Editing London Philharmonic Orchestra (section)

===1980s and 90s===
In 1982, the orchestra celebrated its [[golden jubilee]].{{refn|A contemporaneous book listed the many famous soloists who had worked with the LPO in its fifty years. Among them were [[soprano]]s and [[mezzo-soprano|mezzos]] such as [[Janet Baker]], [[Victoria de los Ángeles]], [[Kirsten Flagstad]], [[Leontyne Price]], [[Elisabeth Schumann]], [[Joan Sutherland]] and Eva Turner, [[tenors]] including [[Beniamino Gigli]], [[Luciano Pavarotti]] and [[Richard Tauber]]; the cellists [[Pablo Casals]] and [[Jacqueline du Pré]]; the violinists [[Jascha Heifetz]], [[Fritz Kreisler]] and [[David Oistrakh]], and the pianists [[Alfred Brendel]], Clifford Curzon, [[Wilhelm Kempff]], [[Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli]], [[Maurizio Pollini]] and [[Arthur Rubinstein]].<ref name="moore" />|group=n}} At the anniversary concert Solti conducted the programme with which Beecham had inaugurated the LPO. Pirouet comments that with the exception of [[Frederick Delius|Delius]]'s ''[[Brigg Fair#Delius orchestral setting|Brigg Fair]]'', the music was as ideally suited to Solti's musical persona as to Beecham's.<ref>Pirouet, p.&nbsp;174.</ref> In ''[[The Guardian]]'', [[Edward Greenfield]] wrote, "I doubt if the LPO has ever played so beautifully, even in the days of Beecham".<ref>Greenfield, Edward. "LPO/Solti – 50th anniversary", ''The Guardian'', 8 October 1982, p.&nbsp;10.</ref>

Solti stepped down at the end of the jubilee season, and was succeeded by Klaus Tennstedt, of whom ''The Times'' commented, "Tennstedt found the orchestra sensitive and flexible, and his players regarded him with a warmth that is by no means universally extended by musicians to their conductors".<ref name=tten>"Klaus Tennstedt", ''The Times'', 13 January 1998, p.&nbsp;21.</ref> His time as chief conductor (1983–87) was celebrated for its musical achievements, but was marked by his failing health and frequent cancellations. As with Haitink and Solti, Bruckner and Mahler were prominent in the LPO's concerts with Tennstedt. Unlike his two predecessors Tennstedt preferred to record with the LPO rather than major continental or American orchestras; among the many sets they made together was a complete cycle of Mahler's symphonies for EMI.<ref>Greenfield, Edward. "A German vision for London music", ''The Guardian'', 13 January 1998, p.&nbsp;16.</ref> In 1984 the LPO and the Philharmonia{{refn|The New Philharmonia had bought back the rights to the original title in 1977.<ref>"Orchestra resumes its old title", ''The Times'', 2 September 1977, p.&nbsp;12.</ref>|group=n}} began negotiations that went on for years following an [[Arts Council of Great Britain|Arts Council]] proposal to name one London orchestra as the principal resident orchestra of the Festival Hall, with concomitant extra funding. The two orchestras were interested in making a counter-proposal for a joint residency, but the matter was not resolved until 1995 when their plan was finally implemented.<ref>Pirouet, pp.&nbsp;183&nbsp;and&nbsp;223.</ref> From the outset of the LPO's existence as a self-governing co-operative in 1939, its chief executive had always been appointed from within the orchestra's ranks. In 1985 this tradition was broken with the recruitment of John Willan, a qualified accountant as well as an alumnus of the [[Royal Academy of Music]] and a successful recording producer for EMI.<ref>Pirouet, p.&nbsp;187.</ref>

[[File:Welser-Möst-crop.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Franz Welser-Möst]], principal conductor, 1990–96]]

In August 1987 Tennstedt, taken ill at a rehearsal, felt so unequal to continuing in his post that he resigned on the spot. He continued to appear with the LPO as a guest, with the title of "conductor laureate";<ref name=tten/> in 1989 [[Richard Morrison (music critic)|Richard Morrison]] of ''The Times'' wrote that the LPO still played better for Tennstedt than for anyone else.<ref>Morrison, Richard. "Mahler's quiet hero", ''The Times'', 17 February 1989, p.&nbsp;18.</ref> Tennstedt's resignation was a severe blow to the orchestra, and there was no obvious successor: Morrison observed that the best-known conductors – Barenboim, [[Riccardo Muti]] and [[Simon Rattle]] – with whom the orchestra was then associated were committed to other projects until the 1990s, and those possible contenders such as [[Semyon Bychkov (conductor)|Semyon Bychkov]] and [[Franz Welser-Möst]] were largely unknown in London.<ref>Morrison, Richard. "Tennstedt hard to replace", ''The Times'', 26 August 1987, p.&nbsp;14.</ref> No successor was appointed until 1990 when Welser-Möst was named as the new principal conductor. His tenure was controversial; he received the nickname "Frankly Worse than Most" and many harshly critical reviews.<ref>Hewett, Ivan. [http://docs.newsbank.com/openurl?ctx_ver=z39.88-2004&rft_id=info:sid/iw.newsbank.com:UKNB:DST1&rft_val_format=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:ctx&rft_dat=10C17B3091A620A0&svc_dat=InfoWeb:aggregated5&req_dat=102CDD40F14C6BDA "Why all those insults made me stronger"], ''[[The Daily Telegraph]]'', 18 August 2005</ref> He brought with him a recording contract with EMI, but management turnover, financial stresses, and political disputes at the [[Southbank Centre]] at the time contributed to the difficulty of the working atmosphere in the orchestra.<ref>Kenyon, Nicholas [https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CEED9163EF936A25750C0A964958260 "A Young Conductor Starts at the Top"], ''[[The New York Times]]'', 15 March 1992; and Oestreich, James R. [https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9804EEDB103EF930A25752C1A962958260 "Battered but Unbowed, a Maestro Rebounds"], ''The New York Times '', 13 November 1994</ref> There were complaints that the orchestra's high standards of playing were not consistently maintained.<ref>Milnes, Rodney. "And lost at sea", ''The Times'', 22 May 1996, p.&nbsp;33.</ref>

Welser-Möst's period as principal conductor coincided with the installation of the LPO as the sole resident orchestra of the Festival Hall. This proved a mixed blessing: the Southbank Centre management now had a say over concert programming, and insisted on the inclusion of works by obscure composers{{refn|Pirouet singles out [[Nikolai Roslavets]] as the most extreme example.<ref name="p208" />|group=n}} which did severe damage to box-office receipts.<ref name="p208">Pirouet, p.&nbsp;208.</ref> In 1993 another official attempt to create a "super-orchestra" at the expense of one or more of the existing London ensembles briefly damaged relations between the LPO and the Philharmonia, but the idea was quickly abandoned, and in 1995, with the consent of the Arts Council, the two orchestras agreed to share the residency at the Festival Hall.<ref>Pirouet, pp.&nbsp;217–220,&nbsp;and&nbsp;223.</ref>

In 1993, with the government of South Africa now moving towards majority rule, the orchestra accepted an invitation to tour there.<ref>Pirouet, p.&nbsp;213.</ref> Welser-Möst concluded his LPO tenure in 1996, after what ''The Guardian'' called "a fraught few years in which the high hopes placed in him were somehow not fulfilled."<ref>Chancellor, Alexander. "Orchestral manoeuvres", ''The Guardian'', 20 July 1996, p.&nbsp;A24.</ref>