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COMPOSERS --- COMPROMISE --- COMPUTERS
CONCEIT --- CONCERN --- CONDUCT
CONDUCTORS

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COMPOSERS

see "MUSIC" for related links


Composers should write tunes that chauffeurs
and errand boys can whistle.
--Sir Thomas Beecham (1879—1961)
English conductor.

Nobody will ever write anything better
than this symphony. (Beethoven's 9th.)
--Sergei Rachmaninov (1873—1943)
Russian composer and pianist.
Quoted in Sergei Bertenssen and Jay Leyda's
_Sergei Rachmaninoff: A Lifetime in Music_ [1965].

Having some words with soprano Francesca
Cuzzoni on her refusing to sing "Falsa
imagine" in _Ottone_, Handel said "Oh!
Madam, I know well that you are truly
a She-Devil; but I will have you know
that I am Beelzebub, chief of the
Devils." With this he took her by the
wrist, and if she made any more words,
swore that he would fling her out of
the window.
--William Rockstro,
_The Life of George Frederick Handel_ [1883]

Wagner has lovely moments but awful
quarters of an hour.
--Gioacchino Rossini (1792—1868)
Italian composer.
Said to Emile Naumann [April 1867],
in E Naumann _Italienische Tondichter_ [1883].

Hats off, gentlemen — a genius!
--Robert Schumann (1810—1856)
German composer.
On first hearing Frιdιric Chopin's music,
in "Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung" [December 1831].

An orgy of vulgar noise.
--composer Louis Spohr on Beethoven's Fifth Symphony [1823].

Handel is only fourth rate. He is not even interesting.
--Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840—1893)
Russian composer.





COMPROMISE

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.

see: "DIPLOMACY"
see "COMMUNICATION" for other related links


The most important trip you may take
in life is meeting people halfway.
--Henry Boye

A compromise is the art of dividing a cake in
such a way that everyone believes that he has
got the biggest piece.
--Ludwig Erhard (1897—1977)
German politician.
Quoted in _Readers Digest_ [March 1959].

[Defining "compromise":]
An agreement between two men to do what both agree is wrong.
--Lord Edward Gascoyne-Cecil (1867—1918)
British soldier and colonial administrator in Egypt.

If you live in the river, you should make friends with the crocodile.
--Indian proverb

Hence Henry Clay, by furious and skillful activity behind the scenes
and on the House floor, ensured that Maine and Missouri were admitted
together, along with a compromise amendment prohibiting slavery in
the Louisiana Purchase north of latitude 36.30 (March 1820). And by
even greater prodigies of skill he resolved the constitutional question
provoked by the extremists in the Missouri convention by what is
known as the Second Missouri Compromise, the local legislature
solemnly pledging never to enact laws depriving any citizen of his rights
under the US Constitution (February 1821). As a result President
Monroe was able to sign Missouri's admission to the Union in August.
This was the first of three compromises Clay brokered (the others were
1833 and 1850) which defused the periodic explosion between North
and South and postponed the Civil War for forty years. Indeed Senator
Henry S. Foote, who had watched Clay weave his magic spells to disarm
the angry protagonists in Congress, later said: 'Had there been one
such man in the Congress of the United States as Henry Clay in 1860-1,
there would, I am sure, have been no Civil War.'
--Paul Johnson (1928— )
British conservative historian.
_A History of the American People_ [1997] p. 325

I bend but do not break.
--Jean de La Fontaine (1621—1695)
French poet.
_Fables_,
bk. I, Fable 22 [1668]

Compromise makes a good umbrella, but a poor roof; it is
a temporary expedient, often wise in party politics, almost
sure to be unwise in statesmanship.
--James Russell Lowell (1819—1891)
American poet, critic, essayist, and diplomat.

-----

emollient (adj.) [κ-'mahl-yκnt or ee-'mahl-yκnt]
Softening, soothing; making less harsh or abrasive.

placate (verb) ['pley-keyt]
Pacify, soothe, or mollify.





