Very good. I’m a long-time ELP fan.
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A splendid book …I inherited a copy from my father in law who was a great "Tommy " fan and had met him on a couple of occasions .
Thomas Beecham was a great rentaquote musician. Here are some of his classics (some of which may not even be apocryphal):
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To an underperforming female cellist, “Madam, you have between your legs an instrument capable of giving pleasure to thousands and all you can do is scratch it.”
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Beecham once met a lady he knew, but could not remember who she was. He asked her whether she was well. "Oh, very well, but my brother has been rather ill lately”, she said.
“Ah, yes, your brother. I’m sorry to hear that. And, er, what is your brother doing at the moment?”
“Well, he’s still King”, replied Princess Mary. -
On receiving a telephone call while in New York from a man with a strong American accent claiming, “A’hm the chairman of the English Speak’n Yoonyun”, Beecham simply replied “I don’t believe you” and put the phone down.
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While walking up Regent Street on a warm day, Beecham hailed a cab. Opening the door, he placed his overcoat on the back seat, gave the driver the instruction, “Follow me about” and walked on.
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A trombone player on his first appearance in the orchestra was asked him name by Beecham. “Ball, sir.” “How very singular” observed Beecham, returning to his score.
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“Brass bands are all very well in their place – outdoors and several miles away.”
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A musician playing the tuba made a deep shake on the wrong note. Beecham requested, “Thank you, and now would you flush it?”
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“The English may not like music, but they absolutely love the noise it makes.”
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During a stage production of which he was not a fan, a live horse had a walk-on part. As it was led onto the stage, the horse defecated copiously. Beecham opined, “Gentlemen, that horse is not only an actor, it is also a critic.”
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Asked his opinion of a university setting up a chair of musical criticism, “If there is to be a chair for critics, I think it had better be an electric chair.”
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Perfectly possible.
Was it not he who, when asked whether he had ever conducted any Stockhausen, said “No - but I did step in some once”
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I think that’s usually attributed to him, yes. Also, there’s the suggestion that harpsichords sound like two skeletons copulating on a tin roof.
Rather like Oscar Wilde, it’s got to the point where any humorous musical quotation from the twentieth century gets automatically attributed to Beecham, so it’s possible he’s wittier in death than he ever was in life.
Mark
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Wittier in death … good one.
But I guess for our purposes, it’s just as well, really, that these humorous quotes were at least attributed to someone of fame at the time. With the media not being what it is now, I’m sure that’s the only way we would have actually heard the line. So whether it was plagiarized, or not; for me I’m just glad that I was able to hear it, and have a laugh, no matter who originally created the text.
I believe that Mark Twain was quite flamboyant and well connected in his time, and I wonder if all of the wise and/or humorous quotes of his were definitely original. Most likely not.
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I have always rather liked this observation from Churchill
" Dinner would have been splendid …if the wine had been as cold as the soup , the beef as rare as the service , the brandy as old as the fish , and the maid as willing as the Duchess"
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You missed the harpsichord put-down as ‘sounding like two skeletons copulating on a tin roof’.
G
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I refer the Honourable Gentleman to the first paragraph of my post 5347.
Mark
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How did I miss that! Humble apologies Sir!
G
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Walking past the pet shop, saw a photo of a Pedigree Persian cat with ‘some Netherlands parentage’. It piqued my interest so I went in and asked ‘how Dutch is that moggy in the window?’
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I’m slow tonight, but I’m sure it’s clever. Is that a goat, sheep, or some other beast?
The bull heading into the china shop calls him ‘kid.’ He is a young goat, or ‘kid.’ It has been a long week.
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And I was thinking along the lines of sounding like a candy store … I got the kid but thought there was more. Time for bed.
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