ABSTRACT
The 1930s saw a plethora of visiting orchestras to Britain. The Vienna Philharmonic came with Furtwänglerin 1930, again in 1934 and 1937 under Bruno Walter, and in 1935 under Walter and Felix Weingartner. In May 1937 Willem Mengelberg came with his Concertgebouw Orchestra from Amsterdam, and during the course of the decade Gabriel Pierné came with the Colonne Orchestra from Paris, so did the Finnish National Orchestra (which did much to increase Sibelius's popularity in Britain), the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra under Vaclav Talich (again in 1937 under Rafael Kubelik), the Vienna Symphony Orchestra and the Dresden State Opera Orchestra in 1936. Walter Damrosch had already been with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra in the 1920s, but Toscanini came with them for the first time in the early summer of 1930 to give four triumphant concerts at the conclusion of a European tour. Between 1927 and 1938, the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra under Furtwängler visited not only London on several occasions, but also other principal cities of the UK, many of these events arranged for these foreigners at the London end by Lionel Powell.