COMPUTERS

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see: "INTERNET"
see: "TECHNOLOGY"
see "COMMUNICATION" for other related links
see "KNOWLEDGE" for other related links


-

The computer world has a language all its own, just like Hungary, the
difference being that if you hang around with Hungarians long enough,
you eventually start to understand what they're talking about; whereas
the language used in the computer world is specifically designed to
prevent this from happening.
--Dave Barry (1947— )
American humorist.
_Dave Barry in Cyberspace_ [1996]


If you asked me to name the three scariest threats facing the
human race, I'd give the same answer that most people would:
nuclear war, global warming and Windows.
--Dave Barry (b. 1947)
American humorist.
"Ultimate threat right there on the computer screen",
_Dave's World_ [5 July 1998]

-

Silicon Valley is the Florence of
the late 20th century.
--Francis Fukuyama (1952— )
American historian.
In "Independent" [19 June 1999].

-

Everything that I've learned about computers
at MIT I have boiled down into three principles:

Unix: You think it won't work, but if you find
the right wizard, he can make it work.

Macintosh: You think it will work, but it won't.

PC/Windows: You think it won't work, and it won't.

--Philip Greenspun (1963— )
American computer scientist.

-

The 88% rise in Microsoft stock in 1996
meant [Bill Gates] made on paper more
than $10.9 billion, or about $30 million
a day. That makes him the world's richest
person, by far. But he's more than that.
He has become the Edison and Ford of our
age. A technologist turned entrepreneur,
he embodies the digital era.
--Walter Isaacson (1952— )
American journalist and author.
"In Search of the Real Bill Gates"
"Time" [13 January 1997]

One reaction to the growing presence
of cyberspace is to see it as a threat to
the traditional human value of social,
face to face exchange. Glued to the
screen, chained to the keyboard, alone
at the workstation, the addicted hacker
is the very picture of a lone individual
enslaved by the machine. Yet this is a
false appearance. Note the feverish
pace of the hands typing. Nothing to be
alarmed about, for it is the eagerness to
communicate and the desire to be heard
by another that activate those fingers.
The fact is that when we use computers
we are having an exchange with other
humans, through the machine, not with
the machine.
--Leon James,
"Computer-mediated Communication"

^

At the end of the Nineties, an internal IBM paper recounted a
long-forgotten article published in the summer of 1945 during the
closing weeks of World War II. In it, Vannevar Bush Bush described a
theoretical machine he called the Memex, never built, that could
extend human memory by mechanically organizing information
and making it readily accessible through a web of associations. A
Memex, he explained to readers of the Atlantic Monthly in July
1945, "is a device in which an individual stores all his books,
records, and communications, and which is mechanized so that it
may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility." Through
it, people would be able to store, retrieve, consult, and learn from
the information it contained and from the cumulative record of
human success and failure to that point in history. By providing
people greater access to the bewildering store of knowledge that
science was accumulating, the Memex would allow mankind
to profit from the inherited knowledge of the ages.

Looking ahead, Bush envisioned machines capable of compressing
a library of a million volumes into a box placed on the end of a desk
before the person operating it from a keyboard. A "slanting translucent
screen" extending from the machine would display information the user
wanted. "The world," he noted that July of 1945, "has arrived at an age
of cheap complex devices of great reliability; and something is bound
to come of it." In recalling Bush's Memex more than half a century later,
IBM said his article describing it "turned out to be of those time-bomb
essays — a piece so far ahead of its time that it takes decades to
recognize its genius. For the Memex in essence is a personal
computer, and more than that it is a personal computer in which
information is bound together by links of association. Every time a
Web user fires up her browser and navigates from site to site,
following threads of relationship as she roams, she is, in effect,
continuing a journey that began with Vannevar Bush more than
half a century ago."

Vannevar Bush's prototype of the personal computer introduced
into the American, and world, market thirty-six years after his article
has become an innovation so familiar that grandparents — and
great-grandparents! — use it to communicate with their families,
conduct personal business, and access a variety of information daily.
They do so without a clue as to who Vannevar Bush was or the
great debt they owe him and other Technotimes pioneers.

--Haynes Johnson (1931— )
American journalist; winner of the 1966 Pulitzer Prize
for National Reporting.
_The Best of Times: America in the Clinton Years_ [2001]

^

Interactivity has the virtue of democracy, conferring
upon everyone with access to a computer the right
and opportunity to be heard, but it's also saddled
with democracy's vice — a tendency to assume that
everyone who has a right to be heard has something
to say that's worth hearing.
--Wendy Kaminer,
_Sleeping with Extra-Terrestrials_

The PC is the LSD of the '90s.
--Timothy Leary (1920—1996)
American psychologist.
_Guardian_ [1 June 1996]
(Remark made in early 1990s.)

