G.K.'s Weekly was a British publication founded in 1925 (with its pilot edition surfacing in late 1924) by writer G. K. Chesterton , continuing until his death in 1936. Its articles typically discussed topical cultural, political, and socio-economic issues yet the publication also ran poems, cartoons, and other such material that piqued Chesterton's interest. It contained much of his journalistic work done in the latter part of his life, and extracts from it were published as the book The Outline of Sanity . Precursor publications existed by the names of The Eye-Witness and The New Witness , the former being a weekly newspaper started by Hilaire Belloc in 1911, the latter Belloc took over from Cecil Chesterton , Gilbert's brother, who died in World War I: and a revamped version of G. K.'s Weekly continued some years after Chesterton's death by the name of The Weekly Review .
195-525: As an alternative publication outside of the mainstream press of the time, G. K.'s Weekly never attained a particularly large readership, with its highest circulation being some eight thousand. However, it attracted significant support from several benefactors, which included notables such as the internationally famous conductor Sir Thomas Beecham . Individuals whose work appeared in G. K.'s Weekly include public figures such as E. C. Bentley , Alfred Noyes , Ezra Pound , and George Bernard Shaw as well as (at
390-489: A constitution , while other uses of "democracy" may encompass direct democracy , in which citizens vote on issues directly. According to the United Nations , democracy "provides an environment that respects human rights and fundamental freedoms, and in which the freely expressed will of people is exercised." One theory holds that democracy requires three fundamental principles: upward control (sovereignty residing at
585-535: A direct democracy , the people have the direct authority to deliberate and decide legislation. In a representative democracy , the people choose governing officials through elections to do so. Who is considered part of "the people" and how authority is shared among or delegated by the people has changed over time and at different rates in different countries. Features of democracy oftentimes include freedom of assembly , association , personal property , freedom of religion and speech , citizenship , consent of
780-865: A lawspeaker . These deliberative bodies were responsible for settling political questions, and variants included the Althing in Iceland and the Løgting in the Faeroe Islands . The veche , found in Eastern Europe , was a similar body to the Scandinavian thing. In the Roman Catholic Church , the pope has been elected by a papal conclave composed of cardinals since 1059. The first documented parliamentary body in Europe
975-428: A parliamentary or presidential democracy . Most democracies apply in most cases majority rule , but in some cases plurality rule , supermajority rule or consensus rule are applied. They serve the crucial purpose of inclusiveness and broader legitimacy on sensitive issues—counterbalancing majoritarianism —and therefore mostly take precedence on a constitutional level. In the common variant of liberal democracy ,
1170-645: A republic , although it didn't have much of a democracy. The Roman model of governance inspired many political thinkers over the centuries. Vaishali , capital city of the Vajjika League (Vrijji mahajanapada ) of India , is considered one of the first examples of a republic around the 6th century BC. Other cultures, such as the Iroquois in the Americas also developed a form of democratic society between 1450 and 1660 (and possibly in 1142 ), well before contact with
1365-539: A "mild stir", scoring a triumph: the orchestra was agreed by the Berlin press to be an elite body, one of the best in the world. The principal Berlin musical weekly, Die Signale , asked, "Where does London find such magnificent young instrumentalists?" The violins were credited with rich, noble tone, the woodwinds with lustre, the brass, "which has not quite the dignity and amplitude of our best German brass", with uncommon delicacy of execution. Beecham's 1913 seasons included
1560-583: A 1967 symposium of prominent critics. Democracy List of forms of government Democracy (from Ancient Greek : δημοκρατία , romanized : dēmokratía , dēmos 'people' and kratos 'rule') is a system of government in which state power is vested in the people or the general population of a state. Under a minimalist definition of democracy, rulers are elected through competitive elections while more expansive definitions link democracy to guarantees of civil liberties and human rights in addition to competitive elections. In
1755-595: A Delius and Sibelius programme; and many of his favoured shorter pieces. He did not stick uncompromisingly to his familiar repertoire. After the sudden death of the German conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler in 1954, Beecham in tribute conducted the two programmes his colleague had been due to present at the Festival Hall; these included Bach's Third Brandenburg Concerto , Ravel 's Rapsodie espagnole , Brahms 's Symphony No. 1 , and Barber 's Second Essay for Orchestra . In
1950-501: A Jew". In terms of Belloc's personal relationships, he apparently held no animus, or little enough animus, that he corresponded with on friendly terms and maintained close connections with numerous Jewish individuals. Several examples exist, an example being his intimate friend and secretary for many years Ruby Goldsmith. In his specific work The Path to Rome , Belloc describes (at least at that time) finding antisemitism against ordinary laypeople puzzling, if not outright distasteful: "At
2145-466: A biographer as "even more certain to deter the public then than it would be in our own day". The principal pieces of his first concert with the orchestra were d'Indy 's symphonic ballad La forêt enchantée , Smetana 's symphonic poem Šárka , and Lalo 's little-known Symphony in G minor . Beecham retained an affection for the last work: it was among the works he conducted at his final recording sessions more than fifty years later. In 1908 Beecham and
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#17330849124742340-620: A book of essays of his own from a couple of years before, and drew initially on a group of writers more associated with The Speaker . The papers under discussion in this article became, in practical terms, the organs of the distributist group. This came together as the Distributist League in 1926, as G. K.'s Weekly appeared as a revamped publication. The main business of the League, organisationally, fell to Titterton. The League had its own newsletter from 1931. G. K.'s Weekly never picked up
2535-763: A composer and achieved some celebrity in the 1920s and 1930s, and Thomas, born in 1909. After the birth of his second child, Beecham began to drift away from the marriage. By 1911, no longer living with his wife and family, he was involved as co-respondent in a much-publicised divorce case. Utica ignored advice that she should divorce him and secure substantial alimony; she did not believe in divorce. She never remarried after Beecham divorced her (in 1943), and she outlived her former husband by sixteen years, dying in 1977. In 1909 or early 1910, Beecham began an affair with Maud Alice (known as Emerald), Lady Cunard . Although they never lived together, it continued, despite other relationships on his part, until his remarriage in 1943. She
2730-566: A conductor in 1899. He used his access to the family fortune to finance opera from the 1910s until the start of the Second World War, staging seasons at Covent Garden , Drury Lane and His Majesty's Theatre with international stars, his own orchestra and a wide repertoire. Among the works he introduced to England were Richard Strauss 's Elektra , Salome and Der Rosenkavalier and three operas by Frederick Delius . Together with his younger colleague Malcolm Sargent , Beecham founded
2925-473: A constitution modelled on Pennsylvania's citizenship and democratic suffrage for males with or without property. The United States Constitution of 1787 is the oldest surviving, still active, governmental codified constitution . The Constitution provided for an elected government and protected civil rights and liberties, but did not end slavery nor extend voting rights in the United States , instead leaving
3120-406: A continuity of thought given the many different, distinct writers involved. Chesterbelloc critics include Barnet Litvinoff , author of The Burning Bush: Antisemitism and World History , who has written: "Britain had its replicas of Maurras and Daudet in those adornments of English letters, G. K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc." This question has to be examined on a historical trajectory, from
3315-675: A foreign government, being bankrupt, employed as a servant, or having "notoriety for ill deeds". Full universal suffrage was achieved in 1934. In 1893, the self-governing colony New Zealand became the first country in the world (except for the short-lived 18th-century Corsican Republic) to establish active universal suffrage by recognizing women as having the right to vote. 20th-century transitions to liberal democracy have come in successive " waves of democracy ", variously resulting from wars, revolutions, decolonisation , and religious and economic circumstances. Global waves of "democratic regression" reversing democratization, have also occurred in
3510-469: A form of political collectivism because it is defined as a form of government in which all eligible citizens have an equal say in lawmaking . Republics , though often popularly associated with democracy because of the shared principle of rule by consent of the governed , are not necessarily democracies, as republicanism does not specify how the people are to rule. Classically the term " republic " encompassed both democracies and aristocracies . In
3705-608: A large house in Ewanville, Huyton , near Liverpool . Their former home was demolished to make room for an extension to the pill factory. Beecham was educated at Rossall School between 1892 and 1897, after which he hoped to attend a music conservatoire in Germany, but his father forbade it, and instead Beecham went to Wadham College, Oxford to read Classics . He did not find university life to his taste and successfully sought his father's permission to leave Oxford in 1898. He studied as
3900-401: A largely fatalistic slant distinct from many later analyses of Jewish integration, and he arguably heavily relied on the stereotypes and biases of the period. At the same time, he clearly abhorred seeing violence done to individuals as a result of religion. Defenders such as Joseph Pearce have pointed to comments such as "[t]he Bolshevist Movement was a Jewish movement, but not a movement of
4095-575: A minority of Romans were citizens with votes in elections for representatives. The votes of the powerful were given more weight through a system of weighted voting , so most high officials, including members of the Senate , came from a few wealthy and noble families. In addition, the overthrow of the Roman Kingdom was the first case in the Western world of a polity being formed with the explicit purpose of being
