Editing Thomas Beecham (section)

==Recordings==
{{Main|Thomas Beecham selected discography}}
The composer [[Richard Arnell]] wrote that Beecham preferred making records to giving concerts: "He told me that audiences got in the way of music-making&nbsp;– he was apt to catch someone's eye in the front row."<ref>Arnell, Richard. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/944245 "Sir Thomas Beecham: Some Personal Memories"], ''Tempo'', Summer 1961, pp. 2–3 and 17. Retrieved 15 March 2011 {{subscription}} {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190424235721/https://www.jstor.org/stable/944245 |date=24 April 2019 }}</ref> The conductor and critic Trevor Harvey wrote in ''[[Gramophone (magazine)|The Gramophone]]'', however, that studio recordings could never recapture the thrill of Beecham performing live in the concert hall.{{refn|Harvey, reviewing the live 1956 taping of Sibelius's Second Symphony released after Beecham's death, wrote, "It is in one way a sad record, for it reminds one all too vividly of those Beecham occasions which can never happen again and which nobody else seems to be able to provide with so electrifying an atmosphere. … [T]here are those half-strangled yelps that Beecham emitted at moments of stress and climax, which one took to mean 'play, you so-and-so's, play!'&nbsp;– and play the BBC Symphony Orchestra does, like blazes."<ref>Harvey, Trevor. "Sibelius, Symphony No. 2 in D major", ''Gramophone'', November 1962, p. 38</ref>|group= n}}

[[File:Thomas Beecham 1919 cartoon.jpg|thumb|left|alt=caricature of a middle-aged man in evening clothes and a youngish woman dressed as Britannia|upright|1919 cartoon of Beecham, with [[Maud Cunard|Lady Cunard]] as Britannia]]
Beecham began making recordings in 1910, when the acoustical process obliged orchestras to use only principal instruments, placed as close to the recording horn as possible. His first recordings, for [[His Master's Voice (British record label)|HMV]], were of excerpts from [[Jacques Offenbach|Offenbach]]'s ''The Tales of Hoffmann'' and [[Johann Strauss II|Johann Strauss]]'s ''Die Fledermaus''. In 1915, Beecham began recording for the [[Columbia Graphophone Company]]. Electrical recording technology (introduced in 1925–26) made it possible to record a full orchestra with much greater frequency range, and Beecham quickly embraced the new medium. Longer scores had to be broken into four-minute segments to fit on 12-inch 78-rpm discs, but Beecham was not averse to recording piecemeal&nbsp;– his well-known 1932 disc of Chabrier's ''[[España (Chabrier)|España]]'' was recorded in two sessions three weeks apart.<ref>Jenkins (1992), p. 3</ref> Beecham recorded many of his favourite works several times, taking advantage of improved technology over the decades.<ref>Procter-Gregg, pp. 196–199</ref>

From 1926 to 1932, Beecham made more than 70 discs, including an English version of Gounod's ''Faust'' and the first of three recordings of Handel's ''[[Messiah (Handel)|Messiah]]''.<ref name=grammessiah/> He began recording with the London Philharmonic Orchestra in 1933, making more than 150 discs for Columbia, including music by Mozart, Rossini, Berlioz, Wagner, Handel, Beethoven, Brahms, Debussy and Delius.<ref name=jefferson89/> Among the most prominent of his pre-war recordings was the first complete recording of Mozart's ''The Magic Flute'' with the [[Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra]], made for HMV and supervised by Walter Legge in Berlin in 1937–38, a set described by [[Alan Blyth]] in ''Gramophone'' magazine in 2006 as having "a legendary status".<ref>Blyth, Alan. "Masonic Magic", ''Gramophone'', January 2006, p. 28</ref> In 1936, during his German tour with the LPO, Beecham conducted the world's first orchestral recording on magnetic tape, made at [[Ludwigshafen]], the home of [[BASF]], the company that developed the process.<ref>Borwick, John. "Commentary: 50 Years of (BASF) Tape", ''Gramophone'', April 1984, p. 91. Retrieved 13 March 2011</ref>

