Walter Legge & Elisabeth Schwarzkopf
Nov 9, 2017 13:55:27 GMT
Dawnstar, tmesis, and 2 more like this
Post by tonyloco on Nov 9, 2017 13:55:27 GMT
Following on from the thread about the 2018 Ring Cycle at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, I am responding to a request from tmesis for my personal recollections of the record producer Walter Legge and his wife, the soprano Elisabeth Schwarzkopf. I expect this new thread will be of somewhat limited interest but on the other hand it might stimulate members to some recollections of early Philharmonia concerts or Schwarzkopf performances they attended or famous recordings made by Legge, with or without Schwarzkopf.
I will start with a lengthy profile of Legge covering mainly his career at EMI and including my own observations of the man. I will add a separate piece on Schwarzkopf later.
Walter Legge
I would say that Walter Legge was a very unpleasant man who was generally disliked by many of his colleagues and the artists he recorded, but managed to obtain the support of some very influential people during his career because of his highly developed musical sensibilities, but he ended up a sad and effectively forgotten man despite his legacy of the many fine recordings that he produced.
One of his greatest supporters was of course his wife, the German soprano Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, about whom I will write separately. Legge left no completed autobiography but Schwarzkopf collected up a great deal of biographical material about Legge and published it under the title of On and Off the Record. I will draw on this and other published sources for what follows but some of it is from my own observations.
To understand the development of Legge’s career at EMI I need to repeat the story of his early years and also to go into some detail about another EMI colleague whose career mirrored Legge’s: this was David Bicknell. Both men were born in 1906. Legge’s father was a tailor in London and he came from a working class background. Walter had a normal education and became interested in classical music by going to concerts and operas and playing records. He learned to play the piano but had no particular specialised training either as a pianist or in any other way. Bicknell on the other hand was from a distinguished family and was meant to enter the family finance business in the City after spending time in Paris learning the violin. But in 1927, both young men decided they would enjoy a career in the classical record business. Through the intervention of one of the senior executives of The Gramophone Company (HMV), Bicknell joined the International Artistes Department at the heart of the company as assistant to the pioneering recording producer Fred Gaisberg who had recorded Caruso in 1902 and was one of the founding fathers of the record business.
Legge, on the other hand, started work as a salesman at the HMV shop at 363 Oxford Street. One of his jobs there was to demonstrate the new releases but his outspoken criticisms of the recording policy of HMV soon got him the sack. Undeterred, he then obtained a job with HMV’s UK company in the newly established editorial department where he edited The Voice, the HMV trade magazine sent out to all record dealers in the UK. In this capacity he began attending recording sessions where he impressed Fred Gaisberg with his knowledge of the classical repertoire and artists and it wasn’t long before Fred allowed him to undertake some junior production tasks so he became an unofficial assistant producer alongside Bicknell.
After HMV merged with Columbia in 1931 to form EMI, Gaisberg inherited the conductor Sir Thomas Beecham from Columbia but Beecham and Gaisberg did not get along so Gaisberg handed Beecham over to the young Legge as his permanent producer. As it happened, these two difficult men got along fine and not only did Legge produce all of Beecham’s recordings during the 1930s, including the first recording of Die Zauberflöte in Berlin, but Beecham invited Legge to work with him organising his seasons of Grand Opera at Covent Garden. Legge had also ingratiated himself with the distinguished critic Ernest Newman and as a result Legge began writing reviews for the Manchester Guardian and he also organised Lieder Recitals in London. How he found time to do all this while still working for EMI is a mystery but it is important to note that until the outbreak of the war in 1939, despite being closely involved with the activities of the central International Artistes Department with Gaisberg, Legge continued to be on the staff of the local UK HMV company and thus something of an outsider, unlike Bicknell who remained at the heart of the company’s classical activities.