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#17330849124744290-535: A modern sense the republican form of government is a form of government without a monarch . Because of this, democracies can be republics or constitutional monarchies , such as the United Kingdom. Democratic assemblies are as old as the human species and are found throughout human history, but up until the nineteenth century, major political figures have largely opposed democracy. Republican theorists linked democracy to small size: as political units grew in size,
4485-489: A particularly large readership, being viewed as outside of the mainstream press of the time. Its highest circulation worked out to only about eight thousand. Yet the weekly attracted significant support from several benefactors, including figures such as the internationally famous conductor Sir Thomas Beecham . As well, many well-known writers ran material in G. K.'s Weekly such as E. C. Bentley , Alfred Noyes , Ezra Pound , and George Bernard Shaw . The relationship between
4680-687: A period of amicable interfusion, a growing, half-conscious ill-ease, which next becomes acute and leads to new explosions, and so on, in a fatal round." Belloc also wrote, "The various nations of Europe have every one of them, in the course of their long histories, passed through successive phases towards the Jew which I have called the tragic cycle. Each has in turn welcomed, tolerated, persecuted, attempted to exile— often actually exiled— welcomed again, and so forth. The two chief examples of extremes in action, are, as I have also pointed out in an earlier part of this book, Spain and England. Spaniards, and in particular
4875-733: A pianist but, despite his excellent natural talent and fine technique, he had difficulty because of his small hands, and any career as a soloist was ruled out by a wrist injury in 1904. He studied composition with Frederic Austin in Liverpool, Charles Wood in London, and Moritz Moszkowski in Paris. As a conductor, he was self-taught. Beecham first conducted in public in St. Helens in October 1899, with an ad hoc ensemble comprising local musicians and players from
5070-514: A planned Magic Flute and a final appearance at Covent Garden conducting Berlioz's The Trojans . Sixty-six years after his first visit to America, Beecham made his last, beginning in late 1959, conducting in Pittsburgh, San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago and Washington. During this tour, he also conducted in Canada. He flew back to London on 12 April 1960 and did not leave England again. His final concert
5265-508: A programme including works by Berlioz , Bizet , Delius and Mozart . He returned to London the following month, conducting the combined Royal Albert Hall Orchestra (the renamed New Symphony Orchestra) and London Symphony Orchestra in April 1923. The main work on the programme was Richard Strauss's Ein Heldenleben . No longer with an orchestra of his own, Beecham established a relationship with
5460-577: A reshuffled version of the London Symphony Orchestra, but the LSO, a self-governing co-operative, balked at weeding out and replacing underperforming players. In 1932 Beecham lost patience and agreed with Sargent to set up a new orchestra from scratch. The London Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO), as it was named, consisted of 106 players including a few young musicians straight from music college, many established players from provincial orchestras, and 17 of
5655-552: A ruling plutocracy , the nature of the Second Boer War (seen as economically motivated by Belloc), and the machinations of international finance . Negative fictional characters who are Jewish appear in Belloc's novels from this time, and his writings contain condemnations of industrial capitalism and its dehumanization in which the role of Jews in business and finance is arguably quite emphasized. Later commentators have argued about
5850-495: A state for the purposes of defending their rights. Particularly important for Locke were property rights, whose protection Locke deemed to be a government's primary purpose. Furthermore, Locke asserted that governments were legitimate only if they held the consent of the governed . For Locke, citizens had the right to revolt against a government that acted against their interest or became tyrannical. Although they were not widely read during his lifetime, Locke's works are considered
6045-492: A strong, authoritarian power. In other words, Hobbes advocated for an absolute monarchy which, in his opinion, was the best form of government. Later, philosopher and physician John Locke would posit a different interpretation of social contract theory. Writing in his Two Treatises of Government (1689), Locke posited that all individuals possessed the inalienable rights to life, liberty and estate (property). According to Locke, individuals would voluntarily come together to form
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6240-447: A text edited by the conductor. With Haydn, too, Beecham was far from an authenticist, using unscholarly 19th-century versions of the scores, avoiding the use of the harpsichord , and phrasing the music romantically. He recorded the twelve " London " symphonies, and regularly programmed some of them in his concerts. Earlier Haydn works were unfamiliar in the first half of the 20th century, but Beecham conducted several of them, including
6435-504: A time of debates over constitutional issues in Athens. Aeschylus also strongly alludes to the word in his play The Suppliants , staged in c.463 BC, where he mentions "the demos's ruling hand" [ demou kratousa cheir ]. Before that time, the word used to define the new political system of Cleisthenes was probably isonomia , meaning political equality. Athenian democracy took the form of direct democracy, and it had two distinguishing features:
6630-549: Is a type of unstable mind which cannot rest without morbid imaginings, and the conception of a single cause simplifies thought. With this good woman it is the Jews, with some people it is the Jesuits , with others Freemasons and so on. The world is more complex than that." In the later years of his life, Belloc wrote publicly against the Nazi German regime ruled by Adolf Hitler . He viewed
6825-440: Is always the same miserable sequence. First a welcome; then a growing, half-conscious ill-ease; next a culmination in acute ill-ease; lastly catastrophe and disaster; insult, persecution, even massacre, the exiles flying from the place of persecution into a new district where the Jew is hardly known, where the problem has never existed or has been forgotten. He meets again with the largest hospitality. There follows here also, after
7020-528: Is equally clear they were not intended to . Against Chesterton are also his remarks in The New Jerusalem (1920). Chesterton was, in a real sense, a Zionist . He was not, however, a Zionist without conditions. The following is from the introductory remarks in that book: Sir Thomas Beecham Sir Thomas Beecham, 2nd Baronet , (29 April 1879 – 8 March 1961) was an English conductor and impresario best known for his association with
7215-454: Is generally held as the first example of a type of democracy in 508–507 BC was established in Athens. Cleisthenes is referred to as "the father of Athenian democracy ". The first attested use of the word democracy is found in prose works of the 430s BC, such as Herodotus ' Histories , but its usage was older by several decades, as two Athenians born in the 470s were named Democrates, a new political name—likely in support of democracy—given at
7410-403: Is rather treated as a friend. Whether from mere contrast in type— what I have called "friction"— or from some apparent divergence between his objects and those of his hosts, or through his increasing numbers, he creates (or discovers) a growing animosity. He resents it. He opposes his hosts. They call themselves masters in their own house. The Jew resists their claim. It comes to violence. It
7605-453: Is that form of Communism in which the organizing officials have a very large salary. That is the difference; and that is the only difference." He wrote in another writing published that same year, "The right and essential thing [is] that as many people as possible should have the natural, original forms of sustenance as their own property." The essential continuity under the main editorial figures (those mentioned above, and W. R. Titterton who
7800-415: Is that the discussion involves three people who were very different in character, though having largely similar political views, and allegations been put in the frame of guilt by association in the past. Cecil Chesterton was the most combative of the three, and his work is probably the most theoretical as well. Looking at them together acknowledges that the publication's history pieced together does represent
7995-485: Is the dominant form. Without compensation, like legal protections of individual or group rights, political minorities can be oppressed by the " tyranny of the majority ". Majority rule involves a competitive approach, opposed to consensus democracy , creating the need that elections , and generally deliberation , be substantively and procedurally "fair" ," i.e. just and equitable . In some countries, freedom of political expression , freedom of speech , and freedom of
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8190-517: Is then decided on how loudly the crowd shouts). Aristotle called this "childish", as compared with the stone voting ballots used by the Athenian citizenry. Sparta adopted it because of its simplicity, and to prevent any biased voting, buying, or cheating that was predominant in the early democratic elections. Even though the Roman Republic contributed significantly to many aspects of democracy, only
8385-620: The Baltics , the Balkans , Brazil , Cuba , China , and Japan , among others. World War II brought a definitive reversal of this trend in Western Europe. The democratisation of the American, British, and French sectors of occupied Germany (disputed ), Austria, Italy, and the occupied Japan served as a model for the later theory of government change . However, most of Eastern Europe , including
8580-727: The Bourgeois Gentilhomme music and Don Juan also featured in his repertory, but not Also Sprach Zarathustra or Tod und Verklärung . Strauss had the first and last pages of the manuscript of Elektra framed and presented them to "my highly honoured friend ... and distinguished conductor of my work." In the opinion of the jury of the Académie du Disque Français, "Sir Thomas Beecham has done more for French music abroad than any French conductor". Berlioz featured prominently in Beecham's repertoire throughout his career, and in an age when
8775-448: The Distributist League and G. K.'s Weekly was close, at times essentially inseparable. Chesterton travelled the country to local distributist chapters in order the spread the word about the publication and also to promote his viewpoints. G. K.'s Weekly provided little financially for Chesterton; it was not a lucrative venture by any means in his mind, but he kept it going as a gesture of respect for Cecil's memory. The financial state of
