Walter Legge - Further reading

Record producer, a major figure in the European classical record industry, and founder of the Philharmonia Symphony Orchestra, born in London, UK. He engaged Fischer-Dieskau, Nicolai Gedda, and his future wife Elisabeth Schwarzkopf for a series of classic recordings of opera under equally famous conductors, and was responsible for the revival of interest in Lieder.

Legge first joined HMV in 1927 mainly to work for the editorial of the company's retailing magazine, but he caught the eye of another famous record producer, Fred Gaisberg, and was soon taking an active role in their recording procedures.

During his years at EMI, Legge contracted and recorded many artists, including Wilhelm Furtwängler, Arturo Toscanini, Herbert von Karajan, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf (whom he married in 1953), Maria Callas, Thomas Beecham, Otto Klemperer, Dinu Lipatti and many others. it leads only to chaos or the achievement of new and lower common denominators of quality.'

That extract shows surprising goodwill towards Karajan - whom many regarded as having deserted Legge in the 1960s - and John Culshaw of Decca, Legge's great rival as a recording producer. Legge was not always so benign:

'If producers and scenic designers are allowed to continue their writing of graffiti and vulgarity and stupidity on masterpieces as you experienced in Fidelio and Così—not to mention Chéreau at Bayreuth—we shall be forced to insist that they write the libretto and music to match the rubbish they put on the stage!'

Legge also founded the Philharmonia Orchestra as well as the Sibelius Society of London.

See also: Elisabeth Schwarzkopf

Further reading

Legge, Walter; Sanders, Alan Walter Legge: Words and Music Routledge (1998) ISBN 0-415-92108-2 Schwarzkopf, Elisabeth On and Off the Record: A Memoir of Walter Legge Faber and Faber Ltd (Dec 31 1982) ISBN 0-571-11928-X;