The foremost record
producer and
impresario in the
classical music business. He was
recording manager at the
Gramophone Company (
HMV) in the 1930s, then at
Columbia Records from 1938, where he worked with Sir
Thomas Beecham. In 1945 he founded the Philharmonia
Orchestra, and ran it, producing many of the world's best recordings, until 1964. His principal
conductor at the
Philharmonia was
Otto Klemperer.
His influence on a record is comparable to that of the choice of conductor or orchestra: people speak of the "Walter Legge sound" that old Philharmonia recordings had.
Legge (pronounced leg) was born in London on 1 June 1906 and died at Cap Ferrat in the south of France on 22 March 1979. From 1953 he was married to the soprano Elisabeth Schwarzkopf.