The newest computer can merely compound, at speed, the
oldest problem in the relations between human beings, and
in the end the communicator will be confronted with the old
problem, of what to say and how to say it.
--Edward R. Murrow [Egbert Roscoe Murrow]
(1908—1965)
American broadcaster and journalist.
Upon receiving the "Family of Man" Award in 1964.

-

We were frustrated with computers a decade
ago, we are frustrated with them now, and
will continue to be frustrated in the future.
As long as technology offers enticing new
products and services, we will continue to
live on the edge of intolerable frustration.

If the level of frustration is not going to
decrease, is there any point in developing
new technologies, and in paying any
attention to ease of use? There certainly
is. We will still be frustrated, but at a
higher level of functionality, and there
will be more of us willing to be
frustrated.

--Andrew Odlyzko, "The visible problems of
the invisible computer: A skeptical look
at information appliances", revised [7 Sep 1999]

-

Computers make it easier to do a lot of things, but most
of the things they make it easier to do don't need to be
done.
--Andy Rooney (b. 1919)
American news commentator, producer, and author.
_Word for Word_ [1986]

Terrified of being alone, yet afraid of intimacy, we
experience widespread feelings of emptiness, of
disconnection, of the unreality of self. And here
the computer, a companion without emotional
demands, offers a compromise. You can be a
loner, but never alone. You can interact, but need
never feel vulnerable to another person.
--Sherry Turkle (1948— )
American clinical psychologist.
_The Second Self_ [1984], Chapter 9

-

Two men were examinig the output of the new
computer in their department. Eventually one
of them remarked: "Do you realize it would take
400 men 250 years to make a mistake this big?"
--Far Side cartoon

The computer is down. I hope it's down with
something serious.
--anon.

-

In Japan, they have replaced the impersonal and unhelpful Microsoft
error messages with Haiku poetry messages.

Haiku has strict construction rules. Each poem has only 17 syllables;
5 syllables in the first line, 7 in the second, and 5 in the third.

They are used to communicate timeless messages,often achieving a
wistful, yearning and powerful insight through extreme brevity.

Instead of making you want to throw your computer out the
window, they have a calming effect.

For example:

The Web site you seek
Cannot be located, but
Countless more exist.

Chaos reigns within.
Reflect, repent, and reboot.
Order shall return.

Program aborting:
Close all that you have worked on.
You ask far too much.

Windows NT crashed.
I am the Blue Screen of Death.
No one hears your screams.

Yesterday it worked.
Today it is not working.
Windows is like that.

Your file was so big.
It must have been quite useful.
But now it is gone.

Stay the patient course.
Of little worth is your ire.
The network is down.

A crash reduces
Your expensive computer
To a simple stone.

Three things are certain:
Death, taxes and lost data.
Guess which has occurred.

You step in the stream,
But the water has moved on.
This page is not here.

Out of memory.
We wish to hold the whole sky,
But we never will.

Having been erased,
The document you're seeking
Must now be retyped.

Serious error.
All shortcuts have disappeared.
Screen. Mind. All is blank.

First snow, then silence
This thousand dollar screen dies
so beautifully.

--author unknown

-

Q. How many Microsoft tech-support people does it take
to change a light-bulb?
A. Please continue to hold. Your call is very important
to us.

-

Trying to Remember
New Passwords Isn't
As Easy as ABC123
Codes in Flux Have Employees
Jotting, Not Memorizing;
Long Lists on a Post-It

By Scott Thurm and Mylene Mangalindan
The Wall Street Journal
December 9, 2004

Before she begins work each morning, Kate Prior must enter eight computer passwords. Each must contain at least eight characters, and most require letters and numbers. Every three months, she must change them all.

How does the 28-year-old monitor of drug trials remember her passwords? Easy: They're written on a blue Post-It note affixed to her computer.

[. . . ]

Petri Darby, a 31-year-old marketing manager for a Houston law firm, used sticky notes for a while. When his stack of eight notes became unwieldy, Mr. Darby transferred the 25 or 30 passwords he needs for work tasks and to access various Web sites to a small piece of paper he kept in his wallet. But the password list kept growing and the paper became unreadable. "It's driving me absolutely batty," Mr. Darby says. "I'm thinking that tattoos are the way to go."

