Betty Humby Beecham, Lady Beecham (8 April 1908 – 2 September 1958) was a British

pianist A pianist ( , ) is a musician who plays the piano. A pianist's repertoire may include music from a diverse variety of styles, such as traditional classical music, jazz piano, jazz, blues piano, blues, and popular music, including rock music, ...

. She married English conductor and impresario Sir

Thomas Beecham Sir Thomas Beecham, 2nd Baronet, (29 April 18798 March 1961) was an English conductor and impresario best known for his association with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, London Philharmonic and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Philh ...

in February 1943.

Biography

Betty Humby was the daughter of Daniel Morgan Humby, a dentist and member of the

Royal College of Surgeons The Royal College of Surgeons is an ancient college (a form of corporation) established in England to regulate the activity of surgeons. Derivative organisations survive in many present and former members of the Commonwealth. These organisations ...

. At the age of 10, she was the youngest person ever to win a scholarship to the

Royal Academy of Music The Royal Academy of Music (RAM) in London, England, is one of the oldest music schools in the UK, founded in 1822 by John Fane and Nicolas-Charles Bochsa. It received its royal charter in 1830 from King George IV with the support of the firs ...

, where she also won the

Sterndale Bennett Sir William Sterndale Bennett (13 April 18161 February 1875) was an English composer, pianist, conductor and music educator. At the age of ten Bennett was admitted to the London Royal Academy of Music (RAM), where he remained for ten years. B ...

Prize. When she was 14, she taught 30 pupils of her own, and two years later she became a piano professor, under

Myra Hess Dame Julia Myra Hess, (25 February 1890 – 25 November 1965) was an English pianist best known for her performances of the works of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schumann, and Brahms. Career Early life Julia Myra Hess was born on 25 February 189 ...

Tobias Matthay Tobias Augustus Matthay (19 February 185815 December 1945) was an English pianist, teacher, and composer. Biography Matthay was born in Clapham, Surrey, in 1858 to parents who had come from northern Germany and eventually became naturalised Brit ...

's London music school. Later she married an Anglican priest, the Reverend H. Cashel Thomas, who in the early 1940s was vicar of St Philip's in London. They had a son, Sir Jeremy Cashel Thomas, born 1 June 1931; who became a diplomat. With the outbreak of World War II, Thomas organised concerts in British cathedrals. In 1940, she left Britain for the United States with her young son, Jeremy. While in the US she hoped to raise money for London's

Great Ormond Street Hospital Great Ormond Street Hospital (informally GOSH, formerly the Hospital for Sick Children) is a children's hospital located in the Bloomsbury area of the London Borough of Camden, and a part of Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS F ...

, where her brother was chief surgeon. Having first met in the 1930s in England, Humby and Sir

were reintroduced in the US by Andrew Schulhof, who managed each of them. He later arranged for them to perform the Delius piano concerto together in June 1941 at a studio concert for

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS (an abbreviation of its original name, Columbia Broadcasting System), is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainme ...

. Humby married Beecham on 19 January 1943, one month after a divorce was granted from Beecham's wife Utica Celestina Welles. According to John Lucas's biography, ''Thomas Beecham: An Obsession with Music'', they were married before a police justice in Manhattan. On the advice of their legal advisers, in order to "assure compliance with the technicalities of English law", they underwent a second marriage on 7 September 1944, before Supreme Court Justice Samuel Null in his chambers at County Court House, New York.Charles Reid, ''Thomas Beecham: An Independent Biography'', 1961, pp. 222-224 Her best-known recording is probably that of the

Delius file:Fritz Delius (1907).jpg, Delius, photographed in 1907 Frederick Theodore Albert Delius (born Fritz Theodor Albert Delius; ; 29 January 1862 – 10 June 1934) was an English composer. Born in Bradford in the north of England to a prospero ...

Piano Concerto A piano concerto, a type of concerto, is a solo composition in the classical music genre which is composed for piano accompanied by an orchestra or other large ensemble. Piano concertos are typically virtuosic showpieces which require an advance ...

, with her husband conducting the

Royal Philharmonic Orchestra The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (RPO) is a British symphony orchestra based in London, England. The RPO was established by Thomas Beecham in 1946. In its early days, the orchestra secured profitable recording contracts and important engagemen ...

, in October 1946, shortly after he had founded it. This recording of 1946 replaced an earlier version, made with the

London Philharmonic Orchestra The London Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO) is a British orchestra based in London. One of five permanent symphony orchestras in London, the LPO was founded by the conductors Thomas Beecham, Sir Thomas Beecham and Malcolm Sargent in 1932 as a riv ...

on 3 October 1945, which was not released. According to the Lucas biography, her performance of the Delius concerto at Lafayette, Indiana, on 1 December 1950, marked the end of Lady Betty's playing career. She died of a heart attack in

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires, controlled by the government of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Argentina. It is located on the southwest of the Río de la Plata. Buenos Aires is classified as an Alpha− glob ...

Argentina Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...

, in 1958, aged 50. She was cremated there and the ashes returned to England. They had been in Argentina for Beecham to conduct ''

The Magic Flute ''The Magic Flute'' (, ), K. 620, is an opera in two acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to a German libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder. It is a ''Singspiel'', a popular form that included both singing and spoken dialogue. The work premiered on ...

'' and ''

Fidelio ''Fidelio'' (; ), originally titled ' (''Leonore, or The Triumph of Marital Love''), Opus number, Op. 72, is the sole opera by German composer Ludwig van Beethoven. The libretto was originally prepared by Joseph Sonnleithner from the French of ...

'' at the

Teatro Colón The Teatro Colón () is a historic opera house in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It is considered one of the ten best opera houses in the world by National Geographic. According to a survey carried out by the acoustics expert Leo Beranek among leadin ...

. He cancelled two rehearsals the next day, but continued his schedule. The last night of ''Fidelio'' was also his swansong as an opera conductor.

References

External links

Beecham-Handel Piano Concerto
*Lyndon Jenkins
"While spring and summer sang: Thomas Beecham and the music of Frederick Delius"
Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2005; , S. 92 ff, 105, 106 {{DEFAULTSORT:Beecham, Betty Humby 1908 births 1958 deaths British classical pianists British women pianists 20th-century British musicians Wives of baronets Wives of knights 20th-century British women pianists Betty 20th-century British women classical pianists 20th-century British classical pianists Thomas Beecham