Thomas Beecham - The Beecham Colleciton: Berlioz, Grieg, D'Indy & Saint-Saëns (2014)

The long-awaited live performance of the Saint-Saën’s Third Symphony conducted by Sir Thomas Beecham with his Royal Philharmonic Orchestra is here at last, and it joins SOMM’s growing collection of unforgettable performances by a conductor who genuinely loved French music and who programmed it regularly in his concerts. He programmed at least 20 works by Saint-Saëns during his conducting life, beginning in 1907 with his Piano Concerto No. 2 with Myra Hess as the soloist and ending with his final concert in Portsmouth in May 1960 with a rousing performance of the Bacchanale from Samson et Delilah.