The best thing about this September 16, 1954 concert is Thomas Beecham’s hilarious speech preceding the lovely encore performance of Massenet’s Last Sleep of the Virgin. The Tannhäuser Overture and Bacchanale probably sounded very exciting to the audience in attendance, but in clear but crude mono broadcast quality sound it comes off as merely vulgar (partly Wagner’s fault, of course), with noisy percussion and less-than-scintillating strings. The Delius extracts (from Act 2 of Irmelin) reveal Beecham’s accustomed mastery of idiom, and the Bizet items, though rendered with great gusto, all can be heard to much better effect (and with absolutely no compromises interpretively speaking) on EMI’s wonderful Great Recordings of the Century stereo reissue. And that about sums it up. Graham Melville-Mason in his ludicrously gushing notes lists with enthusiasm virtually every player in the Royal Philharmonic as through they were God’s gift to orchestral playing. Professional and enthusiastic they certainly are. The Second Coming they aren’t. I guess you had to be there.
