Editing Walter Legge (section)

==Life==
===Early years===
Legge was born in [[Shepherd's Bush]], London, where his father was a tailor.<ref name=dnb>Martland, Peter, [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/40710 "Legge, (Harry) Walter (1906–1979)"], Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edition, January 2010. Retrieved 7 October 2010 {{subscription required}}</ref> He was educated at the [[Latymer Upper School]] in Hammersmith.<ref>{{cite web |title=MUSIC SCHOLARSHIPS AT 11+ AND 16+ |url=https://www.latymer-upper.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/MUSIC-SCHOLARSHIPS-AT-11-16.pdf |publisher=Latymer Upper School |access-date=19 March 2024 |date=January 2020}} A music scholarship honouring Legge was established by anonymous donors at Latymer Upper School in January 2006.</ref> He excelled in Latin and French, but received no musical training. He left school at 16 and had no further formal education. Encouraged by his father he developed a taste for music, and [[Richard Wagner]] in particular, in pursuit of which he taught himself to read music and to speak German.<ref>Schwarzkopf, pp. 15–16</ref>
 
Legge first joined [[His Master's Voice (British record label)|His Master's Voice]] in 1927, writing album and analytical notes and copy for the company's monthly retailing magazine, ''The Voice'', but he caught the eye of the leading record producer, [[Fred Gaisberg]], and was soon taking an active role in His Master's Voice recording procedures. Between 1933 and 1938, Legge also worked as a music critic for ''[[The Guardian|The Manchester Guardian]]''.<ref name=grove>Mann, William [http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/16297 "Legge, Walter"], ''Grove Music Online'', Oxford Music Online. Retrieved 7 October 2010 {{subscription required}}</ref>

In the pre-war years, Legge pioneered "subscription" recordings, by which the public were invited to pay in advance for their copies of future recordings, thus making it economically possible for EMI to make such "niche" but classic recordings as the songs of [[Hugo Wolf]]<ref>{{cite web|last1=Blyth|first1=Alan|title=Hugo Wolf Society, Vol. 1|url=http://www.gramophone.co.uk/review/hugo-wolf-society-vol-1|work=[[Gramophone (magazine)|Gramophone]]|access-date=8 December 2015}}</ref> and the complete piano works of [[Ludwig van Beethoven|Beethoven]] (played by [[Artur Schnabel]]).<ref>Schwarzkopf pp. 57–58</ref> Another pre-war recording supervised by Legge, which has been reissued on LP and CD, was [[Thomas Beecham|Sir Thomas Beecham]]'s set of ''[[The Magic Flute]]'', made in Berlin in 1937.<ref>Schwarzkopf, p. 59</ref> Beecham invited Legge to join him at the Opera as assistant artistic director. Given a free hand by Beecham he engaged [[Richard Tauber]], [[Jussi Björling]], [[Maria Reining]], [[Hilde Konetzni]], [[Julius Patzak]] and [[Helge Rosvaenge|Helge Roswänge]] in their Covent Garden debuts.<ref>Schwarzkopf, p. 60</ref>

During World War II, Legge's poor eyesight prevented him from serving in the armed forces. At Beecham's instigation he took on the musical side of [[ENSA]], arranging concerts for British troops all over the world, and securing the services of musicians such as [[Solomon (pianist)|Solomon]], [[Adrian Boult|Sir Adrian Boult]] and [[John Barbirolli]].<ref>''[[The Times]]'', 20 September 1943, p. 8; Schwarzkopf, pp. 59, 61</ref> In 1941 Legge married the singer [[Nancy Evans (opera singer)|Nancy Evans]]; they divorced in 1948.<ref name=dnb/>