[. . . ]

The thought drives some computer users up the wall. "Who has a brain to remember all these?" asks Alex Ramsey, chief executive of LodeStar Universal, a 10-person management-consulting firm in Dallas. Ms. Ramsey stashes her roughly 75 passwords in a computer file, named "Password." As a back-up, she printed out a copy that she hides under her keyboard.

---

The tech support problem dates back to long before
the industrial revolution, when primitive tribesmen
beat out a rhythm on drums to communicate:

This fire help. Me Groog

Me Lorto. Help. Fire not work.

You have flint and stone?

Ugh

You hit them together?

Ugh

What happen?

Fire not work

(sigh) Make spark?

No spark, no fire, me confused. Fire work yesterday.

(sigh) You change rock?

I change nothing

You sure?

Me make one change. Stone hot so me soak in stream so stone not
burn Lorto hand. Small change, shouldn't keep Lorto from make
fire.

Grabs club and goes to Lorto's cave.

*WHAM*WHAM*WHAM*WHAM*

---

This e-mail has been printed on paper treated with a deadly Chinese
poison — using herbs so deadly that it will do you no good to wash
your hands. As soon as you opened this e-mail you became infected.
Unless you take the special antidote, you will die a horrible and
lingering death within five hours. Said antidote will be e-mailed
to you upon my receiving $50,000 in wired funds. Hurry!

---

CD-ROM = computer device, rendered obsolete in months




CONCEIT

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see: "BRAGGING"
see: "SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESSS"
see: "SNOBS"
see "EMOTIONS & FEELINGS" for other related links


Nature has sometimes made a fool, but a
coxcomb is always of a man's own making.
--Joseph Addison (1672—1719)
English essayist, poet, and dramatist.

The smaller the mind the greater the conceit.
--Ζsop (c.620 B.C.—c.560 B.C.)
(Thought to be a legendary figure.)

Conceited men often seem a harmless kind of men,
who, by an overweening self-respect, relieve other
from the duty of respecting them at all.
--Henry Ward Beecher (1813—1887)
American Congregational minister; brother of
Harriet Beecher Stowe, son of Lyman Beecher.
In Henry Ward Beecher and Edna Dean Proctor, _Life Thoughts:
Gathered From the Extemporaneous Discourses of Henry Ward Beecher_ [1858]

-

Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit?
There is more hope of a fool than of him.
--Bible
"Proverbs" 26:12


Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.
--Bible
"Romans" 1:22 KJV

-

The certain way to be cheated is to fancy
one's self more cunning than others.
--Pierre Charron (1541—1603)
French moralist.

Be very slow to believe that you are wiser than all others;
it is a fatal but common error. Where one has been saved
by a true estimation of another's weakness, thousands
have been destroyed by a false appreciation of their
own strength.
--C.C. Colton (1780—1832)
English clergyman and writer.

Man believes himself always greater than he
is, and is esteemed less than he is worth.
--Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749—1832)
German poet, novelist, and playwright.

No man was ever so much deceived
by another as by himself.
--Fulke Greville (1554—1628)
English philosophical poet.

General Peckem liked listening to himself talk, liked
most of all listening to himself talk about himself.
--Joseph Heller (1923—1999)
American novelist.
_Catch-22_ [1961], Chapter 29

Talk about conceit as much as you like, it is to human character
what salt is to the ocean; it keeps it sweet and renders it endurable.
Say rather it is like the natural unguent of the seafowl's plumage,
which enables him to shed the rain that falls on him and the
wave in which he dips. When one has had all his conceit taken
out of him, when he has lost all his illusions, his feathers will
soon soak through, and he will fly no more.
--Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809—1894)
American physician, poet, and essayist.

The more any one speaks of himself, the less
he likes to hear another talked of.
--Johann Kaspar Lavater (1741—1801)
Swiss writer, Protestant pastor, and founder of physiognomics.

An eagerness and zeal for dispute on every subject,
and with every one, shows great self-sufficiency, that
never-failing sign of great self-ignorance.
--William Pitt, the Elder, also called (from 1766) 1st Earl of Chatham (1708—1778)
British statesman, twice virtual prime minister [1756—1761, 1766—1768].

Don't let your head get too big, it'll break your neck.
--Elvis Presley (1935—1977)
American singer.

We go and fancy that everybody is thinking of us.
But he is not; he is like us — he is thinking of himself.
--Charles Reade (1814—1884)
English novelist and playwright.

