CONTROVERSIAL CONDUCTOR

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28268, 4 May 1957, Page 6

CONTROVERSIAL CONDUCTOR

Beecham Bids Britain Adieu

CIR THOMAS BEECHAM, now 78, has retired for 18 months to the Riviera in the hope of improving his health. For some time before nis departure he had been conducting from a chair.

He has promised to conduct again from time to time, but many people feel that his long and distinguished musical career is at last drawing to a close.

He made the announcement to a packed audience in London’s Royal Festival Hall this month. “You won’t see me for some time,” he said. It was an unusually subdued speech. At times the bravura of his speeches has made the British almost forget that Beecham is first of all a great conductor. For 50 years he fought their indifference to the composers he championed Delius, Sibelius. Berlioz, Gluck, Chabrier. ... He won.

At his concerts Sir Thomas Beecham has also entertained them without further charge, to his private opinion of themselves and every other subject from the Royal Albert Hall to Elvis Presley. Over the years the balloon of his ego, inflated with his own imagination and indignation, has soared, trailing behind the portly

little conductor with the twinkling eyes and silver tuft of beard. The British could not resist the spectacle. Some of his more startling utterances have almost passed into legend. Aristocrats: “They gave up letters 150 years ago. They gave up buying pictures. As for music, it is considered low and vulgar by the so-called governing classes.”

Dixieland jazzmen: “These people are just like natives in a South African jungle, who beat their tom-toms all day.” Concerts: “My own are unpleasant enough without attending others I expect to be worse.” Artistsr “The artistic temperament is an act.” Sir Thomas Beecham has only once been at a loss for words: When a reporter in Sydney asked him during his Australian tour in 1940, “Do you think that Handel or Elgar was the dullest composer that ever lived?” Sir Thomas Beecham’s grandfather sold home-made pills under an umbrella in the streets of Wigan, and is admired by his grandson as “a personality who did not hesitate to let everyone know what he was thinking about.”

Beecham reached the height of his power with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in the years just before World War 11.

Beecham’s reputation has beq so long secure that he has be® free to cultivate his Edwardiaj personality. He nas little inters in conventional deportment. On day he is supposed to have gon for a walk in Piccadilly, in a fur lined coat. The sun came out, i he hailed a taxi, tossed the coi in the back, and told the drive “Follow me about. It may tur cool again.” On another occasion he conducting a symphony in the Car negie Hall in New York whe his braces gave up the unequi struggle with his trousers. B left the audience to worry abor the growing gap. There are only two subject on which, in old age, Beechai the conductor, and Sir Thonu Beecham, the “character,” agro The first is modem music. H advises modern composers 1 have their works performed i the Royal Albert Hall, a hall h has described as “more fit fc bullfighting than music.” “Neither in the new world nc the old,” he said during a toi of the United States, “are thei a hundred people uho care tuj pence for modern British compos tions.” The second is his determinj tion to conduct again in Londoi “I will let you know’ when am coming back,” he told h audience in the Royal Festivi Hall this month. “I will gin you plenty of time to book,”Associated Newspapers Featw Service.