When the war started, Bicknell joined the RAF but Legge’s poor eyesight prevented him from fighting so he joined ENSA and organised concerts for the forces but continued to make classical recordings for EMI right throughout hostilities. As soon as the war ended, Legge set about achieving one of his greatest ambitions which was to found a great symphony orchestra by engaging the finest orchestral players as soon as they were demobbed to join his Philharmonia Orchestra in which he initially installed Herbert von Karajan as principal conductor and then Otto Klemperer after Karajan went to the Berlin Philharmonic.
After the war, EMI restructured itself and Legge was invited to join the International Artistes Department where he was put in charge of the Columbia label where his artists included Lipatti, Gieseking, Karajan, Schwarzkopf and later Callas, Giulini and Klemperer. Bicknell was given HMV with artists like Menuhin, Beecham, Cantelli, Gigli and de los Angeles but he also looked after the European releases of American RCA recordings by Toscanini, Bjorling, Rubinstein and many others although this arrangement ceased in about 1955. In 1957 Bicknell gave up producing to become Manager of the International Artistes Department and thus Legge’s boss, a situation which Legge resented greatly and was as unco-operative as he could be with Bicknell. To replace Bicknell as the principal HMV classical producer and revitalises the label after the loss of RCA, Victor Olof and his assistant Peter Andry came from Decca but Legge always considered himself EMI’s senior and most talented classical producer. This is one of the reasons why Legge behaved in such a high-handed way and thought himself above having to follow the company’s normal procedures and practices. As an example of this, Walter would draw cash advances against his expense account but went for months before submitting his expense claims with receipts. When he did finally put in his claims they would include some extremely extravagant expenses, like ordering half-a-dozen hand-made silk shirts from the most expensive tailor in Milan. When challenged on this particular item by the company’s management accountant he replied: “Well, you can’t expect me to walk around naked when I am recording Maria Callas at La Scala!”
As an example of the way artists did not warm to Legge, I was told by one of the engineers that on one occasion Legge asked Gieseking to change the way he played a certain phrase in a Beethoven Piano Sonata so Gieseking, knowing that Legge had no keyboard skill, stood up from the piano and said: “Would you care to show me, Mr Legge, exactly how you want me to play it!” Legge was also notoriously something of a sex pest. I suspect this anecdote is apocryphal but when Legge was recording Messiah, he went to the airport to meet the contralto Ursula Böse and in the taxi on the way back he put his hand on the singer’s knee. She removed his hand and said: “Walter, I have come to London to sing, not to f*ck.”
The most publicised spat between Legge and one of his artists involved Otto Klemperer. In June 1963 Legge gave EMI twelve month’s notice of his resignation. He claimed that he could no longer work under the scrutiny of the International Classical Repertoire Committee but it is suspected that his decision to leave had been suggested by the top management of EMI who were fed up with his high-handed attitude to the company. In March 1964 he began a recording of Die Zauberflöte with Klemperer and at the same time he made a public announcement that he was disbanding the Philharmonia Orchestra. Schwarzkopf insisted till the day she died that Legge consulted Klemperer before making the announcement and Lotte Klemperer, the conductor’s daughter, insisted that no such consultation had taken place. I have it from one of the recording engineers that when Klemperer arrived at the studio the day after the announcement had been made that he said: ‘What nonsense is this?’ making it perfectly clear that the report in the press was the first he had heard about it. He was naturally very upset as he was principal conductor of the orchestra! Easter was approaching and Legge had just started Zauberflöte with some orchestral sessions to get the microphone set-up in Kingsway Hall and Klemperer had invited the soloists to some piano rehearsals in his suite at the Hyde Park Hotel. He then told Legge that these were private rehearsals and Legge was not invited. Legge insisted that as producer of the recording he had to be at the rehearsals and Klemperer said ‘No!’ After a flurry of telegrams between Klemperer and the EMI management it was confirmed that Klemperer was not contractually obliged to have Legge at his private piano rehearsals with the singers and that was when Legge walked out, even though his resignation period was not up until June, leaving the Zauberflöte recording to be produced by Peter Andry and Suvi Raj Grubb as well as the other projects Legge had left unfinished like Das Lied von der Erde.. Legge and Klemperer never spoke again. With the support of Klemperer, the Philharmonia Orchestra immediately re-formed itself as a self-governing body called the New Philharmonia and some years later reverted again to Philharmonia.
