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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
Doesn
Damn
Two
Golden
Give
Musical
Together
Rules
Togetherness
Music
Goes
Conductor
Giving
Public
Orchestra
Start
Composer
Funny
Finish

More quotes by Thomas Beecham

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The English may not like music, but they absolutely love the noise it makes.
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Composers should write tunes that chauffeurs and errand boys can whistle.
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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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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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I have just been all round the world and have formed a very poor opinion of it.
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In the first movement alone, I took note of six pregnancies and at least four miscarriages.
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If an opera cannot be played by an organ grinder, it's not going to achieve immortality.
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No woman is worth the loss of a night's sleep.
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It is quite untrue that British people don't appreciate music. They may not understand it but they absolutely love the noise it makes.
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The sound of the harpsichord resembles that of a bird-cage played with toasting-forks.
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They are quite hopeless - drooling, driveling, doleful, depressing, dropsical drips.
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Brass bands are all very well in their place - outdoors and several miles away.
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Too much counterpoint what is worse, Protestant counterpoint.
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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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The British like any kind of music so long as it is loud.
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The bagpipes sound exactly the same when you have finished as when you started
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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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The sound of a harpsichord - two skeletons copulating on a tin roof in a thunderstorm.
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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.
Thomas Beecham
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No operatic star has yet died soon enough for me.
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