It is surprising that over his years of recording with the Royal Philharmonic Beecham paid so little attention to Mozart symphonies. That makes this collection of broadcast performances the more welcome, even though none of them is in stereo. There is also a characterful bonus in Beecham’s spoken introductions to No. 29 and the Prague, in which he rightly boasts of his own role in propagating Mozart.
Interpretatively the contrasts are fascinating between these performances and those he recorded earlier for EMI with the LPO - No. 29 in 1937, the Haffner in 1938-9 and the Prague in 1940. Rather to my surprise, the extra elegance of these later RPO performances, with playing more lightly sprung and a degree more refined (the odd live mishap apart) , is what comes out most clearly. That impression is enhanced by the BBC sound being rather more spacious and airy than the pre-war EMI.
Speeds, too, tend to be less extreme than before, notably in No. 29, which earlier was eccentric in its slowness up to the finale. In 1949, only 12 years after that pre-war recording, he had plainly changed his mind. The first and second movements have lost their ponderousness, flowing beautifully, while the Minuet brings the most extreme contrast of all, lasting over a minute less than in 1937, even with second-half repeats omitted both times. As a personal touch the rallentando on the final repeated octaves is even more extreme than before, as it is at the end of the Minuet of the Haffner.
In the Haffner the other three movements are all a fraction broader than previously, more joyful, less fierce, while in the Prague, as in No. 29, the slow sections (the long opening introduction as well as the Andante) flow more easily than before, where Allegros by contrast are a fraction broader.
In a fascinating note entitled ‘Beecham and Mozart’, Graham Melville-Mason analyses how many times Beecham included each Mozart symphony in programmes, discovering that the Prague was the one he favoured most of all, conducting 113 performances over his career, from 1906 through to his last concert in 1960. That ties in with Beecham’s own enthusiastic comments in his introduction, emphasizing the work’s unique breadth of scale. If one still regrets Beecham’s failure to record Mozart symphonies in stereo (the Jupiter apart) , this puts a revealing slant on his development during his RPO years.'