Editing Henry Wood (section)

===BBC and the Proms===
On his return to England from his first Hollywood trip, Wood found himself in the middle of a feud between the chairman of Chappell's, William Boosey, and the BBC. Boosey had conceived a passionate hostility to the broadcasting of music, fearing that it would lead to the end of live concerts. He attempted to prevent anyone who wished to perform at the Queen's Hall from broadcasting for the BBC. This affected many of the artists whom Wood and Newman needed for the Proms. The matter was unresolved when Newman died in 1926. Shortly afterwards, Boosey announced that Chappell's would no longer support concerts at the Queen's Hall.<ref>Cox, p. 83</ref> The prospect that the Proms might not be able to continue caused widespread dismay, and there was a general welcome for the BBC's announcement that it would take over the running of the Proms, and would also run a winter series of symphony concerts at the Queen's Hall.<ref>Orga, pp. 93–94</ref>

[[File:Henry-Wood-1922.jpg|thumb|left|upright|alt=Caricature of a man in evening dress, seen from his left; he wears a large carnation in his lapel and is conducting an orchestra on tip-toe|Wood caricatured in 1922]]
The BBC regime brought immediate benefits. The use of the second half of concerts to promote Chappell's songs ceased, to be replaced by music chosen for its own excellence: on the first night under the BBC's control, the songs in the second half were by Schubert, [[Roger Quilter|Quilter]] and [[Hubert Parry|Parry]] rather than ballads from Chappell's.<ref>Cox, p. 87</ref> For Wood, the greatest benefit was that the BBC gave him twice as much rehearsal time as he had previously enjoyed. He now had a daily rehearsal and extra rehearsals as needed.<ref name=cox88>Cox, p. 88</ref> He was also allowed extra players when large scores called for them, instead of having to rescore the work for the forces available.<ref name=cox88/>

In 1929, Wood played a celebrated practical joke on musicologists and critics. "I got ''very fed up with them'', always finding fault with any arrangement or orchestrations that I made ... 'spoiling the original' etc. etc.",<ref name=jacobs232>Jacobs, p. 232</ref> and so Wood passed off his own orchestration of Bach's ''[[Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565|Toccata and Fugue in D minor]]'', as a transcription by a Russian composer called Paul Klenovsky.{{refn|Cox (p. 102) states that there had been a real "Paul Klenovsky", a pupil of [[Alexander Glazunov|Glazunov]] who died young. Jacobs (p. 232) states that no such composer ever existed, although a Russian composer called Nicolai Klenovsky died in 1915. The ''[[Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians]]'' supports the latter statement.<ref>Brown, David, [http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/15142 "Klenovsky, Nikolay Semyonovich,"]  ''Grove Music Online'', Oxford Music Online. Retrieved 22 November 2010 {{subscription}} and "Klenovsky, Paul", ''Oxford Dictionary of Music'', Oxford Music Online. Retrieved 22 November 2010 {{subscription}}</ref>|group= n}} In Wood's later account, the press and the BBC "fell into the trap and said the scoring was wonderful, Klenovsky had the real flare {{sic}} for true colour etc. – and performance after performance was given and ''asked for''."<ref name=jacobs232/> Wood kept the secret for five years before revealing the truth.<ref>"'Paul Klenovsky' a Musical Hoax by Sir Henry Wood", ''The Times'', 4 September 1934, p. 10</ref> The press treated the deception as a great joke; ''[[The Times]]'' entered into the spirit of it with a jocular tribute to the lamented Klenovsky.<ref>"The Late Paul Klenovsky", ''The Times'', 5 September 1934, p. 13</ref>{{refn|Later, ''The Times''<nowiki>'s</nowiki> music critic (anonymous, but presumed to be [[Frank Howes]], the paper's music critic at the time) was less forgiving than his colleagues. Though his predecessor had called the supposed Klenovsky work "superlatively well done",<ref>"Promenade Concerts", ''The Times'', 6 October 1930, p. 12</ref> Howes described it, once Wood's authorship was known, as "monstrous and inexculpable".<ref>"Sir H. Wood Memorial Concert", ''The Times'', 5 March 1945, p. 8</ref>|group= n}}

As Wood's working life took a turn for the better, his domestic life started to deteriorate. During the early 1930s, he and his wife gradually became estranged, and their relationship ended in bitterness, with Muriel taking most of Wood's money and, for much of the time, living abroad.{{refn|After the marital split, Muriel Wood lived in Japan (her brother was British consul in [[Nagasaki]]), China and New Zealand. She did not return to England until after Wood's death.<ref name=dnb/>|group= n}} She refused to divorce him.<ref>Jacobs, pp. 262–70 and 278</ref> The breach between Muriel and Wood also caused his estrangement from their daughters.<ref>Jacobs, p. 269</ref> In 1934 he began a happy relationship with a widowed former pupil, Jessie Linton, who had sung for him frequently in the past under her professional name of Jessie Goldsack. One of Wood's players recalled, "She changed him. He had been badly dressed, awful clothes. Jessie got him a new evening suit, instead of the mouldy green one, and he flourished yellow gloves and a cigar ... he became human."<ref name=previn/> As Wood was not free to remarry, she changed her name by deed poll to "Lady Jessie Wood" and was generally assumed by the public to be Wood's wife.<ref name=j265>Jacobs, pp. 265–71</ref> In his memoirs, Wood mentioned neither his second marriage nor his subsequent relationship.<ref name=j265/><ref>Wood, index pp. 376 and 384</ref>

In his later years, Wood came to be identified with the Proms rather than with the year-round concert season. Boult was appointed director of music at the BBC in 1930. In that capacity he strove to ensure that Wood was invited to conduct a fitting number of BBC symphony concerts outside the Prom season.<ref>Kennedy, pp. 140–41; and Jacobs, p. 308</ref> The BBC chose Wood for important collaborations with Bartók and [[Paul Hindemith]],{{refn|At BBC symphony concerts, Wood conducted Hindemith's Viola Concerto, with the composer as soloist, and his oratorio ''Das Unaufhörlich'';<ref>"B.B.C. Symphony Orchestra: Hindemith's Viola Concerto", ''The Times'', 23 November 1929, p. 10 and "Music This Week: An Oratorio by Hindemith", ''The Times'', 20 March 1933, p. 10</ref> and Bartók's [[Piano Concerto No. 1 (Bartók)|Piano Concerto No 1]] with the composer as soloist.<ref>"Broadcasting, The Programmes, Sir Henry Wood at Queen's Hall", ''The Times'', 14 February 1930, p. 22</ref> Wood also programmed their music during Proms seasons.|group= n}} and for the first British performance of Mahler's vast [[Symphony No. 8 (Mahler)|Symphony No. 8]].<ref name=dnb/> But Jacobs notes that, in the general concert repertory, Wood now had to compete against well-known foreign conductors such as [[Bruno Walter]], [[Willem Mengelberg]], and [[Arturo Toscanini]], "in comparison with whom he was increasingly seen as a workhorse".<ref name=dnb>Jacobs Arthur, [https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/olddnb/37001 "Wood, Sir Henry Joseph (1869–1944)"], ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2004. Retrieved 17 October 2010</ref>