8970-660: The European Union or candidate states . In 1986, after the toppling of the most prominent Asian dictatorship, the only democratic state of its kind at the time emerged in the Philippines with the rise of Corazon Aquino , who would later be known as the mother of Asian democracy . The liberal trend spread to some states in Africa in the 1990s, most prominently in South Africa. Some recent examples of attempts of liberalisation include
9165-456: The Hindu concept of the equality of all religions and was fascinated by theories of reincarnation and ancestral memory while also making claims about a so-called Illuminati . Belloc expressed his views on Webster's antisemitism very clearly: "In my opinion it is a lunatic book. She is one of those people who have got one cause on the brain. It is the good old 'Jewish revolutionary' bogey. But there
9360-1173: The Indonesian Revolution of 1998 , the Bulldozer Revolution in Yugoslavia , the Rose Revolution in Georgia , the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon, the Tulip Revolution in Kyrgyzstan , and the Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia . According to Freedom House , in 2007 there were 123 electoral democracies (up from 40 in 1972). According to World Forum on Democracy , electoral democracies now represent 120 of
9555-764: The Kingdom of Scotland under the Acts of Union . Two key documents of the UK's uncodified constitution , the English Declaration of Right, 1689 (restated in the Bill of Rights 1689 ) and the Scottish Claim of Right 1689 , had both cemented Parliament's position as the supreme law-making body and said that the "election of members of Parliament ought to be free". However, Parliament was only elected by male property owners, which amounted to 3% of
9750-567: The Law and Justice Party ) to the Philippines (under Rodrigo Duterte ). In a Freedom House report released in 2018, Democracy Scores for most countries declined for the 12th consecutive year. The Christian Science Monitor reported that nationalist and populist political ideologies were gaining ground, at the expense of rule of law , in countries like Poland, Turkey and Hungary. For example, in Poland,
9945-680: The Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and the Hallé in Manchester. A month later, he stood in at short notice for the celebrated conductor Hans Richter at a concert by the Hallé to mark Joseph Beecham's inauguration as mayor of St Helens. Soon afterwards, Joseph Beecham secretly committed his wife to a mental hospital. Thomas and his elder sister Emily helped to secure their mother's release and to force their father to pay annual alimony of £4,500. For this, Joseph disinherited them. Beecham
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#173308491247410140-631: The London Philharmonic and the Royal Philharmonic orchestras. He was also closely associated with the Liverpool Philharmonic and Hallé orchestras. From the early 20th century until his death, Beecham was a major influence on the musical life of Britain and, according to the BBC , was Britain's first international conductor. Born to a rich industrial family, Beecham began his career as
10335-559: The Metropolitan Opera as joint senior conductor with his former assistant Bruno Walter. He began with his own adaptation of Bach's comic cantata, Phoebus and Pan , followed by Le Coq d'Or . His main repertoire was French: Carmen, Louise (with Grace Moore), Manon , Faust , Mignon and The Tales of Hoffmann . In addition to his Seattle and New York posts, Beecham was guest conductor with 18 American orchestras. In 1944, Beecham returned to Britain. Musically his reunion with
10530-615: The Republic of Florence , established in 1115, was led by the Signoria whose members were chosen by sortition . In the 10th–15th century Frisia , a distinctly non-feudal society, the right to vote on local matters and on county officials was based on land size. The Kouroukan Fouga divided the Mali Empire into ruling clans (lineages) that were represented at a great assembly called the Gbara . However,
10725-698: The Royal Albert Hall Orchestra. In 1909, Beecham founded the Beecham Symphony Orchestra. He did not poach from established symphony orchestras, but instead he recruited from theatre bandrooms, local symphony societies, the palm courts of hotels, and music colleges. The result was a youthful team – the average age of his players was 25. They included names that would become celebrated in their fields, such as Albert Sammons , Lionel Tertis , Eric Coates and Eugene Cruft . Because he persistently programmed works that did not attract
10920-568: The Soviet sector of Germany fell into the non-democratic Soviet-dominated bloc . The war was followed by decolonisation , and again most of the new independent states had nominally democratic constitutions. India emerged as the world's largest democracy and continues to be so. Countries that were once part of the British Empire often adopted the British Westminster system . In 1948,
11115-484: The Symphony No. 40 and an early piano concerto. He programmed The Seasons regularly throughout his career, recording it for EMI in 1956, and in 1944 added The Creation to his repertoire. For Beecham, Mozart was "the central point of European music," and he treated the composer's scores with more deference than he gave most others. He edited the incomplete Requiem , made English translations of at least two of
11310-728: The United Kingdom (which originated the Westminster system ), the dominant principle is that of parliamentary sovereignty , while maintaining judicial independence . In India , parliamentary sovereignty is subject to the Constitution of India which includes judicial review . Though the term "democracy" is typically used in the context of a political state , the principles also are potentially applicable to private organisations, such as clubs, societies and firms . Democracies may use many different decision-making methods, but majority rule
11505-418: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights mandated democracy: 3. The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures. By 1960, the vast majority of country-states were nominally democracies, although most of
11700-405: The V-Dem Democracy indices and The Economist Democracy Index , less than half the world's population lives in a democracy as of 2022 . Although democracy is generally understood to be defined by voting, no consensus exists on a precise definition of democracy. Karl Popper says that the "classical" view of democracy is, "in brief, the theory that democracy is the rule of the people and that
11895-428: The invasion of Abyssinia proved a dicey matter for Chesterton and his League. Gilbert Chesterton's death on 14 June 1936 brought changes to the publication. Belloc resumed as editor, with him thus having been brought back to the same position as he was in 1911. After Chesterton died in 1936 the League was near collapse but continued in a new form, until being closed down in 1940. Arthur Penty's Distributist Manifesto
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#173308491247412090-509: The random selection of ordinary citizens to fill the few existing government administrative and judicial offices, and a legislative assembly consisting of all Athenian citizens. All eligible citizens were allowed to speak and vote in the assembly, which set the laws of the city-state. However, Athenian citizenship excluded women, slaves, foreigners (μέτοικοι / métoikoi ), and youths below the age of military service. Effectively, only 1 in 4 residents in Athens qualified as citizens. Owning land
12285-411: The "professors, pedants, pedagogues". He followed Mendelssohn and Mozart in editing and reorchestrating Handel's scores to suit contemporary tastes. At a time when Handel's operas were scarcely known, Beecham knew them so well that he was able to arrange three ballets, two other suites and a piano concerto from them. He gave Handel's oratorio Solomon its first performance since the 18th century, with
12480-432: The 'Jewish problem', in his 1922 What I Saw in America . The journalism of Cecil Chesterton for the Eye-Witness at the time of the Marconi scandal, is a substantive though flawed reason why Belloc, Cecil Chesterton and G. K. Chesterton have often been considered an anti-semitic clique. This can justly be called guilt by association; which was certainly the precise tactic and fallacy Cecil himself used. One Jewish member of
12675-443: The 192 existing countries and constitute 58.2 per cent of the world's population. At the same time liberal democracies i.e. countries Freedom House regards as free and respectful of basic human rights and the rule of law are 85 in number and represent 38 per cent of the global population. Also in 2007 the United Nations declared 15 September the International Day of Democracy . Many countries reduced their voting age to 18 years;
12870-406: The 1920 season, Beecham temporarily withdrew from conducting to deal with a financial problem that he described as "the most trying and unpleasant experience of my life". Influenced by an ambitious financier, James White , Sir Joseph Beecham had agreed, in July 1914, to buy the Covent Garden estate from the Duke of Bedford and float a limited company to manage the estate commercially. The deal
13065-623: The 1920s and 30s, in the 1960s and 1970s, and in the 2010s. World War I and the dissolution of the autocratic Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires resulted in the creation of new nation-states in Europe, most of them at least nominally democratic. In the 1920s democratic movements flourished and women's suffrage advanced, but the Great Depression brought disenchantment and most of the countries of Europe, Latin America, and Asia turned to strong-man rule or dictatorships. Fascism and dictatorships flourished in Nazi Germany , Italy , Spain and Portugal , as well as non-democratic governments in
13260-497: The 1970s and 1980s. This was followed by countries in East and South Asia by the mid-to-late 1980s. Economic malaise in the 1980s, along with resentment of Soviet oppression, contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union , the associated end of the Cold War , and the democratisation and liberalisation of the former Eastern bloc countries. The most successful of the new democracies were those geographically and culturally closest to western Europe, and they are now either part of
13455-423: The 20th century). In the 1860 United States census , the slave population had grown to four million, and in Reconstruction after the Civil War, three constitutional amendments were passed: the 13th Amendment (1865) that ended slavery; the 14th Amendment (1869) that gave black people citizenship, and the 15th Amendment (1870) that gave black males a nominal right to vote. Full enfranchisement of citizens
13650-462: The Beecham Symphony Orchestra played for Sergei Diaghilev 's Ballets Russes , both at Covent Garden and at the Krolloper in Berlin, under the batons of Beecham and Pierre Monteux , Diaghilev's chief conductor. Beecham was much admired for conducting the complicated new score of Stravinsky 's Petrushka , at two days' notice and without rehearsal, when Monteux became unavailable. While in Berlin, Beecham and his orchestra, in Beecham's words, caused
