London Symphony Orchestra

Founded in 1904, the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) is one of the largest orchestras in the world and London’s oldest orchestra. Formed by musicians who had resigned from the Henry Wood’s Queen’s Hall Orchestra, their first concert was led by Austrian/Hungarian conductor Hans Richter. In 1911, the baton was passed to composer/conductor Sir Edward Elgar, who led the London Symphony Orchestra for a year before Alfred Nikisch took charge. It has been reported that they organized a tour of the United States and planned to travel on the maiden voyage of the Titanic in 1912 but cancelled shortly before sailing in favor of a different ship. Throughout the decades, the London Symphony Orchestra has had a variety of temporary conductors including Thomas Beecham, Albert Coates and Hamilton Harty, until the appointment of more permanent conductors such as Josef Krips (1950-1954) and Pierre Monteux (1961-1964). In the 1960s, the rock community turned to the orchestra for recording projects and the LSO eventually appearing on recordings by the Beatles, Rick Wakeman, Neil Young, Elton John, Deep Purple, Neil Diamond, The Who, Frank Zappa, and others. Istvan Kertesz (1965-1968) and André Previn (1968-1979) were successive conductors before they moved base from the Royal Festival Hall to the Barbican Center in 1982, under Claudio Abbado (1979-1985). Several renowned soloists have performed with the orchestra including James Galway, Gervase de Peyer and Barry Tuckwell, while guest conductors have included Adrian Boult, Wilhelm Furtwängler, Otto Klemperer, Georg Solti, George Szell, Leonard Bernstein, Karl Böhm, Daniel Harding and John Williams. Michael Tilson Thomas (1987-1995), Colin Davis (1995-2006) and Valery Gergiev (2007-2015) have also occupied the coveted position of principal conductor of the orchestra. Apart from their own performances, recordings, and sessions with other artists, the London Symphony Orchestra have been featured on many film scores including Star Wars (1977), Superman (1978), Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), Return of the Jedi (1983), several films in the Harry Potter series, and many, many more. The LSO has also provided music for television series and Star Wars-related video games. In 2012, under the tenure of Simon Rattle (2017-2023), the LSO played at the opening ceremony of the Summer Olympics. The orchestra with the most recordings in its catalog (more than 3,500) has notably participated in the creation of works by Edward Elgar, William Walton, Aaron Copland, Hans Werner Henze, Arthur Bliss, Paul McCartney, Michael Nyman, Peter Maxwell Davies, and many others. The London Symphony Orchestra’s recorded legacy dates back to 1925 and while most listeners are familiar with their film work and appearances on legendary albums, they have also focused on their classical repertoire, releasing albums such as Concerto for Violin and Orchestra (1950), Hungarian Fantasia (1957), Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto (1962), Holst: The Planets (2006), and hundreds of others.

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