Best 37 quotes of Thomas Beecham on MyQuotes

All the arts in America are a gigantic racket run by unscrupulous men for unhealthy women.

A musicologist is a man who can read music but cannot hear it.

As you'll never hear the thing again, my boy, why not throw in a couple of brass bands?

At a rehearsal I let the orchestra play as they like. At the concert I make them play as I like.

Beethoven's last quartets were written by a deaf man and should only be listened to by a deaf man.

Composers and musicians have always starved and, as this is a sentimental country, we think the tradition should be continued.

Composers should write tunes that chauffeurs and errand boys can whistle.

Great music is that which penetrates the ear with facility and leaves the memory with difficulty. Magical music never leaves the memory.

"Have you heard any Stockhausen?" Beecham was asked. "No, but I believe I have stepped in some.

Her singing reminds me of a cart coming downhill with the brake on.

If an opera cannot be played by an organ grinder, it's not going to achieve immortality.

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.

If I were a dictator I should make it compulsory for every member of the population between the ages of four and eighty to listen to Mozart for at least a quarter of an hour daily for the coming five years.

In the first movement alone, I took note of six pregnancies and at least four miscarriages.

It is quite untrue that British people don't appreciate music. They may not understand it but they absolutely love the noise it makes.

Madam, you have between your legs an instrument capable of giving pleasure to thousands and all you can do is scratch it.

Magical music never leaves the memory.

Movie music is noise. It's even more painful than my sciatica.

Music first and last should sound well, should allure and enchant the ear. Never mind the inner significance.

No operatic star has yet died soon enough for me.

No woman is worth the loss of a night's sleep.

The bagpipes sound exactly the same when you have finished as when you started

The British like any kind of music so long as it is loud.

The English may not like music, but they absolutely love the noise it makes.

The function of music is to release us from the tyranny of conscious thought.

There are no woman composers, never have been and possibly never will be.

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.

The sound of a harpsichord - two skeletons copulating on a tin roof in a thunderstorm.

The sound of the harpsichord resembles that of a bird-cage played with toasting-forks.

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.

They are quite hopeless - drooling, driveling, doleful, depressing, dropsical drips.

Too much counterpoint; what is worse, Protestant counterpoint.

We cannot expect you to be with us all the time, but perhaps you could be good enough to keep in touch now and again.

What can you do with it? It's like a lot of yaks jumping about.

When asked whether he minded if someone smoked in a non-smoking compartment. Certainly not if you don't object if I'm sick.

Without question the most unpopular medium of musical sound in the world.

The musical equivalent of St Pancras Station. (on Elgar)