13845-420: The Beethoven symphonies during his career, and he made studio recordings of Nos. 2, 3, 4, 6, 7 and 8, and live recordings of No. 9 and Missa Solemnis . He conducted the Fourth Piano Concerto with pleasure (recording it with Arthur Rubinstein and the LPO) but avoided the Emperor Concerto when possible. Beecham was not known for his Bach but nonetheless chose Bach (arranged by Beecham) for his debut at
14040-563: The Beethovensaal in Berlin in the same years. As his sixtieth birthday approached, Beecham was advised by his doctors to take a year's complete break from music, and he planned to go abroad to rest in a warm climate. The Australian Broadcasting Commission had been seeking for several years to get him to conduct in Australia. The outbreak of war on 3 September 1939 obliged him to postpone his plans for several months, striving instead to secure
14235-648: The British premiere of Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier at Covent Garden, and a "Grand Season of Russian Opera and Ballet" at Drury Lane . At the latter there were three operas, all starring Feodor Chaliapin , and all new to Britain: Mussorgsky 's Boris Godunov and Khovanshchina , and Rimsky-Korsakov 's Ivan the Terrible . There were also 15 ballets, with leading dancers including Vaslav Nijinsky and Tamara Karsavina . The ballets included Debussy 's Jeux and his controversially erotic L'après-midi d'un faune , and
14430-489: The British premiere of Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring , six weeks after its first performance in Paris. Beecham shared Monteux's private dislike of the piece, much preferring Petrushka . Beecham did not conduct during this season; Monteux and others conducted the Beecham Symphony Orchestra. The following year, Beecham and his father presented Rimsky-Korsakov's The Maid of Pskov and Borodin 's Prince Igor , with Chaliapin, and Stravinsky's The Nightingale . During
14625-542: The British première of Strauss's Arabella . During 1933 and 1934, Beecham repelled attempts by John Christie to form a link between Christie's new Glyndebourne Festival and the Royal Opera House. Beecham and Toye fell out over the latter's insistence on bringing in a popular film star, Grace Moore , to sing Mimi in La bohème . The production was a box-office success, but an artistic failure. Beecham manoeuvred Toye out of
14820-555: The Catholic.'... I then rose from my meal, saluted him, and went musing up the valley road, pondering upon what it could be that the Jews sacrificed in this remote borough, but I could not for the life of me imagine what it was, though I have had a great many Jews among my friends." Belloc's later book The Jews , which came out in February 1922, sets out his specific views in detail with his own words. The work has variously been interpreted over
15015-669: The Distributist League broadly supported the Labour Party and the British trade union movement . Sir Henry Slesser , a notable Labour Member of Parliament , served as one of the League's biggest supporters. During the 1930s, the Soviet Union appeared the biggest enemy to the cause of the distributists, and a move towards monarchism and to support for fascist Italy took place. Upon Chesterton's death, G. K.'s Weekly openly backed
15210-506: The Duke's staff, and in October 1916, Joseph Beecham died suddenly, with the transaction still uncompleted. The matter was brought before the civil courts with the aim of disentangling Sir Joseph's affairs; the court and all parties agreed that a private company should be formed, with his two sons as directors, to complete the Covent Garden contract. In July 1918, the Duke and his trustees conveyed
15405-577: The Europeans. This democracy continues to the present day and is the world's oldest standing representative democracy. While most regions in Europe during the Middle Ages were ruled by clergy or feudal lords , there existed various systems involving elections or assemblies, although often only involving a small part of the population. In Scandinavia , bodies known as things consisted of freemen presided by
15600-676: The First World War, Beecham strove, often without a fee, to keep music alive in London, Liverpool, Manchester and other British cities. He conducted for, and gave financial support to, three institutions with which he was connected at various times: the Hallé Orchestra, the LSO and the Royal Philharmonic Society. In 1915 he formed the Beecham Opera Company , with mainly British singers, performing in London and throughout
15795-542: The Hallé Orchestra as a guest conductor ceased after John Barbirolli became the orchestra's chief conductor in 1944. Beecham was, to his great indignation, ousted from the honorary presidency of the Hallé Concerts Society, and Barbirolli refused to "let that man near my orchestra". Beecham's relationship with the Liverpool Philharmonic, which he had first conducted in 1911, was resumed harmoniously after
15990-525: The Jewish race" and "the imputation of its evils to the Jews as a whole is a grave injustice" as evidence that Belloc held nuanced opinions alien to the discriminatory anti-Semites of the time. As well, rabbi David Dalin has commented positively on Belloc's study of how antisemitism comes in cycles, viewing Belloc's ideas as being perceptive. Critics taking a more negative view of Belloc's attitudes about Jews and Judaism have cited incidents such as when Belloc made
16185-477: The LSO's leading members. The principals included Paul Beard , George Stratton, Anthony Pini , Gerald Jackson , Léon Goossens , Reginald Kell , James Bradshaw and Marie Goossens . The orchestra made its debut at the Queen's Hall on 7 October 1932, conducted by Beecham. After the first item, Berlioz's Roman Carnival Overture , the audience went wild, some of them standing on their seats to clap and shout. During
16380-582: The London Philharmonic was triumphant, but the orchestra, now, after his help in 1939, a self-governing co-operative , attempted to hire him on its own terms as its salaried artistic director. "I emphatically refuse", concluded Beecham, "to be wagged by any orchestra ... I am going to found one more great orchestra to round off my career." When Walter Legge founded the Philharmonia Orchestra in 1945, Beecham conducted its first concert. But he
16575-852: The London Philharmonic, and he conducted its first performance at the Queen's Hall in 1932. In the 1940s he worked for three years in the United States, where he was music director of the Seattle Symphony and conducted at the Metropolitan Opera . After his return to Britain, he founded the Royal Philharmonic in 1946 and conducted it until his death in 1961. Beecham's repertoire was eclectic, sometimes favouring lesser-known composers over famous ones. His specialities included composers whose works were neglected in Britain before he became their advocate, such as Delius and Berlioz . Other composers with whose music he
16770-558: The London Symphony Orchestra that lasted for the rest of the 1920s. Towards the end of the decade, he negotiated inconclusively with the BBC over the possibility of establishing a permanent radio orchestra. In 1931, Beecham was approached by the rising young conductor Malcolm Sargent with a proposal to set up a permanent, salaried orchestra with a subsidy guaranteed by Sargent's patrons, the Courtauld family. Originally Sargent and Beecham envisaged
16965-787: The Metropolitan Opera. He later gave the Third Brandenburg Concerto in one of his memorial concerts for Wilhelm Furtwängler (a performance described by The Times as "a travesty, albeit an invigorating one"). In Brahms's music, Beecham was selective. He made a speciality of the Second Symphony but conducted the Third only occasionally, the First rarely, and the Fourth never. In his memoirs he made no mention of any Brahms performance after
17160-549: The New Symphony Orchestra parted company, disagreeing about artistic control and, in particular, the deputy system. Under this system, orchestral players, if offered a better-paid engagement elsewhere, could send a substitute to a rehearsal or a concert. The treasurer of the Royal Philharmonic Society described it thus: " A , whom you want, signs to play at your concert. He sends B (whom you don't mind) to
17355-511: The North American tour, Beecham conducted 49 concerts in almost daily succession. In 1951, he was invited to conduct at Covent Garden after a 12-year absence. State-funded for the first time, the opera company operated quite differently from his pre-war regime. Instead of short, star-studded seasons, with a major symphony orchestra, the new director David Webster was attempting to build up a permanent ensemble of home-grown talent performing all
17550-463: The Orchestra. … The musicians were entirely unselfconscious with him. Instinctively they accorded him the artistic authority which he did not expressly claim. Thus he obtained the best from them and they gave it without reserve." By the early 1930s, Beecham had secured substantial control of the Covent Garden opera seasons. Wishing to concentrate on music-making rather than management, he assumed
17745-484: The Roman Empire collapsed: Roman territory was conquered by small fragmented groups of Germanic tribes, thus leading to the creation of small political units where rulers were relatively weak and needed the consent of the governed to ward off foreign threats. In Poland , noble democracy was characterized by an increase in the activity of the middle nobility , which wanted to increase their share in exercising power at
17940-514: The Spaniards of the Kingdom of Castile, went through every phase of this cycle in its fullest form. England passed through even greater extremes, for England was the only country which absolutely got rid of the Jews for hundreds of years, and England is the only country which has, even for a brief period, entered into something like an alliance with them." On the integration of Jews into British society at
18135-493: The accusations as biased and misleading. Hilaire Belloc founded a weekly newspaper in 1911 that he titled The Eye-Witness . The publication lasted only a year, though it gained notoriety for publishing articles on the Marconi scandal . It was the first place in which Gilbert Chesterton released the famous poem Lepanto . Belloc focused his energies on anti-capitalist and anti-communist articles fighting against what he saw as
18330-410: The case that Belloc had no real prejudices against Jews and as a purported statement by Belloc of the historical view that Jewish integration 'inevitably' causes friction, being insensitive at best. Belloc specifically wrote, "It has been a series of cycles invariably following the same steps. The Jew comes to an alien society, at first in small numbers. He thrives. His presence is not resented. He
18525-521: The charter made Mali more similar to a constitutional monarchy than a democratic republic . The Parliament of England had its roots in the restrictions on the power of kings written into Magna Carta (1215), which explicitly protected certain rights of the King's subjects and implicitly supported what became the English writ of habeas corpus , safeguarding individual freedom against unlawful imprisonment with
