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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.

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
Always
Star
Sopranos
Soon
Entry
Died
Thomas
Operatic
Stars
Profoundly
Soprano
Dies
Complaints
Aria
Half
Missed
Quixote
Enough
Error
Madam
Must
Errors
Complained

More quotes by Thomas Beecham

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Brass bands are all very well in their place - outdoors and several miles away.
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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The British like any kind of music so long as it is loud.
Thomas Beecham
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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.
Thomas Beecham
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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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The English may not like music, but they absolutely love the noise it makes.
Thomas Beecham
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What can you do with it? It's like a lot of yaks jumping about.
Thomas Beecham
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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.
Thomas Beecham
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Composers and musicians have always starved and, as this is a sentimental country, we think the tradition should be continued.
Thomas Beecham
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Elgar's first symphony is the musical equivalent of St Pancras Railway Station.
Thomas Beecham
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The bagpipes sound exactly the same when you have finished as when you started
Thomas Beecham
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I have just been all round the world and have formed a very poor opinion of it.
Thomas Beecham
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The sound of the harpsichord resembles that of a bird-cage played with toasting-forks.
Thomas Beecham
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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.
Thomas Beecham
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They are quite hopeless - drooling, driveling, doleful, depressing, dropsical drips.
Thomas Beecham
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No woman is worth the loss of a night's sleep.
Thomas Beecham
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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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If she is attractive, I can't perform with her if she is not, then I won't.
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
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If an opera cannot be played by an organ grinder, it's not going to achieve immortality.
Thomas Beecham