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There are two golden rules for an orchestra: start together and finish together. The public doesn't give a damn what goes on in between.

Thomas Beecham

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Thomas Beecham
Age: 81 †
Born: 1879
Born: April 29
Died: 1961
Died: March 8
Conductor
Sir Thomas Beecham
2nd Baronet
Funny
Finish
Doesn
Damn
Two
Golden
Musical
Give
Rules
Togetherness
Together
Goes
Conductor
Music
Public
Orchestra
Giving
Start
Composer

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Without question the most unpopular medium of musical sound in the world.
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They are quite hopeless - drooling, driveling, doleful, depressing, dropsical drips.
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Composers and musicians have always starved and, as this is a sentimental country, we think the tradition should be continued.
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No operatic star has yet died soon enough for me.
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If she is attractive, I can't perform with her if she is not, then I won't.
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No woman is worth the loss of a night's sleep.
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Brass bands are all very well in their place - outdoors and several miles away.
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I find brass bands have a melancholy sound. All right out of doors, of course - fifty miles away. Like bagpipes, they turn what had been a dream into a public nuisance.
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Elgar's first symphony is the musical equivalent of St Pancras Railway Station.
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Composers should write tunes that chauffeurs and errand boys can whistle.
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The sound of the harpsichord resembles that of a bird-cage played with toasting-forks.
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Too much counterpoint what is worse, Protestant counterpoint.
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The bagpipes sound exactly the same when you have finished as when you started
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What can you do with it? It's like a lot of yaks jumping about.
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At a rehearsal I let the orchestra play as they like. At the concert I make them play as I like.
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Madam, you have between your legs an instrument capable of giving pleasure to thousands and all you can do is scratch it.
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The British like any kind of music so long as it is loud.
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The trouble with women in an orchestra is that if they're attractive it will upset my players and if they're not it will upset me.
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A soprano in Massenet's Don Quixote complained that she had missed her entry in the aria, because Mr. Challiapin always dies too soon. Madam, you must be profoundly in error, said Sir Thomas, No operatic star has yet died half soon enough for me.
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In the first movement alone, I took note of six pregnancies and at least four miscarriages.
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