18720-464: The children. The servants are Christians.' 'Why,' said I, 'that is only just and proper, that the Jewish families from beyond the frontier should have local Christian people to wait on them and do their bidding. But what I was going to say was that so very few Jews seem to me an insufficient fuel to fire the anti-Semites. How does their opinion flourish?" 'In this way,' he answered. 'The Jews, you see, ridicule our young men for holding such superstitions as
18915-399: The collusion of the many British government members with corrupt forces , writing in a brash style. Belloc would relinquish the editorship to Cecil Chesterton but continued writing for it. When Charles Granville , backer of The Eye-Witness , went bankrupt in 1912 Chesterton's father would finance the magazine under the title The New Witness . The style and contents remained essentially
19110-497: The composer's works received little exposure, Beecham presented most of them and recorded many. Along with Sir Colin Davis , Beecham has been described as one of the two "foremost modern interpreters" of Berlioz's music. Both in concert and the recording studio, Beecham's choices of French music were characteristically eclectic. He avoided Ravel but regularly programmed Debussy. Fauré did not feature often, although his orchestral Pavane
19305-515: The convention that forbade detention lacking sufficient cause or evidence. After the Glorious Revolution of 1688, the Bill of Rights was enacted in 1689 which codified certain rights and liberties and is still in effect. The Bill set out the requirement for regular elections, rules for freedom of speech in Parliament and limited the power of the monarch, ensuring that, unlike much of Europe at
19500-553: The country. In 1916, he received a knighthood in the New Year Honours and succeeded to the baronetcy on his father's death later that year. After the war, there were joint Covent Garden seasons with the Grand Opera Syndicate in 1919 and 1920, but these were, according to a biographer, pale confused echoes of the years before 1914. These seasons included forty productions, of which Beecham conducted only nine. After
19695-644: The courts for the first 130 years after ratification. In 1789, Revolutionary France adopted the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen and, although short-lived, the National Convention was elected by all men in 1792. The Polish-Lithuanian Constitution of 3 May 1791 sought to implement a more effective constitutional monarchy , introduced political equality between townspeople and nobility, and placed
19890-428: The degree in which Belloc's anti-capitalism and anti-communism crosses into antisemitic canards about supposed Jewish involvement in international politics, with his work being both criticized (by figures such as Frederic Raphael ) and defended (by figures such as J.B. Morton ). Belloc responded to criticisms in his own lifetime, writing in 1924, that he would never support works in which "a Jew has been attacked as
20085-544: The editor at times. G.K.'s Weekly generally published from a viewpoint of distributism , social traditionalism, and democratic pluralism, with criticism against both ' big government ' and ' big business ' while in support of the 'common man' (in Chesterton's view) intermingled with commentary on social and cultural topics. He would condemn ideological trends such as Marxist-Leninism in depth while drawing upon his own strong Roman Catholic faith. As in his books, Chesterton
20280-584: The effort, the complete series of publications therefore reads as In total, the series of publications featured hundreds of articles, including well over a hundred poems. Some essays from G.K.'s Weekly have appeared in the books The Outline of Sanity , The Well and the Shallows , The End of the Armistice , The Common Man , and The Coloured Lands . Some originals of the weekly have been collected by educational institutions such as Christendom College . The bulk of
20475-674: The elected members of the Provincial Administrative Councils would elect members to the first Parliament . Later that year, a new constitution was promulgated, which provided for a bicameral Parliament with a Senate appointed by the Sultan and a popularly elected Chamber of Deputies . Only men above the age of 30 who were competent in Turkish and had full civil rights were allowed to stand for election. Reasons for disqualification included holding dual citizenship, being employed by
20670-409: The estate to the new company, subject to a mortgage of the balance of the purchase price still outstanding: £1.25 million. Beecham and his brother Henry had to sell enough of their father's estate to discharge this mortgage. For more than three years, Beecham was absent from the musical scene, working to sell property worth over £1 million. By 1923 enough money had been raised. The mortgage
20865-456: The expense of the magnates. Magnates dominated the most important offices in the state (secular and ecclesiastical) and sat on the royal council, later the senate. The growing importance of the middle nobility had an impact on the establishment of the institution of the land sejmik (local assembly), which subsequently obtained more rights. During the fifteenth and first half of the sixteenth century, sejmiks received more and more power and became
21060-616: The far right forces of Francisco Franco during the Spanish Civil War . Nonetheless, the Distributist League and its followers backed the British declaration of war against the Axis Powers in 1939. Attitudes to Benito Mussolini specifically (whom GKC interviewed, see the Maisie Ward biography) in the 1930s has attracted attention. Chesterton made somewhat favourable remarks about contemporary Italy in his Autobiography (1935). However,
21255-520: The first rehearsal. B , without your knowledge or consent, sends C to the second rehearsal. Not being able to play at the concert, C sends D , whom you would have paid five shillings to stay away." Henry Wood had already banned the deputy system in the Queen's Hall Orchestra (provoking rebel players to found the London Symphony Orchestra), and Beecham followed suit. The New Symphony Orchestra survived without him and subsequently became
21450-413: The following controversial statements in a conversation with Hugh Kingsmill and Hesketh Pearson : Author Robert Speaight , however, has cited a private letter by Belloc to one of his Jewish-American friends in the 1920s in which Belloc pilloried conspiracy theorist Nesta Helen Webster for her accusations against "the Jews". Webster had rejected Christianity , studied Eastern religions , accepted
21645-555: The foot of the street was an inn where I entered to eat, and finding there another man- I take him to have been a shopkeeper- I determined to talk politics, and began as follows: 'Have you any anti-Semitism in your town?' 'It is not my town,' he said, 'but there is anti-Semitism. It flourishes.' 'Why then?' I asked. 'How many Jews have you in your town?' He said there were seven. 'But,' said I, 'seven families of Jews-' 'There are not seven families,' he interrupted; 'there are seven Jews all told. There are but two families, and I am reckoning in
21840-637: The founding documents of liberal thought and profoundly influenced the leaders of the American Revolution and later the French Revolution . His liberal democratic framework of governance remains the preeminent form of democracy in the world. In the Cossack republics of Ukraine in the 16th and 17th centuries, the Cossack Hetmanate and Zaporizhian Sich , the holder of the highest post of Hetman
22035-443: The future of the London Philharmonic, whose financial guarantees had been withdrawn by its backers when war was declared. Before leaving, Beecham raised large sums of money for the orchestra and helped its members to form themselves into a self-governing company. Beecham left Britain in the spring of 1940, going first to Australia and then to North America. He became music director of the Seattle Symphony in 1941. In 1942 he joined
22230-481: The governed , voting rights , freedom from unwarranted governmental deprivation of the right to life and liberty , and minority rights . The notion of democracy has evolved considerably over time. Throughout history, one can find evidence of direct democracy, in which communities make decisions through popular assembly . Today, the dominant form of democracy is representative democracy, where citizens elect government officials to govern on their behalf such as in
22425-495: The government but by living in a city that was not subject to another power and by not being subjects themselves to the rule of another person. Range voting appeared in Sparta as early as 700 BC. The Spartan ecclesia was an assembly of the people, held once a month, in which every male citizen of at least 20 years of age could participate. In the assembly, Spartans elected leaders and cast votes by range voting and shouting (the vote
22620-609: The government, Herbert Samuel , was accused and no evidence was ever shown of his involvement. Godfrey Isaacs sued successfully; he was the brother of the politician Rufus Isaacs , who was cleared by Parliament, but had a case to answer. Belloc's views from the Edwardian period , when he was most engaged in political writing, have been discussed by later authors such as in the work Hilaire Belloc: Edwardian Radical by McCarthy. During this period, Belloc's social criticism frequently had in its targets corrupt business practices, what he saw as
22815-527: The great operas, and introduced Covent Garden audiences who had rarely if ever heard them to Così fan tutte , Der Schauspieldirektor and Die Entführung aus dem Serail ; he also regularly programmed The Magic Flute , Don Giovanni and The Marriage of Figaro . He considered the best of Mozart's piano concertos to be "the most beautiful compositions of their kind in the world", and he played them many times with Betty Humby-Beecham and others. Beecham's attitude towards 19th-century German repertoire
23010-594: The growth of political philosophy on the British Isles. Thomas Hobbes was the first philosopher to articulate a detailed social contract theory . Writing in the Leviathan (1651), Hobbes theorized that individuals living in the state of nature led lives that were "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short" and constantly waged a war of all against all . In order to prevent the occurrence of an anarchic state of nature, Hobbes reasoned that individuals ceded their rights to
23205-413: The higher levels, he asserted, in the same book, "[T]hose of the great territorial English families in which there was no Jewish blood were the exception. In nearly all of them was the stain more or less marked, in some of them so strong that though the name was still an English name and the tradition those of a purely English lineage of the long past, the physique and character had become wholly Jewish and
