On and off the record

Founder of London's Philharmonia and head of the classical division of EMI/Angel records, Walter Legge was influential worldwide in classical music by the time he was 40. He was an observer at Bayreuth rehearsals with Toscanini in the 1920s and covered the infamous Wagner Festival as a critic in 1933. He was the first to sign Maria Callas and Herbert von Karajan to exclusive recording contracts and persuaded Toscanini and an aged Richard Strauss to travel to London to conduct the Philharmonia. Written by his wife, famed soprano Elizabeth Schwarzkopf, the book is both a history of the man and a remembrance of the husband. Contains a selected discography compiled by Alan Sanders. Introduction by Herbert von Karajan.