After he resigned from EMI, Legge expected to be sought after by a major record company but no approach was ever forthcoming. He then thought that one of the classical music festivals would want him but again, he heard nothing from any of them. And despite what Legge had done to establish Karajan as such a major figure in the world of classical music, Karajan ignored him completely when he was hanging around, a forlorn figure, at Karajan’s Salzburg Festivals. Legge's only work became producing the remaining few recordings Schwarzkopf made for EMI and other companies and joining her in giving masterclasses.
My own personal recollections of Legge show him as a very pushy kind of person. I first encountered him at the EMI International Classical Repertoire Committee Meeting in May 1963 at EMI House in Manchester Square. The meeting lasted four days and I was at that time PA to the general marketing manager of the UK company and my job was to look after domestic arrangements in the conference room like organising tea and coffee and buying foreign newspapers for the overseas delegates. I also had to empty Legge’s personal ashtray. Being Legge he had to have his own special ashtray which was square and made of glass with high sides, and on medical instructions, he was allowed only to take a few puffs on each cigarette before stubbing it out. So after a session of the meeting, the ashtray was full of many stubbed cigarettes standing vertically like a strange ghostly forest of white tree-trunks. That was the first time I heard him speak and I wondered where he had acquired such a commanding tone that made him seem like a senior member of the armed forces even though he had been born and brought up in Shepherd’s Bush in London! I can to this day hear him loudly telling the delegates as the session finished that he had to fly to Paris to ‘hold Madame Callas’s hand while she made her latest recital record’ and then fly back to London the following morning for the next day’s conference session, implying that his presence at both places was of the greatest importance. It probably was, but he made sure everybody knew it!
A few months after that, I joined the secretariat of the International Classical Repertoire Committee which shared offices with the International Artistes Department at Manchester Square where Legge also had an office, which he rarely used because he preferred to work at Abbey Road Studios where he could do his post-production work on editing master tapes and such. But from time to time he would bluster into Manchester Square to work with his secretary. It was my impression that he was rather a bully and expected his secretary to anticipate his every need, no matter what that might be. I understand that for these rare visits he would leave a taxi with its meter running outside EMI House, often for several hours, so it could take him back to Abbey Road or to his house in Hampstead when he had finished. But, as narrated above, in March 1964 Legge parted company with EMI, apart from producing any further recordings that Schwarzkopf made for the company and for those he never came back to the EMI offices.
But my last encounter with Legge was actually a very pleasant one. He had arranged a concert at the Festival Hall on 20 February 1967 as a homage to Gerald Moore who was retiring. It was a recital jointly by three of Moore’s most celebrated singers, namely Victoria de los Angeles, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, and a glorious event it turned out to be. EMI recorded the concert but sadly Legge suffered a serious heart attack just before the concert took place. He was hospitalised in a private clinic just off Baker Street and the recording was supervised by Suvi Raj Grubb. When the designs for the 2 LP set were devised by the art department, it fell to my lot to take them to Legge in the hospital, which was not far from our office. I found him in a private room on his own with no visitors and after I gave him the folder he asked who I was and invited me to sit down and talk to him. I began by telling him how wonderful the Gerald Moore concert had been and how Schwarzkopf had made her performance of Wolf’s ‘Kennst du das Land?’ the musical and artistic climax of the whole programme. I don’t remember much else about the conversation except that I probably told him what operas and concerts I had been to recently and he seemed genuinely interested in what I had to say, but I expect that was mainly because he was happy to have somebody visiting him!
During his life he received no acknowledgement from the British Government or any other British organisation by way of honours of any kind either for his work in creating the Philharmonia Orchestra or producing so many outstanding classical recordings although they saw fit to make his German wife Elisabeth Schwarzkopf a Dame, something that she personally found rather ironic.
