Thomas Beecham: an obsession with music

Thomas Beecham was one of Britain's greatest conductors of orchestral music and opera as well as an entrepreneur and impresario of exceptional energy and brilliant wit. This new life places him - musically, politically and socially - in the troubled times in which he lived and corrects the stories and myths, many of them Beecham's own making, that have grown up around this uniquely gifted and controversial figure.
Drawing upon extensive research, Lucas presents new material on his early years, his complicated private life, his father's catastrophic attempt to buy a large part of Covent Garden - which brought the family to its knees financially - and the orchestras and opera companies that Beecham founded. New light is shed on his visits to Nazi Germany and his view of its leaders, as well as the much misunderstood and previously unchronicled years of the Second World War, which he spent in Australia and America.

CONTENIDO:

Preface
1 The Birth of the Pill
2 The Mecca of Globules
3 Banishment
4 Orchestral Fireworks
5 Elektra and the Baptist
6 Guilty - or Not Guilty?
7 Towards the Abyss
8 Battle for Music
9 A Mountain of Debts
10 The Bull of Bashan
11 The Twopenny Opera
12 'Just Listen to This'
13 The Shadows Lengthen
14 Adventures in Australia
15 Enter Miss Humby
16 Divorce in Boise
17 The Royal Years
Source notes
Bibliography