Conductor Sir Thomas Beecham was one of the two most influential pioneers of early orchestral recording history, alongside Leopold Stokowski, both artists strikingly displaying a new potential in the gramophone's capacity for quality orchestra reproduction through the brilliant sonorities and dynamic shadings of their discs. When Sir Thomas formed his handpicked London Philharmonic Orchestra in 1932, it is not an exaggeration to say that a new era of the very highest artistic and virtuosic orchestral quality was born, and he quickly discovered how to seize the kaleidoscopic colours, rhythmic panache and tight discipline of his LPO performances for the gramophone. He repeated the procedure again when he created his Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in 1946, and his prolific recording operations with both orchestras set legendary standards of artistry, virtuosity and sonority in gramophone history. All his mono recordings made for Columbia Graphophone and His Master Voice have been collected in this box set as a companion to Warner Classics' box of all his EMI stereo discs, revealing more vividly than ever before their luminous and exhilarating qualities. A lot of the recordings in this boxset have been specially remastered in HD from the original sources, many of them previously unreleased on CD.