Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra

Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (RPO)
Orchestra
The RPO at Cadogan Hall, its home since 2004
Founded	1946
Location	London, UK
Concert hall	Cadogan Hall
Principal conductor	Charles Dutoit
Website	www.rpo.co.uk

The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (RPO) is a British orchestra based in London. The orchestra is resident at Cadogan Hall. Its current managing director is James Williams. The current principal conductor and artistic director of the RPO is Charles Dutoit.

In 1932 the conductor Sir Thomas Beecham had founded the London Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO), which, with the backing of rich supporters, he ran until 1940, when finances dried up in wartime. Beecham left to conduct in Australia and then the US; the orchestra continued without him after reorganising itself as a self-governing body. On Beecham's return to England in September 1944 the LPO welcomed him back, and in October they gave a concert together that drew superlatives from the critics. Over the next months Beecham and the orchestra gave further concerts with considerable success, but the LPO players, now their own employers, declined to give him the unfettered control he had exercised in the 1930s. If he were to become chief conductor again it would be as a paid employee of the orchestra. Beecham responded, "I emphatically refuse to be wagged by any orchestra ... I am going to found one more great orchestra to round off my career." In 1945 he conducted the first concert of Walter Legge's new Philharmonia Orchestra, but was not disposed to accept a salaried position from Legge, his former assistant, any more than from his former players in the LPO. His new orchestra to rival the Philharmonia would, he told Legge, be launched in "the most auspicious circumstances and éclat".

In 1946 Beecham reached an agreement with the Royal Philharmonic Society: his new orchestra would replace the LPO at all the Society's concerts. He thus gained the right to name the new ensemble the "Royal Philharmonic Orchestra", an arrangement approved by George VI. Beecham arranged with the Glyndebourne Festival that the RPO should be the resident orchestra at Glyndebourne seasons. He secured backing, including that of record companies in the US as well as Britain, with whom lucrative recording contracts were negotiated. The music critic Lyndon Jenkins writes: