Paul Strang, illegitimate son of Sir Thomas Beecham who co-founded a music museum – obituary

Paul Strang and his wife Jeanne – COURTESY OF JEANNE STRANG

Paul Strang, who has died aged 90, was the illegitimate son of Sir Thomas Beecham, the maverick conductor of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, whose absence loomed large over his life; a solicitor by profession, he floated around the classical music world as chairman of Trinity College of Music, co-founder of the Museum of Music History and champion of the Kathleen Ferrier prize.

Many benefited from his kindly generosity. One Friday afternoon he was in the principal’s office at Trinity College when a staff member burst in to announce that a Russian bassoonist had turned up not realising that accommodation was his own responsibility. Rather than let him incur a hotel bill, Strang called his wife and arranged for the student to stay in the basement flat of their home, where they enjoyed a convivial glass of wine.

Despite being no musician himself, Strang had a benevolent involvement in countless musical organisations. He was solicitor to the agent Ibbs & Tillett, a director of the Songmakers’ Almanac and supporter of young musicians through the Purcell School and the Young Classical Artists Trust.

Strang was also a great source of musical anecdotes. He told the St John’s Wood Memories website of Sunday-morning painting sessions with the contralto Kathleen Ferrier, rescuing Clifford Curzon from a railway siding in Boulogne after the pianist fell asleep on a train, and entertaining Benjamin Britten, “who said that he only kept the scores of Wagner’s operas in his house at Aldeburgh, ‘because that was where the death-watch beetle lived’ ”.

Sir Thomas Beecham – Bettmann

Paul Strang was born in London on March 26 1933, the son of Dora Labbette, a soprano whom Beecham had mischievously presented at Covent Garden disguised as “the new Italian nightingale Lisa Perli” to demonstrate how far a foreign name would travel in England. He used the surname of her former husband, the printmaker David Strang.

Paul was educated at Arnold House School, and during the war was evacuated to Shropshire. During holidays he helped his mother and her friend, “Aunt” Connie, to run a mobile canteen for the London Philharmonic Orchestra. In 1951 he was articled to Arthur Underwood, a solicitor, lodging with his mother’s friend Emmie Tillett, who ran Ibbs & Tillett.

Countless classical musicians passed through her house including the composer Zoltán Kodály, “whose impenetrable Hungarian had to be interpreted by a handy neighbour”, and the pianists Myra Hess, “who had an entourage of very butch ladies whom Emmie would do anything to keep at bay”, and Shura Cherkassky, “who would not perform in London until he had come to stroke Emmie’s cat”.

On occasion he attended Beecham’s concerts and afterwards visited his father’s dressing room, “but more often than not he had gone… he distributed his favours among the London hotels very liberally,” he told Great Lives on Radio 4. On one occasion Beecham visited Emmie Tillett’s home for an uncomfortable dinner at which his son was “so awestruck that I probably didn’t utter a word”.

Beecham died in 1961, and gradually attitudes mellowed sufficiently for Strang to discuss his father’s legacy. In 2000 he spoke for the first time in public about life as the illegitimate son of a famous conductor for The Musical Side of the Family on Radio 4.

Having joined the board of Trinity College of Music in 1974 he became chairman in 1992, helping to develop its move to Greenwich in 2001 and later the merger to form Trinity Laban Conservatoire. In 1986 he was an SDP candidate for Westminster City Council.

Paul Strang married Jeanne Heslop in 1965. They lived in Hamilton Terrace, St John’s Wood, where their neighbours included the conductor Sir Charles Mackerras and the trumpeter Philip Jones. Jeanne died last year.

Paul Strang, born March 26 1933, died March 18 2024

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