Jon Lewis ([log in to unmask]) wrote:

>"...Thus [in 1954] began 16 years of intensive study of Mahler's
>symphonies during which Barbirolli conducted all except the Eighth ...
>He recorded the Ninth with the Berlin Phimharmonic, the first British
>conductor to do so with this orchestra since Beecham in 1937."
>
>The writer is Michael Kennedy.  Perhaps he merely means to say "the first
>British conductor to *perform* it with this orchestra since Beecham in
>1937" ...? ...

Well, we can safely say that there is absolutely no way the BPO would
have played anything by Mahler in 1937.

Perhaps Kennedy meant (he could have been badly edited, BTW, this has
happened to me) the first British conductor to record [anything] with
the BPO since Beecham in 1937.

I know there are early tapes of Beecham conducting from this time, but I
thought they were with the LPO.  Although the BPO did visit London in 1937
and played B9 *under Furtwaengler) in honour of the coronation of George
VI.  I suppose Beecham could have conducted them while they were on tour,
but I'm unaware fo any recordings.

And they would definitely not have performed Mahler.

Deryk Barker
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