I would have been bored silly if I hadn't
been there myself.
--George Bernard Shaw (1856—1950)
Irish comic dramatist, literary critic, Socialist propagandist, and winner
of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1925 [he didn't accept it.]
Quoted in _San Francisco Chronicle_ [10 June 1993].

I dote on myself, there is that lot of me and all so luscious.
--Walt Whitman (1819—1892)
American poet.
_Leaves of Grass_ [1855-1892] "Song of Myself"

-----

coxcomb [KOKS-kohm], noun:
A vain, showy fellow; a conceited, silly man, fond
of display; a superficial pretender to knowledge or
accomplishments; a dandy; a fop.




CONCERN

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.

see "KINDNESS" for related links


It is a general error to imagine the loudest complainers
for the public to be the most anxious for its welfare.
--Edmund Burke (1729—1797)
Irish-born Whig politician and man of letters.
_Observation on a late Publication on the Present State of the Nation_ [2nd ed. 1769]

A lament in one ear, maybe; but always a
song in the other. And to me life is simply
an invitation to live.
--Sean O'Casey (1880—1964)
Irish dramatist and memorist.
In David A. Wilson
_Ireland, a Bicycle, and a Tin Whistle_, p. 1 [1995].




Click picture to ZOOM
CONDUCT

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.

see: "BEHAVIOR"
see "CIVILITY" for other related links


Our characters are a result of our conduct.
--Aristotle (384—322 B.C.)
Greek philosopher.

I consider your conduct unethical and lousy.
--Peter Arno [Curtis Arnoux Peters] (1904—1968)
American cartoonist.
Cartoon caption _Peter Arno's Parade_ [1929].

It is like sport to a fool to do wrong, but wise
conduct is pleasure to a man of understanding.
--Bible
"Proverbs" 10:23 RSV

Conviction is worthless unless it is converted into conduct.
--Thomas Carlyle (1795—1881)
Scottish historian and political philosopher.

A strong nation, like a strong person, can afford to be gentle,
firm, thoughtful, and restrained. It can afford to extend a
helping hand to others. It's a weak nation, like a weak person,
that must behave with bluster and boasting and rashness
and other signs of insecurity.
--Jimmy Carter (1924— )
American Democratic statesman, President [1977-1981].
Speech in New York City [14 October 1976].

But a perverse temper and fretful disposition
make any state of life unhappy.
[Latin: Importunitas autem, et inhumanitas
omni aetati molesta est.]
--Marcus Tullius Cicero (106—43 BC)
Roman orator and statesman.
_De senectute_ [45—44 BC]

I have yet to meet a man as fond of high moral
conduct as he is of outward appearances.
--Confucius (551—479 B.C.)
K'ung Ch'iu, Chinese philosopher.

A refined simplicity is the characteristic of all
high bred deportment, in every country.
--James Fenimore Cooper (1789—1851)
American novelist.
_The American Democrat_ [1838]

-

He is not well-bred, that cannot
bear Ill-Breeding in others.
--Benjamin Franklin (1706—1790)
American politician, inventor, and scientist.
_Poor Richard's Almanack_ [1748]


Act uprightly, and despise Calumny; Dirt may
stick to a Mud Wall, but not to polish'd Marble.
--Benjamin Franklin (1706—1790)
American politician, inventor, and scientist.
_Poor Richard's Almanack_ [1757]

-

Whenever you are to do a thing, though it can
never be known but to yourself, ask yourself
how you would act were all the world looking
at you, and act accordingly.
--Thomas Jefferson (1743—1826)
American statesman and president [1801—1809].
In a letter to Peter Carr [19 August 1785].

We give advice, but we do not inspire conduct.
--Franηois de La Rochefoucauld (1613—1680)
French classical author.
_Maxims_ [1665] #403

Whoever desires constant success must change
his conduct with the times.
--Niccolς Machiavelli (1469—1527)
Florentine statesman and political philosopher.
_The Discourses_ [1517]

The sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or
collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their
number, is self-protection. The only purpose for which power
can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized
community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His
own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant.
He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it
will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier,
because, in the opinions of others, to do so would be wise, or
even right. These are good reasons for remonstrating with him,
or reasoning with him, or persuading him, or entreating him, but
not for compelling him, or visiting him with evil in case he do
otherwise. To justify that, the conduct from which it is desired
to deter him must be calculated to produce evil in someone
else. The only part of the conduct of anyone, for which he is
amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part
which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right,
absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign.
--John Stuart Mill (1806—1873)
English philosopher and social reformer.
_On Liberty_ [1859], ch. 1

If you are a man who leads, a man who controls the
affairs of many, then seek the most perfect way of
performing your responsibility so that your conduct
will be blameless.
--Ptahhotpe
24th century B.C. philosopher.
In _The Teachings of Ptahhotep: The Oldest Book in the World_
Asa G. Hilliard III, Larry Williams & Nia Damali, eds. [1987].