Principal sources:
'On and Off the Record' by Elisabeth Schwarzkopf (Faber & Faber, 1982)
'Walter Legge – A Discography' by Alan Sanders (Greenwood Press, 1984)
'Otto Klemperer, his life and times Vol.2: 1933–1973' by Peter Heyworth (Cambridge 1996)
'Herbert von Karajan, a life in music' by Richard Osborne (Chatto & Windus, 1998)
I will write a separate piece about Schwarzkopf.
I will start with a lengthy profile of Legge covering mainly his career at EMI and including my own observations of the man. I will add a separate piece on Schwarzkopf later.
Walter Legge
I would say that Walter Legge was a very unpleasant man who was generally disliked by many of his colleagues and the artists he recorded, but managed to obtain the support of some very influential people during his career because of his highly developed musical sensibilities, but he ended up a sad and effectively forgotten man despite his legacy of the many fine recordings that he produced.
One of his greatest supporters was of course his wife, the German soprano Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, about whom I will write separately. Legge left no completed autobiography but Schwarzkopf collected up a great deal of biographical material about Legge and published it under the title of On and Off the Record. I will draw on this and other published sources for what follows but some of it is from my own observations.
To understand the development of Legge’s career at EMI I need to repeat the story of his early years and also to go into some detail about another EMI colleague whose career mirrored Legge’s: this was David Bicknell. Both men were born in 1906. Legge’s father was a tailor in London and he came from a working class background. Walter had a normal education and became interested in classical music by going to concerts and operas and playing records. He learned to play the piano but had no particular specialised training either as a pianist or in any other way. Bicknell on the other hand was from a distinguished family and was meant to enter the family finance business in the City after spending time in Paris learning the violin. But in 1927, both young men decided they would enjoy a career in the classical record business. Through the intervention of one of the senior executives of The Gramophone Company (HMV), Bicknell joined the International Artistes Department at the heart of the company as assistant to the pioneering recording producer Fred Gaisberg who had recorded Caruso in 1902 and was one of the founding fathers of the record business.
Legge, on the other hand, started work as a salesman at the HMV shop at 363 Oxford Street. One of his jobs there was to demonstrate the new releases but his outspoken criticisms of the recording policy of HMV soon got him the sack. Undeterred, he then obtained a job with HMV’s UK company in the newly established editorial department where he edited The Voice, the HMV trade magazine sent out to all record dealers in the UK. In this capacity he began attending recording sessions where he impressed Fred Gaisberg with his knowledge of the classical repertoire and artists and it wasn’t long before Fred allowed him to undertake some junior production tasks so he became an unofficial assistant producer alongside Bicknell.
After HMV merged with Columbia in 1931 to form EMI, Gaisberg inherited the conductor Sir Thomas Beecham from Columbia but Beecham and Gaisberg did not get along so Gaisberg handed Beecham over to the young Legge as his permanent producer. As it happened, these two difficult men got along fine and not only did Legge produce all of Beecham’s recordings during the 1930s, including the first recording of Die Zauberflöte in Berlin, but Beecham invited Legge to work with him organising his seasons of Grand Opera at Covent Garden. Legge had also ingratiated himself with the distinguished critic Ernest Newman and as a result Legge began writing reviews for the Manchester Guardian and he also organised Lieder Recitals in London. How he found time to do all this while still working for EMI is a mystery but it is important to note that until the outbreak of the war in 1939, despite being closely involved with the activities of the central International Artistes Department with Gaisberg, Legge continued to be on the staff of the local UK HMV company and thus something of an outsider, unlike Bicknell who remained at the heart of the company’s classical activities.
When the war started, Bicknell joined the RAF but Legge’s poor eyesight prevented him from fighting so he joined ENSA and organised concerts for the forces but continued to make classical recordings for EMI right throughout hostilities. As soon as the war ended, Legge set about achieving one of his greatest ambitions which was to found a great symphony orchestra by engaging the finest orchestral players as soon as they were demobbed to join his Philharmonia Orchestra in which he initially installed Herbert von Karajan as principal conductor and then Otto Klemperer after Karajan went to the Berlin Philharmonic.