23400-440: The issue of suffrage to the individual states. Generally, states limited suffrage to white male property owners and taxpayers. At the time of the first Presidential election in 1789 , about 6% of the population was eligible to vote. The Naturalization Act of 1790 limited U.S. citizenship to whites only. The Bill of Rights in 1791 set limits on government power to protect personal freedoms but had little impact on judgements by
23595-449: The likelihood increased that the government would turn despotic. At the same time, small political units were vulnerable to conquest. Montesquieu wrote, "If a republic be small, it is destroyed by a foreign force; if it is large, it is ruined by an internal imperfection." According to Johns Hopkins University political scientist Daniel Deudney , the creation of the United States, with its large size and its system of checks and balances,
23790-413: The lowest levels of authority), political equality , and social norms by which individuals and institutions only consider acceptable acts that reflect the first two principles of upward control and political equality. Legal equality , political freedom and rule of law are often identified by commentators as foundational characteristics for a well-functioning democracy. In some countries, notably in
23985-401: The major democracies began to do so in the 1970s starting in Western Europe and North America. Most electoral democracies continue to exclude those younger than 18 from voting. The voting age has been lowered to 16 for national elections in a number of countries, including Brazil, Austria, Cuba, and Nicaragua. In California, a 2004 proposal to permit a quarter vote at 14 and a half vote at 16
24180-429: The managing directorship in what their fellow conductor Sir Adrian Boult described as an "absolutely beastly" manner. From 1935 to 1939, Beecham, now in sole control, presented international seasons with eminent guest singers and conductors. Beecham conducted between a third and half of the performances each season. He intended the 1940 season to include the first complete performances of Berlioz's Les Troyens , but
24375-442: The material published was composed by Gilbert Chesterton himself (the precursor publications before 1925 had far less involvement by him). Besides standard works of a publication of its type at the time such as long essays and short news items, he intended to use it as a kind of ' scrapbook ' and added a variety of other material such as poems , pieces of fiction, cartoons , and so on. He additionally would personally answer letters to
24570-401: The medieval period to urban agglomeration and the creation of new classes, such as artisans, as well as the presence of nobility and religious elites. Scholars have also linked the emergence of representative government to Europe's relative political fragmentation. Political scientist David Stasavage links the fragmentation of Europe, and its subsequent democratization, to the manner in which
24765-409: The members of the family were taken for Jews whenever they travelled in countries where the gentry had not yet suffered or enjoyed the admixture." Thus, while highlighting Jewish and non-Jewish conflict and viewing it as common as well as natural, Belloc also portrayed the situation as morally wrong and regrettable, with Jewish citizens of Christian nations being unfairly victimized. His approach took on
24960-451: The more than two dozen operas in the Verdi canon, Beecham conducted eight during his long career: Il trovatore , La traviata , Aida , Don Carlos , Rigoletto , Un ballo in maschera , Otello and Falstaff . As early as 1904, Beecham met Puccini through the librettist Luigi Illica , who had written the libretto for Beecham's youthful attempt at composing an Italian opera. At
25155-641: The most important institutions of local power. In 1454, Casimir IV Jagiellon granted the sejmiks the right to decide on taxes and to convene a mass mobilization in the Nieszawa Statutes . He also pledged not to create new laws without their consent. In 17th century England, there was renewed interest in Magna Carta . The Parliament of England passed the Petition of Right in 1628 which established certain liberties for subjects. The English Civil War (1642–1651)
25350-456: The next eight years, the LPO appeared nearly a hundred times at the Queen's Hall for the Royal Philharmonic Society alone, played for Beecham's opera seasons at Covent Garden, and made more than 300 gramophone records. Berta Geissmar , his secretary from 1936, wrote, "The relations between the Orchestra and Sir Thomas were always easy and cordial. He always treated a rehearsal as a joint undertaking with
25545-491: The outbreak of the Second World War caused the season to be abandoned. Beecham did not conduct again at Covent Garden until 1951, and by then it was no longer under his control. Beecham took the London Philharmonic on a controversial tour of Germany in 1936. There were complaints that he was being used by Nazi propagandists, and Beecham complied with a Nazi request not to play the Scottish Symphony of Mendelssohn , who
25740-423: The paying public. In his early discussions with his new orchestra, he proposed works by a long list of barely known composers such as Étienne Méhul , Nicolas Dalayrac and Ferdinando Paer . During this period, Beecham first encountered the music of Frederick Delius , which he at once loved deeply and with which he became closely associated for the rest of his life. Beecham quickly concluded that to compete with
25935-460: The peasants under the protection of the government, mitigating the worst abuses of serfdom . In force for less than 19 months, it was declared null and void by the Grodno Sejm that met in 1793. Nonetheless, the 1791 Constitution helped keep alive Polish aspirations for the eventual restoration of the country's sovereignty over a century later. In the United States, the 1828 presidential election
26130-472: The people have a right to rule". One study identified 2,234 adjectives used to describe democracy in the English language. Democratic principles are reflected in all eligible citizens being equal before the law and having equal access to legislative processes. For example, in a representative democracy , every vote has (in theory) equal weight, and the freedom of eligible citizens is secured by legitimised rights and liberties which are typically enshrined in
26325-546: The people", in contrast to aristocracy ( ἀριστοκρατία , aristokratía ), meaning "rule of an elite". Western democracy , as distinct from that which existed in antiquity, is generally considered to have originated in city-states such as those in Classical Athens and the Roman Republic , where various degrees of enfranchisement of the free male population were observed. In virtually all democratic governments throughout ancient and modern history, democratic citizenship
26520-416: The period before 1776 the abundance and availability of land meant that large numbers of colonists met such requirements with at least 60 per cent of adult white males able to vote. The great majority of white men were farmers who met the property ownership or taxpaying requirements. With few exceptions, no blacks or women could vote. Vermont , which, on declaring independence of Great Britain in 1777, adopted
26715-621: The piece in German. In 1953 at Oxford , Beecham presented the world premiere of Delius's first opera, Irmelin , and his last operatic performances in Britain were in 1955 at Bath , with Grétry 's Zémire et Azor . Between 1951 and 1960, Beecham conducted 92 concerts at the Royal Festival Hall . Characteristic Beecham programmes of the RPO years included symphonies by Bizet, Franck , Haydn , Schubert and Tchaikovsky ; Richard Strauss's Ein Heldenleben ; concertos by Mozart and Saint-Saëns ;
26910-534: The population in 1780. The first known British person of African heritage to vote in a general election, Ignatius Sancho , voted in 1774 and 1780. During the Age of Liberty in Sweden (1718–1772), civil rights were expanded and power shifted from the monarch to parliament. The taxed peasantry was represented in parliament, although with little influence, but commoners without taxed property had no suffrage. The creation of
27105-466: The powers of the majority are exercised within the framework of a representative democracy, but a constitution and supreme court limit the majority and protect the minority—usually through securing the enjoyment by all of certain individual rights, such as freedom of speech or freedom of association. The term appeared in the 5th century BC in Greek city-states , notably Classical Athens , to mean "rule of
27300-436: The press are considered important to ensure that voters are well informed, enabling them to vote according to their own interests and beliefs. It has also been suggested that a basic feature of democracy is the capacity of all voters to participate freely and fully in the life of their society. With its emphasis on notions of social contract and the collective will of all the voters, democracy can also be characterised as
27495-421: The public, Beecham's musical activities at this time consistently lost money. As a result of his estrangement from his father between 1899 and 1909, his access to the Beecham family fortune was strictly limited. From 1907 he had an annuity of £700 left to him in his grandfather's will, and his mother subsidised some of his loss-making concerts, but it was not until father and son were reconciled in 1909 that Beecham
27690-498: The publication meant that contributors could expect little or no reward. One later famous name who first broke into journalism this way was George Orwell (then going by 'E. A. Blair'). Editorial policy in the latter days of G. K.'s Weekly in terms of foreign policy and also electoral politics involved nuanced positions, with Gilbert Chesterton providing a generally moderating influence. Chesterton, for example, held ambiguous and conflicted views about Italy under fascism . Until 1929,
27885-749: The resident orchestra at Glyndebourne each summer. He secured backing, including that of record companies in the US as well as Britain, with whom lucrative recording contracts were negotiated. As in 1909 and in 1932, Beecham's assistants recruited in the freelance pool and elsewhere. Original members of the RPO included James Bradshaw, Dennis Brain , Leonard Brain, Archie Camden , Gerald Jackson and Reginald Kell. The orchestra later became celebrated for its regular team of woodwind principals, often referred to as "The Royal Family", consisting of Jack Brymer (clarinet), Gwydion Brooke (bassoon), Terence MacDonagh (oboe) and Gerald Jackson (flute). Beecham's long association with
28080-492: The right to appeal. The first representative national assembly in England was Simon de Montfort's Parliament in 1265. The emergence of petitioning is some of the earliest evidence of parliament being used as a forum to address the general grievances of ordinary people. However, the power to call parliament remained at the pleasure of the monarch. Studies have linked the emergence of parliamentary institutions in Europe during