Humanity is much more shown in our conduct towards animals,
where we are irresponsible, except to heaven, than towards our
fellow-creatures, where we are restrained by the laws, by public
opinion, and by fear of retaliation.
--Horace Smith (1779—1849)
English poet and novelist.
_The Tin Trumpet_ [1836]

No tendency is quite so strong in human nature as the
desire to lay down rules of conduct for other people.
--William Howard Taft (1857—1930)
27th President of the United States [1909—1913]
and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court [1921—1930].

Be courteous to all, but intimate with few, and let
those few be well tried before you give them your
confidence.
--George Washington (1732—1799)
American general and commander-in-chief of the
colonial armies in the American Revolution [1775—1783]
and first president of the United States [1789—1797].
In _Maxims of Washington_ [1942].

-----

dissolute [DIS-uh-loot], adjective:
Loose in morals and conduct; marked by
indulgence in sensual pleasures or vices.

malfeasance [mal-FEE-zuhn(t)s], noun:
Wrongdoing, misconduct, or misbehavior,
especially by a public official.

opprobrium (noun) [κ-'pro-bri-κm]
Disgrace or reproach brought on by
extremely shameful conduct.

punctilious (adj.) [pκngk-'ti-lee-κs]
Strict about or attentive to details of proper conduct and
conventional matters. This word is similar to meticulous,
but the two are not interchangeable. Meticulous means
careful and precise about details. Punctilious" adds the
dimension of being careful and precise about the details
of conventional conduct.




CONDUCTORS

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.

see "MUSIC" for related links
see "WORK" for related links

-

[To a musician during a rehearsal:]
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.
--Sir Thomas Beecham (1879—1961)
English conductor.
Quoted in Judith K. Kurnick _Riccardo Muti:
Twenty Years in Philadelphia_, p. 98 [1992].


Madam, you have between your legs an instrument capable of giving
pleasure to thousands — and all you can do is scratch it.
--Sir Thomas Beecham (1879—1961)
English conductor.
To a lady cellist during a rehearsal.


from DR. MARDY'S QUOTES OF THE WEEK - April 24 - 30, 2005:
In the 1930s, while serving as artistic director of London's Covent
Garden Opera, Beecham was taking the orchestra through a dress
rehearsal for a full-scale production of "Aida." Originally composed
by Verdi for the opening of Cairo's new opera house in 1871, "Aida"
is one of the most lavish operas of all time, calling for horses and, if
they are available, even elephants. When a horse was brought on
stage for the rehearsal, it immediately began to do what stage
managers and directors fear an animal will do in such a situation.
Thomas, who was noted as much for his great wit as his musical
abilities, found the whole episode quite amusing. He stopped the
orchestra and observed to the players:

"You see, gentleman, not only a great performer, but a critic, too!"


more about Beecham:

His rounded, dignified figure bounces and cavorts like that of an
exciting [sic] racing fan whose horse is winning by a nose. He will
lunge like a fender, crouch as if he expected to bring his oboist
down with a flying tackle, and when signalling the brass for a
powerful entrance he will go through the motions of a baseball
pitcher.

Frequently in his excitement he lets slip his baton. Sometimes he
even falls off the podium. 'Podiums,' he once remarked loftily after
such a mishap, 'are expressly designed as part of a conspiracy to
get rid of conductors.' Once, at a Carnegie Hall concert, he reached
such a peak of artistic exuberance that he broke his suspenders and
had to leave the stage clutching his trousers.

--Winthrop Sargent, _Life_ magazine

-

If anyone has conducted a Beethoven performance,
and then doesn't have to go to an osteopath, then
there's something wrong.
--Simon Rattle (1955— )
English conductor.
In "Guardian" [31 May 1990].

[To his orchestra after an unsatisfactory performance:]
Assassins!
--Arturo Toscanini (1867—1957)
Italian conductor.
Quoted in Nat Shapiro _An Encyclopedia of Quotations about Music_[1977].


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