades.
The London Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO) is a British orchestra based in London. One of five permanent symphony orchestras in London, the LPO was founded by the conductors Sir Thomas Beecham and Malcolm Sargent in 1932 as a rival to the existing London Symphony and BBC Symphony Orchestras.
The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (RPO) is a British symphony orchestra based in London.
Sir Harold Malcolm Watts Sargent was an English conductor, organist and composer widely regarded as Britain's leading conductor of choral works. The musical ensembles with which he was associated included the Ballets Russes, the Huddersfield Choral Society, the Royal Choral Society, the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, and the London Philharmonic, Hallé, Liverpool Philharmonic, BBC Symphony and Royal Philharmonic orchestras. Sargent was held in high esteem by choirs and instrumental soloists, but because of his high standards and a statement that he made in a 1936 interview disputing musicians' rights to tenure, his relationship with orchestral players was often uneasy. Despite this, he was co-founder of the London Philharmonic, was the first conductor of the Liverpool Philharmonic as a full-time ensemble, and played an important part in saving the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra from disbandment in the 1960s.
Sir Eugene Aynsley Goossens was an English conductor and composer.
Hugo Henry Rignold was an English conductor and violinist, who is best remembered as musical director of the Royal Ballet (1957–1960) and conductor of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (1960–1968).
Leonard Salzedo was an English composer and conductor of Spanish descent. He composed over 160 works, including 18 film scores, 17 ballets, ten string quartets and two symphonies.
Thomas Linley the younger, also known as Thomas Linley, Junior or Tom Linley, was the eldest son of the composer Thomas Linley and his wife Mary Johnson. He was one of the most precocious composers and performers that have been known in England. A highly talented violinist, Tom Linley was also the most promising of all native English composers between Henry Purcell and Edward Elgar, combining prodigious talent with a delightful personality. He is sometimes referred to as the "English Mozart". His early promise was cut short when he drowned in a boating accident, aged just 22 years.
Gladys Ripley was an English contralto.
Selected discography of recordings conducted by Thomas Beecham:
Thomas Shaw, also known as Thomas Shaw Jun(ior, was an English violinist, violist, clarinettist and composer who was born c.1752, probably in Bath, and who probably died in Paris on 28 June 1827 or c.1830. Thomas Shaw was the son of Bathonian musician Thomas Shaw and the younger brother of violinist Anthony Shaw. The majority of his career was spent at the Drury Lane theatre in London as an instrumentalist, violin soloist, band leader, musical director and in-house composer.
Michael Dixon is a British conductor, musical director, musical supervisor, composer and arranger. He is a 1979 graduate of Trinity College of Music.
The conductor Malcolm Sargent's career as a recording artist began in the days of acoustic recording, shortly before the introduction of the microphone and electrical recording, and continued into the stereo LP era. He recorded prolifically from 1924 until 1967, the year of his death.
The English conductor Sir Adrian Boult was a prolific recording artist. Unlike many musicians, he felt at home in the recording studio and actually preferred working without an audience. His recording career ran from November 1920, when working with Diaghilev's Ballets Russes he recorded the ballet music, The Good-Humoured Ladies, to December 1978, when he made his final recording of music by Hubert Parry.
Berta Geissmar was the secretary and business manager for two prominent orchestral conductors, Wilhelm Furtwängler and Sir Thomas Beecham. From 1922 until 1935, Geissmar worked for the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and Furtwängler, including planning and organising foreign tours for the orchestra. Because of her Jewish heritage, she was forced to leave the post and her native Germany in late 1935. Fleeing to London, she gained a similar position with Thomas Beecham and the London Philharmonic Orchestra. She continued in this position until shortly before her death.
The conductor Sir Thomas Beecham made several orchestral suites from neglected music by George Frideric Handel, mostly from the composer's 42 surviving operas. The best known of the suites are The Gods Go a'Begging (1928), The Origin of Design (1932), The Faithful Shepherd (1940), Amaryllis (1944) and The Great Elopement.
This discography is an incomplete, chronological list of recordings commercially released with the name British Symphony Orchestra on the label. The list also includes other known recordings which fall outside this strict definition: either because they have been included in published discographies of specific conductors under this name; or have been re-released as such on CD; or were never publicly released for general sale; or for comparison purposes only.