28275-490: The rival Grand Opera Syndicate put on a concurrent season of its own at Covent Garden; London's total opera performances for the year amounted to 273 performances, far more than the box-office demand could support. Of the 34 operas that Beecham staged in 1910, only four made money: Richard Strauss 's new operas Elektra and Salome , receiving their first, and highly publicised, performances in Britain, and The Tales of Hoffmann and Die Fledermaus . In 1911 and 1912,
28470-549: The role of artistic director, and Geoffrey Toye was recruited as managing director. In 1933, Tristan und Isolde with Frida Leider and Lauritz Melchior was a success, and the season continued with the Ring cycle and nine other operas. The 1934 season featured Conchita Supervía in La Cenerentola , and Lotte Lehmann and Alexander Kipnis in the Ring . Clemens Krauss conducted
28665-634: The same. Gilbert Chesterton took over as editor in 1916 when his brother left to serve in the British Army during the Great War . Chesterton spent seven years (1916–1923) continuing at the helm of The New Witness , enduring the loss of his brother in 1918. Taking advice to fundamentally change the publication, on 21 March 1925, Chesterton unveiled G.K.'s Weekly . With the continuation of G. K.'s Weekly even after Gilbert's death, with Belloc's son-in-law Reginald Jebb joining alongside Hilary Pepler to support
28860-432: The sense that the people through the assembly, boule and courts of law controlled the entire political process and a large proportion of citizens were involved constantly in the public business. Even though the rights of the individual were not secured by the Athenian constitution in the modern sense (the ancient Greeks had no word for "rights" ), those who were citizens of Athens enjoyed their liberties not in opposition to
29055-419: The short-lived Corsican Republic in 1755 was an early attempt to adopt a democratic constitution (all men and women above age of 25 could vote). This Corsican Constitution was the first based on Enlightenment principles and included female suffrage , something that was not included in most other democracies until the 20th century. Colonial America had similar property qualifications as Britain, and in
29250-486: The small' or casual, and in the large when he seriously addressed the question. Bernard Levin , a leading British columnist who frequently quoted Chesterton, in The Case for Chesterton brought up some of his light verse, and said "The best one can say of Chesterton's anti-semitism is that it was less vile than Belloc's; let us leave it at that." Joseph Pearce wrote that It is clear that such verses may cause offence, but it
29445-495: The state as "odious" and particularly condemned Nazi antisemitism. In 1940s The Catholic and the War , Belloc asserted, "The Third Reich has treated its Jewish subjects with a contempt for justice which even if there had been no other action of the kind in other departments would be a sufficient warranty for determining its elimination from Europe". Points often made about Chesterton's attitude to Jews relate to well-known writings, both 'in
29640-595: The summer of 1958, Beecham conducted a season at the Teatro Colón , Buenos Aires, Argentina, consisting of Verdi's Otello , Bizet's Carmen , Beethoven's Fidelio , Saint-Saëns's Samson and Delilah and Mozart's The Magic Flute . These were his last operatic performances. It was during this season that Betty Humby died suddenly. She was cremated in Buenos Aires and her ashes returned to England. Beecham's own last illness prevented his operatic debut at Glyndebourne in
29835-430: The time of the Second Boer War to the Spanish Civil War , via the Marconi scandal . Bryan Cheyette speaks of Chesterton's 'literary decline' from around 1922, and writes To his detriment, Chesterton's fiction at this time seems to be unduly influenced by Belloc's Barnett quartet with its constant reference to all-powerful Jewish plutocrats [...] Litvinoff also cites Chesterton commenting on Henry Ford Sr. 's view on
30030-406: The time of their meeting, Puccini and Illica were revising Madama Butterfly after its disastrous première. Beecham rarely conducted that work, but he conducted Tosca , Turandot and La bohème . His 1956 recording of La bohème , with Victoria de los Ángeles and Jussi Björling , has seldom been out of the catalogues since its release and received more votes than any other operatic set in
30225-410: The time, royal absolutism would not prevail. Economic historians Douglass North and Barry Weingast have characterized the institutions implemented in the Glorious Revolution as a resounding success in terms of restraining the government and ensuring protection for property rights. Renewed interest in the Magna Carta, the English Civil War, and the Glorious Revolution in the 17th century prompted
30420-406: The two existing London orchestras, the Queen's Hall Orchestra and the recently founded London Symphony Orchestra (LSO), his forces must be expanded to full symphonic strength and play in larger halls. For two years starting in October 1907, Beecham and the enlarged New Symphony Orchestra gave concerts at the Queen's Hall. He paid little attention to the box office: his programmes were described by
30615-407: The ultimate authority was held by the Crown and the English Parliament. The Puritans ( Pilgrim Fathers ), Baptists , and Quakers who founded these colonies applied the democratic organisation of their congregations also to the administration of their communities in worldly matters. The first Parliament of Great Britain was established in 1707, after the merger of the Kingdom of England and
30810-442: The very beginning of his career) George Orwell . The relationship between the Distributist League and G. K.'s Weekly being a very close one, the publication advocated the philosophy of distributism in contrast to both the centre-right and centre-left attitudes of the time regarding socialism and industrialism . In terms of criticism, the publication has garnered condemnation for alleged anti-Semitic prejudice to be found in
31005-490: The views of Gilbert and Cecil Chesterton as well as of Hilaire Belloc. The controversy has involved sorting out the distinct differences in the opinions of the three men versus that of others within the publication, as essentially everyone featured had their own nuances to their viewpoints and would disagree among themselves. Critics have alleged that the writers often featured false stereotypes and made ignorant arguments about British capitalistic society while defenders have viewed
31200-406: The war. A manager of the orchestra recalled, "It was an unwritten law in Liverpool that first choice of dates offered to guest conductors was given to Beecham. ... In Liverpool there was one over-riding factor – he was adored." Beecham, whom the BBC called "Britain's first international conductor", took the RPO on a strenuous tour through the United States, Canada and South Africa in 1950. During
31395-459: The weekly received a great deal of criticism during the time of publication, leading Gilbert Chesterton to quip that he got "called insane for attempting to return to sanity." Letters to the editor that G. K.'s Weekly ran included commentary from H. G. Wells and Oscar Levy . There is a continuing debate about the extent of anti-Semitic prejudice to be found in the views of Gilbert and Cecil Chesterton as well as of Belloc. Complicating matters
31590-430: The world's populations lived in nominal democracies that experienced sham elections, and other forms of subterfuge (particularly in "Communist" states and the former colonies). A subsequent wave of democratisation brought substantial gains toward true liberal democracy for many states, dubbed "third wave of democracy". Portugal, Spain, and several of the military dictatorships in South America returned to civilian rule in
31785-468: The year 1909. Beecham was a great Wagnerian , despite his frequent expostulation about the composer's length and repetitiousness: "We've been rehearsing for two hours – and we're still playing the same bloody tune!" Beecham conducted all the works in the regular Wagner canon with the exception of Parsifal , which he presented at Covent Garden but never with himself in the pit. The chief music critic of The Times observed: "Beecham's Lohengrin
31980-446: The year round, in English translations. Extreme economy in productions and great attention to the box-office were essential, and Beecham, though he had been hurt and furious at his exclusion, was not suited to participate in such an undertaking. When offered a chorus of eighty singers for his return, conducting Die Meistersinger , he insisted on augmenting their number to 200. He also, contrary to Webster's policy, insisted on performing
32175-452: The years, with some critics finding it deeply flawed though with good intentions, tinged with antisemitism, while others viewing it as rather fair for its day. Belloc identified a cycle of persecution faced by Jewish families in the various places in which they lived, a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy caused by evolving social views, and he coined the phrase " the tragic cycle of anti-Semitism". The Jews has been construed both as supporting
32370-488: Was Zélie de Lussan , a leading exponent of the title role. Beecham was also composing music in these early years, but he was not satisfied with his own efforts and instead concentrated on conducting. In 1906 Beecham was invited to conduct the New Symphony Orchestra , a recently formed ensemble of 46 players, in a series of concerts at the Bechstein Hall in London. Throughout his career, Beecham frequently chose to programme works to suit his own tastes rather than those of
32565-416: Was 27, he 80. The earliest composer whose music Beecham regularly performed was Handel , whom he called, "the great international master of all time. ... He wrote Italian music better than any Italian; French music better than any Frenchman; English music better than any Englishman; and, with the exception of Bach, outrivalled all other Germans." In his performances of Handel, Beecham ignored what he called
32760-409: Was Gilbert's sub-editor), is a manifestation of the political and economic doctrine of distributism . This was mainly the work of Belloc, Gilbert and Cecil Chesterton, and Arthur Penty , and had its origins in an Edwardian-era split of Fabian socialism in London circles, around A. R. Orage and his prominent publication The New Age . In fact, in founding The Eye-Witness , Belloc took a title of
32955-427: Was a Christian by faith but a Jew by birth. In Berlin, Beecham's concert was attended by Adolf Hitler , whose lack of punctuality caused Beecham to remark very audibly, "The old bugger's late." After this tour, Beecham refused renewed invitations to give concerts in Germany, although he honoured contractual commitments to conduct at the Berlin State Opera , in 1937 and 1938, and recorded The Magic Flute for EMI in
33150-409: Was a solution to the dual problems of size. Forms of democracy occurred organically in societies around the world that had no contact with each other. The term democracy first appeared in ancient Greek political and philosophical thought in the city-state of Athens during classical antiquity . The word comes from dêmos '(common) people' and krátos 'force/might'. Under Cleisthenes , what
