Walter Legge

 

About Legge, I remember reading a letter he wrote to someone at HMV/EMI on the subject of where to break the music at the end of a side in the Furtwangler recording of 'Tristan.' He disagreed so violently with what the EMI functionary had proposed that the guy might well have shrivelled up and died. I gave my copy of the book where I had read this 'On and off the Record.' I think it was and much later tried to find the letter again in a later edition but it had been omitted. I must try again not least because such a letter these days would have resulted in Legge getting fired for bullying.

I'm not at all like Legge in that respect but I ask myself what is better - that the side breaks should be right or someone's feelings should not be hurt. when Legge was finally fired from EMI, no one would give him a job. He was even turned down by the Wexford Festival (they should have been so lucky). I think that was a sign of the times.

In fact I noticed that not so long after when Milton Friedman's monetarism prevailed in the Reagan/Thatcher years, orchestra managers began to tell me it was not their (artistic) opinion that counted but that of the marketing department.