Sir Thomas Beecham—Some Personal Memories

Extract

I first met Sir Thomas Beecham in New York and in the Green Room at Carnegie Hall after a concert. Although I cannot remember which orchestra he was conducting, it was possibly the Rochester Symphony Orchestra. Due, I was told, to various feuds with important managements, Sir Thomas never conducted either the New York Philharmonic or the Boston Symphony Orchestras, at least not during the period I knew him there, from 1941 until his return to London in 1944. I had been introduced by his assistant John Barnett and was also armed with the encouragement of critic-composer Virgil Thomson, a friend and admirer of Sir Thomas, who had heard John rehearsing my overture, The New Age. This work was later rejected by the committee of the New York City Symphony, a group of unemployed musicians working under the W.P.A., a kind of dole. Partly from anger at what he thought an unjust decision, Barnett arranged my introduction to Sir Thomas.