Thomas Beecham quotes:

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."

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.

Elgar's first symphony is the musical equivalent of St Pancras Railway Station.

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

Brass bands are all very well in their place - outdoors and several miles away.

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

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

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.

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

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

Movie music is noise... even more painful than my sciatica.

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

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

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

No operatic star has yet died soon enough for me.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

I prefer Offenbach to Bach often.

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.

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.

I have just been all round the world and have formed a very poor opinion of it.

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

If she is attractive, I can't perform with her; if she is not, then I won't.

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.

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

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

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

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

The grand tune is the only thing in music that the great public really understands.

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

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.

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

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.

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.