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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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Thomas Beecham
Age: 81 †
Born: 1879
Born: April 29
Died: 1961
Died: March 8
Conductor
Sir Thomas Beecham
2nd Baronet
Capable
Conductor
Pleasure
Scratch
Giving
Scratches
Instrument
Thousands
Legs
Instruments
Musical
Madam

More quotes by Thomas Beecham

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The bagpipes sound exactly the same when you have finished as when you started
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Elgar's first symphony is the musical equivalent of St Pancras Railway Station.
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Brass bands are all very well in their place - outdoors and several miles away.
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Great music is that which penetrates the ear with facility and leaves the memory with difficulty. Magical music never leaves the memory.
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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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The English may not like music, but they absolutely love the noise it makes.
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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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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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No operatic star has yet died soon enough for me.
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Without question the most unpopular medium of musical sound in the world.
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No woman is worth the loss of a night's sleep.
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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 British like any kind of music so long as it is loud.
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They are quite hopeless - drooling, driveling, doleful, depressing, dropsical drips.
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In the first movement alone, I took note of six pregnancies and at least four miscarriages.
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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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The sound of a harpsichord - two skeletons copulating on a tin roof in a thunderstorm.
Thomas Beecham
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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.
Thomas Beecham
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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