Queen's Hall - Last Years

Last Years

In 1927, the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, under its conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler, gave two concerts at the Queen's Hall. These, and later concerts by the same orchestra in 1928 and 1929, made obvious the comparatively poor standards of London orchestras. Both the BBC and Sir Thomas Beecham had ambitions to bring London's orchestral standards up to those of Berlin. After an early attempt at co-operation between the BBC and Beecham, they went their separate ways; the BBC established the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Adrian Boult, and Beecham, together with Malcolm Sargent, founded the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

Both orchestras made their debuts with concerts at the Queen's Hall. The BBC orchestra gave its first concert on 22 October 1930, conducted by Boult in a programme of music by Wagner, Brahms, Saint-Saëns and Ravel. The reviews of the new orchestra were enthusiastic. The Times commented on its "virtuosity" and of Boult's "superb" conducting. The Musical Times commented, "The boast of the B.B.C. that it intended to get together a first-class orchestra was not an idle one", and spoke of "exhilaration" at the playing. The London Philharmonic made its debut on 7 October 1932, conducted by Beecham. After the first item, Berlioz's Roman Carnival Overture, the audience went wild, some of them standing on their seats to clap and shout. During the next eight years, the orchestra appeared nearly a hundred times at the Queen's Hall. There was no role for the old resident orchestra, many of whose members had been engaged by the BBC, and in 1930 it disbanded.

With orchestral standards now of unprecedented excellence, eminent musicians from Europe and the U.S. were eager to perform at the Queen's Hall. Among the guest conductors at the hall in the 1930s were Serge Koussevitzky, Willem Mengelberg, Arturo Toscanini, Bruno Walter and Felix Weingartner. Composer-conductors included Richard Strauss and Anton Webern. Some recordings made in the hall during this period have been reissued on CD.