Editing London Philharmonic Orchestra (section)

===War and post-war years===
As his sixtieth birthday approached in 1939, Beecham was advised by his doctors to take a year's break from conducting, and he planned to go abroad to rest in a warm climate, leaving the orchestra in other hands.<ref name=Lucas239>Lucas, p. 239</ref> The outbreak of war on 3 September 1939 obliged him to postpone his plans for several months, while he strove to secure the future of the orchestra, whose financial guarantees had been withdrawn by its backers when war was declared.<ref name=reid218>Reid (1961), p. 218</ref> The original LPO company was liquidated and Beecham raised large sums of money for the orchestra, helping its members to form themselves into a self-governing body.<ref>Lucas, p.&nbsp;240.</ref>

[[File:Queen's Hall 1912 postcard.jpg|thumb|[[Queen's Hall]], destroyed, with many LPO instruments, by bombing in 1941]]

During the war, the LPO played in the capital and on continual tours of Britain, under Sargent and other conductors, including 50 under [[Richard Tauber]], bringing orchestral concerts to places where they had rarely if ever been given.<ref>Myers, Rollo. 'Music in Battle-dress', in ''Music Since 1939'' (1947), pp. 9-30</ref> Many of the players' instruments were lost when the Queen's Hall was destroyed by German bombing in May 1941; an appeal was broadcast by the BBC, the response to which was enormous, with instruments donated by the public enabling the orchestra to continue.<ref>Pirouet, pp. 43–44</ref>

On Beecham's return to England in 1944, the LPO welcomed him back, and in October they gave a concert together that drew superlatives from the critics.<ref>[[William Glock|Glock, William]], "Music", ''[[The Observer]]'' 8 October 1944, p. 2; and "Sir T. Beecham's Return", ''The Times'', 9 October 1944, p.&nbsp;8/</ref> Over the next months Beecham and the orchestra gave further concerts with considerable success, but the LPO players, now their own employers, declined to give him the unfettered control that he had exercised in the 1930s. If he were to become chief conductor again it would be as a paid employee of the orchestra.<ref>Reid (1961), p.&nbsp;230.</ref> Beecham, unwilling to be answerable to anybody, left the LPO and in 1946 founded a rival orchestra, the [[Royal Philharmonic Orchestra]] (RPO).<ref name="reid231">Reid (1961), p.&nbsp;231.</ref>

Among the conductors making guest appearances in the early post-war period were Walter, Furtwängler, [[Victor de Sabata]] and [[Sergiu Celibidache]].<ref>Pirouet, p.&nbsp;77.</ref> Such starry events were the exception; as a rule the orchestra worked with less eminent conductors, giving an unprecedented number of performances. In 1949–50 they gave 248 concerts, compared with 103 by the London Symphony Orchestra and 32 each by the [[Philharmonia Orchestra]] and RPO.<ref>Hill, pp.&nbsp;49–50</ref> After a seven-year interregnum, the LPO engaged a new principal conductor, [[Eduard van Beinum]], in 1947.  He was initially able to work with the orchestra for only six months of the year, because of restrictions on work permits for foreign nationals. Guest conductors stood in during his absences. In 1947, the [[London Philharmonic Choir]] was founded as the chorus for the LPO.<ref>[http://www.lpc.org.uk/about.html "About the Choir"] London Philharmonic Choir. Retrieved 4 September 2014</ref>