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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.

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
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More quotes by 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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I have just been all round the world and have formed a very poor opinion of it.
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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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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What can you do with it? It's like a lot of yaks jumping about.
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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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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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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The English may not like music, but they absolutely love the noise it makes.
Thomas Beecham
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Too much counterpoint what is worse, Protestant counterpoint.
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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In the first movement alone, I took note of six pregnancies and at least four miscarriages.
Thomas Beecham
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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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The sound of the harpsichord resembles that of a bird-cage played with toasting-forks.
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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No operatic star has yet died soon enough for me.
Thomas Beecham
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They are quite hopeless - drooling, driveling, doleful, depressing, dropsical drips.
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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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