After the war, EMI restructured itself and Legge was invited to join the International Artistes Department where he was put in charge of the Columbia label where his artists included Lipatti, Gieseking, Karajan, Schwarzkopf and later Callas, Giulini and Klemperer. Bicknell was given HMV with artists like Menuhin, Beecham, Cantelli, Gigli and de los Angeles but he also looked after the European releases of American RCA recordings by Toscanini, Bjorling, Rubinstein and many others although this arrangement ceased in about 1955. In 1957 Bicknell gave up producing to become Manager of the International Artistes Department and thus Legge’s boss, a situation which Legge resented greatly and was as unco-operative as he could be with Bicknell. To replace Bicknell as the principal HMV classical producer and revitalises the label after the loss of RCA, Victor Olof and his assistant Peter Andry came from Decca but Legge always considered himself EMI’s senior and most talented classical producer. This is one of the reasons why Legge behaved in such a high-handed way and thought himself above having to follow the company’s normal procedures and practices. As an example of this, Walter would draw cash advances against his expense account but went for months before submitting his expense claims with receipts. When he did finally put in his claims they would include some extremely extravagant expenses, like ordering half-a-dozen hand-made silk shirts from the most expensive tailor in Milan. When challenged on this particular item by the company’s management accountant he replied: “Well, you can’t expect me to walk around naked when I am recording Maria Callas at La Scala!”
As an example of the way artists did not warm to Legge, I was told by one of the engineers that on one occasion Legge asked Gieseking to change the way he played a certain phrase in a Beethoven Piano Sonata so Gieseking, knowing that Legge had no keyboard skill, stood up from the piano and said: “Would you care to show me, Mr Legge, exactly how you want me to play it!” Legge was also notoriously something of a sex pest. I suspect this anecdote is apocryphal but when Legge was recording Messiah, he went to the airport to meet the contralto Ursula Böse and in the taxi on the way back he put his hand on the singer’s knee. She removed his hand and said: “Walter, I have come to London to sing, not to f*ck.”
The most publicised spat between Legge and one of his artists involved Otto Klemperer. In June 1963 Legge gave EMI twelve month’s notice of his resignation. He claimed that he could no longer work under the scrutiny of the International Classical Repertoire Committee but it is suspected that his decision to leave had been suggested by the top management of EMI who were fed up with his high-handed attitude to the company. In March 1964 he began a recording of Die Zauberflöte with Klemperer and at the same time he made a public announcement that he was disbanding the Philharmonia Orchestra. Schwarzkopf insisted till the day she died that Legge consulted Klemperer before making the announcement and Lotte Klemperer, the conductor’s daughter, insisted that no such consultation had taken place. I have it from one of the recording engineers that when Klemperer arrived at the studio the day after the announcement had been made that he said: ‘What nonsense is this?’ making it perfectly clear that the report in the press was the first he had heard about it. He was naturally very upset as he was principal conductor of the orchestra! Easter was approaching and Legge had just started Zauberflöte with some orchestral sessions to get the microphone set-up in Kingsway Hall and Klemperer had invited the soloists to some piano rehearsals in his suite at the Hyde Park Hotel. He then told Legge that these were private rehearsals and Legge was not invited. Legge insisted that as producer of the recording he had to be at the rehearsals and Klemperer said ‘No!’ After a flurry of telegrams between Klemperer and the EMI management it was confirmed that Klemperer was not contractually obliged to have Legge at his private piano rehearsals with the singers and that was when Legge walked out, even though his resignation period was not up until June, leaving the Zauberflöte recording to be produced by Peter Andry and Suvi Raj Grubb as well as the other projects Legge had left unfinished like Das Lied von der Erde.. Legge and Klemperer never spoke again. With the support of Klemperer, the Philharmonia Orchestra immediately re-formed itself as a self-governing body called the New Philharmonia and some years later reverted again to Philharmonia.
