Sir Thomas Beecham, 2. Baronet CH FRCM war ein britischer Dirigent, der mehrere britische Symphonieorchester gründete. Zu diesen Gründungen zählen unter anderem das New Symphony Orchestra , das London Philharmonic Orchestra und das Royal Philharmonic Orchestra .
Beecham war darüber hinaus ein Förderer zahlreicher Komponisten seiner Zeit. Er setzte sich maßgeblich für die Aufführung von Werken von Frederick Delius, Ethel Smyth und Jean Sibelius ein. Er spielte als erster in England Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg von Richard Wagner und die Opern Elektra und Salome von Richard Strauss und trug maßgeblich zur Bereicherung des Musiklebens der britischen Hauptstadt bei.
Wikipedia
“I found it as alluring as a wayward woman and determined to tame it.”
Of the music of Frederick Delius
Conductors by John L. Holmes (1988) pp 31-37 ISBN 0-575-04088-2
“What can you do with it? It's like a lot of yaks jumping about.”
On Beethoven's Seventh Symphony
Quoted in Atkins and Newman, Beecham Stories, 1978
“The grand tune is the only thing in music that the great public really understands.”
Conductors by John L. Holmes (1988) pp 31-37 ISBN 0-575-04088-2
“The function of music is to release us from the tyranny of conscious thought.”
Quoted in Atkins and Newman, Beecham Stories, 1978
“Too much counterpoint; what is worse, Protestant counterpoint.”
Of J. S. Bach; quoted by Neville Cardus, Guardian, 8 March 1971
“The musical equivalent of the towers of St Pancras Station”
Of Edward Elgar's 1st symphony
Neville Cardus: Sir Thomas Beecham, A Memoir, (1961)
“Asked if he had ever conducted any Stockhausen, he said, "No, but I once trod in some."”
http://www.paulcarey.net/Quotes.htm http://www.stockhausen.org/licht_by_malcolm_ball.html
“A musicologist is a man who can read music but can't hear it.”
Quoted by H. Proctor-Gregg, Beecham Remembered (1976), p. 154
[Beecham admitted to Neville Cardus that he had made this up on the spur of the moment to satisfy an importunate journalist; he acknowledged that it was an oversimplification. (Neville Cardus: 'Sir Thomas Beecham, A Memoir', 1961)]
“If I cannot sing a work, I cannot conduct it.”
Conductors by John L. Holmes (1988) pp 31-37 ISBN 0-575-04088-2
“No composer has written as much as 100 bars of worthwhile music since 1925.”
Conductors by John L. Holmes (1988) pp 31-37 ISBN 0-575-04088-2
Of Ralph Vaughan Williams' Pastoral Symphony
Conductors by John L. Holmes (1988) pp 31-37 ISBN 0-575-04088-2
