The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (RPO), based in London, was formed by Sir Thomas Beecham in 1946. In its early days the orchestra secured profitable recording contracts and important engagements including the Glyndebourne Festival Opera and the concerts of the Royal Philharmonic Society. After Beecham's death in 1961 the orchestra's fortunes declined steeply; it battled for survival until the mid-1960s, when its future was secured after an Arts Council report recommended that it should receive public subsidy; a further crisis arose in the same era when it seemed that the orchestra's right to call itself "Royal" could be withdrawn. Since Beecham's death the RPO has had seven chief conductors, including Rudolf Kempe, Antal Dorati, Andre Previn and Vladimir Ashkenazy, and most recently Charles Dutoit.

From the RPO's earliest days to the end of Beecham's life, they made numerous recordings for His Master's Voice, CBS and RCA. Among the works they recorded EMI chose several to be reissued at the end of the twentieth century in its "Great Recordings of the Century" series. They included a Delius programme; a Grieg programme; French ballet music; short works by Bizet, Chabrier, Faure and Saint-Saens; Tchaikovsky's Symphony No 4 and Nutcracker Suite; Mozart's Jupiter Symphony, Clarinet Concerto (Brymer) and Bassoon Concerto (Brooke); and Schubert's 3rd, 5th and 6th Symphonies.  After Beecham's death the orchestra made many recordings for Decca, sometimes under pseudonyms such as the "Beecham Symphony Orchestra", the "London Festival Orchestra" and the "Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra". Among the conductors with whom the RPO recorded in the 1960s were Sir John Barbirolli, Fritz Reiner, Charles Munch, Georges Pretre, Kempe, Previn and Stokowski. Soloists included Earl Wild, Shura Cherkassky, Alan Civil and Luciano Pavarotti.  Igor Stravinsky recorded his opera The Rake's Progress with the RPO in 1964. Colin Davis made some of his earliest recordings with the orchestra, including Mozart and Rossini overtures, Beethoven's Seventh Symphony, and Stravinsky's Oedipus rex. From 1964 to 1979 the RPO was engaged by Decca to record Gilbert and Sullivan operas with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company. The orchestra has also recorded for Deutsche Grammophon, Lyrita, Philips, Pye and Unicorn-Kanchana.  In 1986, the orchestra launched RPO Records, claimed to be "the world's first record label to be owned by a symphony orchestra". Recordings available on the RPO label in 2013 ranged from core symphonic repertoire and Tchaikovsky ballet scores to film music by various composers, light music by Burt Bacharach and Richard Rodgers, and an album called "Symphonic Rock", described as "Over 3 hours of classic rock anthems and pop tracks with an orchestral twist".

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