After he resigned from EMI, Legge expected to be sought after by a major record company but no approach was ever forthcoming. He then thought that one of the classical music festivals would want him but again, he heard nothing from any of them. And despite what Legge had done to establish Karajan as such a major figure in the world of classical music, Karajan ignored him completely when he was hanging around, a forlorn figure, at Karajan’s Salzburg Festivals. Legge's only work became producing the remaining few recordings Schwarzkopf made for EMI and other companies and joining her in giving masterclasses.
My own personal recollections of Legge show him as a very pushy kind of person. I first encountered him at the EMI International Classical Repertoire Committee Meeting in May 1963 at EMI House in Manchester Square. The meeting lasted four days and I was at that time PA to the general marketing manager of the UK company and my job was to look after domestic arrangements in the conference room like organising tea and coffee and buying foreign newspapers for the overseas delegates. I also had to empty Legge’s personal ashtray. Being Legge he had to have his own special ashtray which was square and made of glass with high sides, and on medical instructions, he was allowed only to take a few puffs on each cigarette before stubbing it out. So after a session of the meeting, the ashtray was full of many stubbed cigarettes standing vertically like a strange ghostly forest of white tree-trunks. That was the first time I heard him speak and I wondered where he had acquired such a commanding tone that made him seem like a senior member of the armed forces even though he had been born and brought up in Shepherd’s Bush in London! I can to this day hear him loudly telling the delegates as the session finished that he had to fly to Paris to ‘hold Madame Callas’s hand while she made her latest recital record’ and then fly back to London the following morning for the next day’s conference session, implying that his presence at both places was of the greatest importance. It probably was, but he made sure everybody knew it!
A few months after that, I joined the secretariat of the International Classical Repertoire Committee which shared offices with the International Artistes Department at Manchester Square where Legge also had an office, which he rarely used because he preferred to work at Abbey Road Studios where he could do his post-production work on editing master tapes and such. But from time to time he would bluster into Manchester Square to work with his secretary. It was my impression that he was rather a bully and expected his secretary to anticipate his every need, no matter what that might be. I understand that for these rare visits he would leave a taxi with its meter running outside EMI House, often for several hours, so it could take him back to Abbey Road or to his house in Hampstead when he had finished. But, as narrated above, in March 1964 Legge parted company with EMI, apart from producing any further recordings that Schwarzkopf made for the company and for those he never came back to the EMI offices.
But my last encounter with Legge was actually a very pleasant one. He had arranged a concert at the Festival Hall on 20 February 1967 as a homage to Gerald Moore who was retiring. It was a recital jointly by three of Moore’s most celebrated singers, namely Victoria de los Angeles, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, and a glorious event it turned out to be. EMI recorded the concert but sadly Legge suffered a serious heart attack just before the concert took place. He was hospitalised in a private clinic just off Baker Street and the recording was supervised by Suvi Raj Grubb. When the designs for the 2 LP set were devised by the art department, it fell to my lot to take them to Legge in the hospital, which was not far from our office. I found him in a private room on his own with no visitors and after I gave him the folder he asked who I was and invited me to sit down and talk to him. I began by telling him how wonderful the Gerald Moore concert had been and how Schwarzkopf had made her performance of Wolf’s ‘Kennst du das Land?’ the musical and artistic climax of the whole programme. I don’t remember much else about the conversation except that I probably told him what operas and concerts I had been to recently and he seemed genuinely interested in what I had to say, but I expect that was mainly because he was happy to have somebody visiting him!
During his life he received no acknowledgement from the British Government or any other British organisation by way of honours of any kind either for his work in creating the Philharmonia Orchestra or producing so many outstanding classical recordings although they saw fit to make his German wife Elisabeth Schwarzkopf a Dame, something that she personally found rather ironic.
Principal sources:
'On and Off the Record' by Elisabeth Schwarzkopf (Faber & Faber, 1982)
'Walter Legge – A Discography' by Alan Sanders (Greenwood Press, 1984)
'Otto Klemperer, his life and times Vol.2: 1933–1973' by Peter Heyworth (Cambridge 1996)
'Herbert von Karajan, a life in music' by Richard Osborne (Chatto & Windus, 1998)
I will write a separate piece about Schwarzkopf.
