Stanford Robinson
Hired on a trial basis as a sort of musical dogsbody in 1924, Stanford Robinson stayed at the BBC for over 40 years, founding most of the BBC's choruses and working as a staff conductor, notably of the BBC Theatre Orchestra. He was an enormously versatile musician, conducting everything from musicals to symphony concerts, but he made his name in the BBC's opera productions and in light orchestral programmes such as the Tuesday
Serenade programmes of the 1940s. Sandy Burnett recalls Stanford
Robinson's long career with the help of archive conversations with the conductor, and introduces recordings of excerpts from Massenet's opera Manon, with Maggie Teyte and Heddle Nash heading the cast; orchestral music by Hahn, Gerhard and Offenbach; and a complete recording made in experimental stereo in 1962 of Gilbert and Sullivan's Trial by Jury. Producer Peter Tanner