Antony Beaumont

Beaumont was born in London of Anglo-German and Greek-Romanian parentage. He studied at Cambridge, worked as a disc jockey for the BBC, wrote reviews for The Daily Telegraph, and played violin and piano as a freelance artist. At various times he played under conductors Otto Klemperer, Leopold Stokowski, and Georg Solti. After graduation he moved to Germany and became a German citizen. ==Musicology==

Doktor Faust Beaumont has prepared new versions of the final two scenes of Busoni's unfinished opera Doktor Faust, based on newly discovered sketches. This version serves as an alternative to the completion made by Busoni's pupil, Philipp Jarnach, which was based on less detailed information. The changes in Scene 3 also include additional action for Mephistopheles (he lifts the body of Faust onto his shoulders and slowly leaves the stage), and a final choral passage not found in the Jarnach version. These changes extend the scene from approximately 25 to 29 minutes. The full score of the Beaumont completion exists as a manuscript; the vocal score was published by Breitkopf and Härtel, Wiesbaden, in 1982. The Beaumont version has not been used often in staged productions of the opera. The English performances (beginning 25 April 1986) were conducted by Mark Elder and Antony Beaumont, starred Thomas Allen (Faust) and Graham Clark, and were given in the English translation by Edward J. Dent, as revised by Beaumont. This was the first staged production of the opera in Great Britain. The Zurich Opera DVD from 2006, with Thomas Hampson as Faust and conducted by Philippe Jordan, used the Jarnach version and has been severely criticized for doing so. The production at the Metropolitan Opera in 2001, with Hampson as Faust and conducted by Philippe Auguin, also used the less authentic Jarnach version. Further research led to Beaumont's translation and publication in 2004 of letters written by Gustav Mahler to Alma, during the period when she was Mahler's wife. Alma had published many of these letters in 1940, but they were heavily edited to present herself in the best way possible (see Alma Problem). The edition which Beaumont has translated includes these letters in unedited form and includes an additional 188 letters and other unpublished documents. "The texts, supplemented by detailed commentaries, depict an explosive relationship between two people of widely differing character and temperament. The Mahler that emerges from these authentic, unabridged sources is warm, genuine and touchingly human." ==Audio recordings (as conductor)==

Note: This list of publications is not comprehensive. • Beaumont, Antony, Busoni the Composer, Faber and Faber, London, 1985. • Beaumont, Antony, ed., Busoni: Selected Letters, Columbia University Press, New York, 1987. • Beaumont, Antony & Susanne Rode-Breymann, eds. & trans., Alma Mahler-Werfel, Diaries 1898-1902, Faber and Faber, London, 1999. • Beaumont, Antony, Zemlinsky, Faber and Faber, London, 2000. • La Grange, Henry-Louis de, Günther Weiss, & Knud Martner, eds., Gustav Mahler, Letters to his Wife [1901-11] (First complete edition, rev. & trans. by Antony Beaumont) Faber and Faber, London, 2004. . Accessed on 3 February 2009. ==Notes==