The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (RPO), based in London, was formed by Sir Thomas Beecham in 1946. In its early days the orchestra secured profitable recording contracts and important engagements including the Glyndebourne Festival Opera and the concerts of the Royal Philharmonic Society. After Beecham's death in 1961 the orchestra's fortunes declined steeply; it battled for survival until the mid-1960s, when its future was secured after an Arts Council report recommended that it should receive public subsidy; a further crisis arose in the same era when it seemed that the orchestra's right to call itself "Royal" could be withdrawn. Since Beecham's death the RPO has had seven chief conductors, including Rudolf Kempe, Antal Dorati, Andre Previn and Vladimir Ashkenazy, and most recently 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 eclat". 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: Naturally, it quickly became known that he was planning another orchestra, at which the cry "He'll never get the players!" went up just as it had done in 1932. Beecham was unmoved: "I always get the players," he retorted. "Among other considerations, they are so good they refuse to play under anybody but me".

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