Sir Thomas Gets the Full Treatment

It has taken a long time for a major homage to Sir Thomas Beecham (1879-1961) to appear on compact disc.

The reason is difficult to determine considering the near-legendary status the British conductor had already achieved well before the end of his lengthy career. There may have grown a general suspicion that Beecham was more verbal wit and cleverness than interpretive depth.

It has been suggested as well that his silver-spoon upbringing and Brahmin attitudes rubbed many of his musical compatriots the wrong way in the Labor-dominated Britain of the years following his death.

Whatever the reasons for the delay, Beecham is getting the full memorial treatment from EMI/-Angel. With some 20 CDs now available, most midpriced (as are all those discussed here) and more to come, usually with his own Royal Philharmonic and dating from the 1950s, a clear picture of the Beecham interpretive persona is emerging. He was, after all, as happy in the recording studio as in the concert hall or opera house.

It will come as news only to the generation now making the conductor’s acquaintance that he was hardly a blanket admirer of the Great Classics, often preferring the marginal and even (to other ears) trivial to the accepted masterpiece.

For example, he thought more highly of one of the dubiously legitimate offspring of Beethoven’s Ninth, Liszt’s “Faust” Symphony (63371), than of the venerated parent. Through his caressing, diligent exposition of its fascinatingly wayward construction--but without shortchanging its inherent theatricality--Beecham makes one, if not necessarily a believer in an often garish score, patient enough to pay it attention and then some.

Beecham was Sibelius’ most ardent champion throughout the Finnish composer’s active career and well after his initial vogue had passed. Sibelius is represented here by a program that includes the exquisite “Pelleas et Melisande” Suite, in which the conductor indulges his penchant for gentle sentiment, and two brooding marvels of the composer’s last years, the Seventh Symphony and “Tapiola” (63400).

The coupling of Sibelius’ Second Symphony (with the BBC Symphony) and Dvorak’s Eighth, again with the Royals (63399), recorded live in London’s Festival Hall, doesn’t withstand close critical scrutiny. Beecham was not a big picture man, which is to say that these are perhaps stop-and-go, spur-of-the-moment affairs in which he signals what does and what does not interest him.

One’s gut reaction to both, however, is powerful. Passion and thrusting energy are the salient qualities, with the rousing climaxes achieved--in the third movement of the Sibelius work and the finale of the Dvorak--easily worth the price of admission.

His dedication to the Russian nationalist composer Mily Balakirev indicates Beecham’s often defiant defense of the second-rate. More loving statements of the composer’s Oriental kitsch-suffused First Symphony and symphonic poem “Tamara” (63375) are unlikely. Which isn’t to say the stuff isn’t pretty, or that Borodin himself would have been ashamed of the symphony’s terminally luscious slow movement.

There is little Handel or charm, but much Victorian pompousness in the Beecham-devised ballet scores “Love in Bath” and “The Gods Go A’Begging” (63374). Their creation would seem to be based on the proposition that the less we hear of Handel, the better. Do not confuse this material with Sir Hamilton Harty’s skillful and respectful Handel popularizations.

Beecham didn’t care for Brahms, and it shows in his herky-jerk interpretation of that composer’s Second Symphony. But, in the coupling, he applies himself lovingly to the serene measures of the same composer’s “Song of Destiny,” fetchingly sung by the Beecham Choral Society (63221).

The conductor’s treatment of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony is cavalier--shapeless and roughly executed. Yet the coupling (on 69871) is a delight: the “Ruins of Athens” incidental music--to most ears one of Beethoven’s mistakes--is delivered here with sparkling wit.

The generous Schubert program (63399) embracing the Third, Fifth and Sixth symphonies reminds us that Beecham was doing this music at a time when no other conductor of consequence was interested. The performances, however, disappoint. The Third, which should put us in mind of Rossini, is densely textured and bottom-heavy, the Sixth is a coy rhythmic taffy-pull and the Fifth fails to maintain the lift and grace of its opening measures, becoming inappropriately vehement in its two concluding movements.

A program of lightweight French music (63379) by Bizet, Delibes, Faure, Debussy and Saint-Saens is, however, consistently imbued with the lively rhythmicality and delicate sentimentality that made Beecham such a satisfying interpreter of this repertory.