33345-464: Was a tireless fund-raiser for his musical enterprises. Beecham's biographers are agreed that she was in love with him, but that his feelings for her were less strong. During the 1920s and 1930s, Beecham also had an affair with Dora Labbette , a soprano sometimes known as Lisa Perli, with whom he had a son, Paul Strang, born in March 1933. Strang, a lawyer who served on the boards of several musical institutions, died in April 2024. In 1943 Lady Cunard
33540-418: Was able to draw on the family fortune to promote opera. From 1910, subsidised by his father, Beecham realised his ambition to mount opera seasons at Covent Garden and other houses. In the Edwardian opera house, the star singers were regarded as all-important, and conductors were seen as ancillary. Between 1910 and 1939 Beecham did much to change the balance of power. In 1910, Beecham either conducted or
33735-448: Was almost Italian in its lyricism; his Ring was less heroic than Bruno Walter's or Furtwängler's, but it sang from beginning to end". Richard Strauss had a lifelong champion in Beecham, who introduced Elektra , Salome , Der Rosenkavalier and other operas to England. Beecham programmed Ein Heldenleben from 1910 until his last year; his final recording of it was released shortly after his death. Don Quixote , Till Eulenspiegel ,
33930-515: Was an exception; Beecham's final recording sessions in 1959 included the Pavane and the Dolly Suite . Bizet was among Beecham's favourites, and other French composers favoured by him included Gustave Charpentier , Delibes , Duparc , Grétry, Lalo, Lully , Offenbach, Saint-Saëns and Ambroise Thomas . Many of Beecham's later recordings of French music were made in Paris with the Orchestre National de la Radiodiffusion Française . " C'est un dieu ", their concertmaster said of Beecham in 1957. Of
34125-421: Was at Portsmouth Guildhall on 7 May 1960. The programme, all characteristic choices, comprised the Magic Flute Overture, Haydn's Symphony No. 100 (the Military ), Beecham's own Handel arrangement, Love in Bath , Schubert's Symphony No. 5 , On the River by Delius, and the Bacchanale from Samson and Delilah . Beecham died of a coronary thrombosis at his London residence, aged 81, on 8 March 1961. He
34320-485: Was buried two days later in Brookwood Cemetery , Surrey. Owing to changes at Brookwood, his remains were exhumed in 1991 and reburied in St Peter 's Churchyard at Limpsfield , Surrey, close to the joint grave of Delius and his wife Jelka Rosen . Beecham was married three times. In 1903 he married Utica Celestina Welles, daughter of Dr Charles S. Welles, of New York, and his wife Ella Celeste, née Miles. Beecham and his wife had two sons: Adrian, born in 1904, who became
34515-434: Was described by The Times as "one of the largest ever carried out in real estate in London". Sir Joseph paid an initial deposit of £200,000 and covenanted to pay the balance of the £2 million purchase price on 11 November. Within a month, however, the First World War broke out, and new official restrictions on the use of capital prevented the completion of the contract. The estate and market continued to be managed by
34710-419: Was devastated to learn (not from Beecham) that he intended to divorce Utica to marry Betty Humby , a concert pianist 29 years his junior. Beecham married Betty in 1943, and they were a devoted couple until her death in 1958. On 10 August 1959, two years before his death, he married in Zurich his former secretary, Shirley Hudson, who had worked for the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra's administration since 1950. She
34905-418: Was discharged, and Beecham's personal liabilities, amounting to £41,558, were paid in full. In 1924 the Covent Garden property and the pill-making business at St Helens were united in one company, Beecham Estates and Pills. The nominal capital was £1,850,000, of which Beecham had a substantial share. After his absence, Beecham first reappeared on the rostrum conducting the Hallé in Manchester in March 1923, in
35100-435: Was elected by the representatives from the country's districts. In North America, representative government began in Jamestown, Virginia , with the election of the House of Burgesses (forerunner of the Virginia General Assembly ) in 1619. English Puritans who migrated from 1620 established colonies in New England whose local governance was democratic; although these local assemblies had some small amounts of devolved power,
35295-443: Was equivocal. He frequently disparaged Beethoven, Wagner and others, but regularly conducted their works, often with great success. He observed, "Wagner, though a tremendous genius, gorged music like a German who overeats. And Bruckner was a hobbledehoy who had no style at all ... Even Beethoven thumped the tub; the Ninth symphony was composed by a kind of Mr. Gladstone of music." Despite his criticisms, Beecham conducted all
35490-499: Was established in France in March 1848 in the wake of the French Revolution of 1848 . During that year, several revolutions broke out in Europe as rulers were confronted with popular demands for liberal constitutions and more democratic government. In 1876, the Ottoman Empire transitioned from an absolute monarchy to a constitutional one, and held two elections the next year to elect members to her newly formed parliament. Provisional Electoral Regulations were issued, stating that
35685-451: Was estranged from his father for ten years. Beecham's professional début as a conductor was in 1902 at the Shakespeare Theatre, Clapham , with Balfe 's The Bohemian Girl , for the Imperial Grand Opera Company. He was engaged as assistant conductor for a tour and was allotted four other operas, including Carmen and Pagliacci . A Beecham biographer calls the company "grandly named but decidedly ramshackle", though Beecham's Carmen
35880-407: Was fought between the King and an oligarchic but elected Parliament, during which the idea of a political party took form with groups debating rights to political representation during the Putney Debates of 1647. Subsequently, the Protectorate (1653–59) and the English Restoration (1660) restored more autocratic rule, although Parliament passed the Habeas Corpus Act in 1679 which strengthened
36075-470: Was frequently associated were Haydn , Schubert , Sibelius and the composer he revered above all others, Mozart . Beecham was born in St Helens , Lancashire (now Merseyside), in a house adjoining the Beecham's Pills laxative factory founded by his grandfather, Thomas Beecham . His parents were Joseph Beecham , the elder son of Thomas, and Josephine, née Burnett. In 1885, with the family firm flourishing financially, Joseph Beecham moved his family to
36270-433: Was initially restricted to an elite class, which was later extended to all adult citizens. In most modern democracies, this was achieved through the suffrage movements of the 19th and 20th centuries. Democracy contrasts with forms of government where power is not vested in the general population of a state, such as authoritarian systems. World public opinion strongly favors democratic systems of government. According to
36465-443: Was known for writing in the weekly in a pithy, witty style, such as with the following short book review: " Lenin by Leon Trotsky . The publication of this book has caused the exile of Trotsky; but there are books equally bad written every week without any specific punishment being inflicted". In a 1932 work in the publication, Chesterton argued, "Communism is that form of Capitalism in which all workers have an equal wage. Capitalism
36660-408: Was not a requirement for citizenship. The exclusion of large parts of the population from the citizen body is closely related to the ancient understanding of citizenship. In most of antiquity the benefit of citizenship was tied to the obligation to fight war campaigns. Athenian democracy was not only direct in the sense that decisions were made by the assembled people, but also the most direct in
36855-411: Was not disposed to accept a salaried position from Legge, his former assistant, any more than from his former players in the LPO. In 1946, Beecham founded the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (RPO), securing an agreement with the Royal Philharmonic Society that the new orchestra should replace the LPO at all the Society's concerts. Beecham later agreed with the Glyndebourne Festival that the RPO should be
37050-425: Was not secured until after the civil rights movement gained passage by the US Congress of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 . The voting franchise in the United Kingdom was expanded and made more uniform in a series of reforms that began with the Reform Act 1832 and continued into the 20th century, notably with the Representation of the People Act 1918 and the Equal Franchise Act 1928 . Universal male suffrage
37245-452: Was published in 1937; Belloc had taken over as president, and the vice-presidents included Eric Gill and T. S. Eliot . The Chesterbelloc moniker was coined by George Bernard Shaw for Gilbert Chesterton in partnership with Belloc. The description has stuck, though Shaw additionally remarked that he took issue with how the two were "bracketed together" given that they differed "widely in temperament". The ideological viewpoints advocated in
37440-440: Was responsible as impresario for 190 performances at Covent Garden and His Majesty's Theatre . His assistant conductors were Bruno Walter and Percy Pitt . During the year, he mounted 34 different operas, most of them either new to London or almost unknown there. Beecham later acknowledged that in his early years the operas he chose to present were too obscure to attract the public. During his 1910 season at His Majesty's,
37635-450: Was the Cortes of León . Established by Alfonso IX in 1188, the Cortes had authority over setting taxation, foreign affairs and legislating, though the exact nature of its role remains disputed. The Republic of Ragusa , established in 1358 and centered around the city of Dubrovnik , provided representation and voting rights to its male aristocracy only. Various Italian city-states and polities had republic forms of government. For instance,
37830-471: Was the first in which non-property-holding white males could vote in the vast majority of states. Voter turnout soared during the 1830s, reaching about 80% of the adult white male population in the 1840 presidential election . North Carolina was the last state to abolish property qualification in 1856 resulting in a close approximation to universal white male suffrage (however tax-paying requirements remained in five states in 1860 and survived in two states until
38025-495: Was ultimately defeated. In 2008, the German parliament proposed but shelved a bill that would grant the vote to each citizen at birth, to be used by a parent until the child claims it for themselves. According to Freedom House, starting in 2005, there have been 17 consecutive years in which declines in political rights and civil liberties throughout the world have outnumbered improvements, as populist and nationalist political forces have gained ground everywhere from Poland (under
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