===EMI and the Philharmonia===
After the war Legge set to work to refresh EMI's catalogue and its roster of star performers. He set up his base in Vienna, then still occupied by the Allies, and contracted German and Austrian artists who were then seriously short of work. These performers included [[Josef Krips]], [[Irmgard Seefried]], [[Ljuba Welitsch]], [[Hans Hotter]], [[Ludwig Weber]], [[Herbert von Karajan]] and [[Elisabeth Schwarzkopf]] (whom Legge married in 1953).<ref>Schwarzkopf, p. 64</ref> Later he was among the first to spot the potential of [[Maria Callas]], whose studio recordings he produced for EMI.<ref>Schwarzkopf, p. 67</ref> The repertoire he chose to record was broad, though not extending much earlier than [[George Frideric Handel|Handel]] and among modern composers concentrating on the approachable and [[diatonic]].<ref name=gramobit>Mann, William [http://www.gramophone.net/Issue/Page/May%201979/57/787543 "Walter Legge"], ''[[Gramophone (magazine)|Gramophone]]'', May 1979, p. 57. Retrieved 7 October 2010</ref> From the 1940s to the 1960s he supervised a long series of recordings of the works of [[William Walton]].

Legge had promoted some [[Lieder]] recitals before the war, but in 1945, finding his influence at [[Royal Opera House|Covent Garden]] much diminished under the management of [[David Webster (opera manager)|David Webster]] he again ventured into promoting concerts. For these, and for recordings, he founded a new orchestra, the [[Philharmonia]]. Beecham conducted its first concert (for the fee of one cigar) but was unwilling to be the employee of his former assistant and soon founded the [[Royal Philharmonic Orchestra|Royal Philharmonic]] in competition with the Philharmonia.<ref name=legge>Legge, Walter, "The Birth of the Philharmonia", ''The Times'', 27 December 1975, p. 4</ref> In its early years the Philharmonia became closely identified with Karajan, but when he turned his attentions to the [[Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra|Berlin Philharmonic]], Legge worked more and more with [[Otto Klemperer]], a prominent conductor in the 1920s and '30s whose career Legge revitalised. Other eminent musicians of the time whom Legge persuaded to conduct the Philharmonia were [[Wilhelm Furtwängler]], [[Arturo Toscanini]] and [[Richard Strauss]]. At its peak in the 1950s the Philharmonia was widely rated as the finest British orchestra and one of the finest orchestras in the World.<ref name=dnb/> In 1964, concerned at what he saw as falling standards, Legge disbanded the orchestra, which at once re-formed as the New Philharmonia, without him but with Klemperer as chief conductor.<ref name=gramobit/>

===Last years===
Legge's employer, EMI, tolerated his independent ways for many years, but in the 1960s attempts were made to curtail his freedom of choice of repertoire, and finally in 1964 he resigned. His memoirs, edited by Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and published in 1982, set out his disenchantment with EMI and its increasingly powerful internal committees: 
:I am convinced that in the arts, committees are useless. What is necessary are people like Karajan, [[John Culshaw|Culshaw]] and me; we know not only how to achieve the best artistic results but how to attract the public and carry out the whole operation with carefully chosen collaborators. Democracy is fatal for the arts; it leads only to chaos or the achievement of new and lower common denominators of quality.<ref>Schwarzkopf, p. 83</ref>

[[File:E. Schwarzkopf-Legge.jpg|thumb|Grave in Zumikon]]
In retirement Legge, together with Schwarzkopf, gave many joint masterclasses for young singers but he failed to find a permanent job. He was offered, and accepted, the directorship of the [[Wexford Festival Opera|Wexford Festival]], but he suffered a disabling heart attack in 1967 before he could take up the post, and he withdrew. He continued to supervise the EMI recordings made by his wife, but the breach with the company was complete when in 1977 and 1979 he produced her last recordings not for EMI but for [[Decca Records|Decca]], EMI's great rival.<ref>Schwarzkopf, p. 288</ref>

Legge attended Schwarzkopf's final appearance, a recital at [[Zürich]] Opera House on 19 March 1979, despite having suffered a heart attack two days earlier.<ref name=davis>Richard Davis, ''Geoffrey Parsons: Among Friends'', 2006, ch. 10</ref> Three days after the recital, he died in [[Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat]], France, at the age of 72. He was cremated, and his ashes were initially placed near those of Hugo Wolf in Vienna, as he had requested.<ref name=davis/> After Elisabeth Schwarzkopf's death in 2006, their ashes were buried next to her parents in [[Zumikon]] near Zürich, where she had lived from 1982 to 2003.