Editing Walter Legge (section)

===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/>