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BBC Symphony Orchestra

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

The BBC Symphony Orchestra is a British orchestra based in London. It was founded in 1930 and was the first permanent orchestra in London to pay its players a salary. It is the only one of the five major London symphony orchestras that is not self-governing, and it is the BBC's principal broadcasting orchestra. The idea came in 1928 from the BBC and the conductor Thomas Beecham, but Beecham withdrew a year later. Building and training the orchestra then fell to the music director Adrian Boult. Arturo Toscanini conducted the orchestra in its early years and thought it the best orchestra he had ever led.

Music and breakthrough

After Boult's retirement in 1950 came a slack period, with Malcolm Sargent and Rudolf Schwarz as successors. In the 1960s and 1970s well-known chief conductors such as Antal Doráti and Colin Davis arrived. Thanks to initiatives by the music controller William Glock, standards rose noticeably in the 1960s. Under Andrew Davis in the 1990s and Jiří Bělohlávek in the 2000s the orchestra flourished. Recordings were released of, among other things, The Planets in 1958, Beethoven's Eroica in 1968 and a Requiem in 1971, and of Elgar in 1957, in the centenary year of his birth.

Influence

From the beginning the orchestra has been known for playing new music, and it still does. In this way it played a leading role in British concert culture: through radio and recordings it introduced a large audience to the orchestral repertoire of the twentieth century.

Listening

Listening tip. Listen to The Planets by Holst in the 1958 recording. Notice how the orchestra moves from a soft, delicate passage to a heavy, menacing one, and how the different instruments each colour their own planet.

Discography

Studio albums

Categories: Artists