During his stay in the US and afterwards, Beecham recorded for American [[Columbia Records]] and [[RCA Victor]]. His RCA recordings include major works that he did not subsequently re-record for the gramophone, including [[Symphony No. 4 (Beethoven)|Beethoven's Fourth]], [[Symphony No. 6 (Sibelius)|Sibelius's Sixth]] and Mendelssohn's [[Symphony No. 5 (Mendelssohn)|Reformation]] Symphonies.<ref name=jenkins1>Jenkins, Lyndon. "The Beecham Archives", ''Gramophone'', September 1987, p. 11</ref> Some of his RCA recordings were issued only in the US, including Mozart's [[Symphony No. 27 (Mozart)|Symphony No. 27]], K199, the overtures to Smetana's ''The Bartered Bride'' and Mozart's ''[[La clemenza di Tito]]'', the Sinfonia from Bach's ''[[Christmas Oratorio]]'',<ref name=jenkins1/> a 1947–48 complete recording of Gounod's ''Faust'', and an RPO studio version of Sibelius's Second Symphony.<ref name=jenkins1/> Beecham's RCA records that were released on both sides of the Atlantic were his celebrated 1956 complete recording of Puccini's ''La bohème''<ref>"Sir Thomas Beecham Selected Discography", ''Gramophone'', May 2011, p. 11</ref> and an extravagantly rescored set of Handel's ''Messiah''.<ref>Culshaw, p. 212</ref> The former remains a top recommendation among reviewers,<ref>See, for instance, [http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/classical/cdreview/composer/giacomo-puccini/ "CD Review: Building a Library Recommendations"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110127201940/http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/classical/cdreview/composer/giacomo-puccini/ |date=27 January 2011 }}, BBC, 14 June 2008. Retrieved 13 March 2011; and "Sir Thomas Beecham Selected Discography", ''Gramophone'', May 2001, p. 11</ref> and the latter was described by ''Gramophone'' as "an irresistible outrage … huge fun".<ref name=grammessiah>Blyth, Alan. "Music from Heaven", ''Gramophone'', December 2003, p. 52</ref>

For the Columbia label, Beecham recorded his last, or only, versions of many works by Delius, including ''A Mass of Life'', ''Appalachia'', ''North Country Sketches'', ''An Arabesque'', ''Paris'' and ''[[Eventyr (Once Upon a Time)|Eventyr]]''.<ref name=jenkins1/> Other Columbia recordings from the early 1950s include Beethoven's ''[[Symphony No. 3 (Beethoven)|Eroica]]'', ''[[Symphony No. 6 (Beethoven)|Pastoral]]'' and [[Symphony No. 8 (Beethoven)|Eighth]] symphonies, Mendelssohn's ''[[Symphony No. 4 (Mendelssohn)|Italian]]'' symphony, and the Brahms [[Violin Concerto (Brahms)|Violin Concerto]] with [[Isaac Stern]].<ref name=jenkins1/>

From his return to England at the end of the Second World War until his final recordings in 1959, Beecham continued his early association with HMV and British Columbia, who had merged to form EMI. From 1955 his EMI recordings made in London were recorded in stereo. He also recorded in Paris, with his own RPO and with the [[Orchestre National de France|Orchestra National de la Radiodiffusion Française]], though the Paris recordings were in mono until 1958.<ref name=gramhaydn>Wigmore, Richard. "Haydn Symphonies", ''Gramophone'', September 1993, p. 53</ref> For EMI, Beecham recorded two complete operas in stereo, ''Die Entführung aus dem Serail'' and ''Carmen''.<ref>Vaughan, Denis. "Beecham in the Recording Studio: a centenary tribute to Sir Thomas Beecham", ''Gramophone'', April 1979, p. 1</ref> His last recordings were made in Paris in December 1959.<ref name=salter/> Beecham's EMI recordings have been continually reissued on LP and CD. In 2011, to mark the 50th anniversary of Beecham's death, EMI released 34 CDs of his recordings of music from the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, including works by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Wagner, Richard Strauss and Delius, and many of the French "lollipops" with which he was associated.<ref>EMI (2011), "Sir Thomas Beecham Edition", catalogue numbers [http://www.emiclassics.co.uk/release.php?id=5099990991523 9099462] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110929202448/http://www.emiclassics.co.uk/release.php?id=5099990991523 |date=29 September 2011 }}, [http://www.emiclassics.co.uk/release.php?id=5099990996429 9099642] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110623181006/http://emiclassics.co.uk/release.php?id=5099990996429 |date=23 June 2011 }}, [http://www.emiclassics.co.uk/release.php?id=5099991861122 9186112] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110623150208/http://emiclassics.co.uk/release.php?id=5099991861122 |date=23 June 2011 }} and [http://www.emiclassics.co.uk/release.php?id=5099990993220 9099322]</ref>