65 Quotes by Thomas Beecham

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

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.

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

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

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

Magical music never leaves the memory.

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

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

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