In the pre-war years, Legge pioneered "subscription" recordings, by which the public were invited to pay in advance for their copies of future recordings, thus making it economically possible for EMI to make such "niche" but classic recordings as the songs of Hugo Wolf and the complete piano works of Beethoven (played by Artur Schnabel). Another pre-war recording supervised by Legge, which has been reissued on LP and CD, was Sir Thomas Beecham's set of "The Magic Flute", made in Berlin in 1937. Beecham invited Legge to join him at the Opera as assistant artistic director. Given a free hand by Beecham he engaged Richard Tauber, Jussi Björling, Maria Reining, Hilde Konetzni, Julius Patzak and Helge Roswänge in their Covent Garden debuts.