Orchestra: The LSO: A Century of Triumphs and Turbulence

Description

In 2004 the London Symphony Orchestra celebrates its hundredth birthday. The centenary finds the orchestra acclaimed as one of the best in the world, making music with the most charismatic conductors and soloists on the planet. Leading columnist Richard Morrison looks at both the dazzling public face of the LSO and the personal stories - heroic, hilarious and touching, and explores what makes this great orchestra tick. He looks at the bad times as well as the good, including the disastrous early years at the Barbican, the notorious playboy era of the l970s and the remarkable transformation over the past 20 years into one of the most successful and ambitious arts organisation that Britain has ever produced.

Richard Morrison is chief music critic of The Times and writes a wide-ranging weekly column on cultural and social matters, which is noted for its humour and passion. From 1989 to 1999 he also edited the paper's arts pages. He is a music graduate of Cambridge University and former orchestral trombonist and organist.He was taken to his first London Symphony Orchestra concert in 1960, aged five, and wrote his first professional review of the orchestra 16 years later. Since then he has heard the orchestra perform under most of the world's top conductors.