The Most Abominable Things

How did it feel to be 70? Roared Britain's famed and sometimes fatuous conductor, Sir Thomas Beecham, over a transatlantic telephone to a U.S. newsman: "It doesn't feel like 70 at all, old boy. It doesn't feel like anything at all, and I'll feel like that at 75 and 80 and beyond. I'll go on conducting to the end of my days, which is a hell of a way off."

Last week, as chubby, goat-bearded little Sir Thomas was celebrating his 70th birthday, a good part of England was helping him along. Even the British press, in the recent past not so charitable about their great conductor's churlishness, blossomed with flowery lead editorials on the great day. Said the Times: "Music is the medicine of the mind and Sir Thomas . . . is among the best doctors of the age, combining high professional skill with a highly popular bedside manner." Said the Manchester Guardian: "Sir Thomas . . . has always been and will always be an individualist. Everybody, including those on whose corns he has trodden, will wish him many years of life to go on being one."

My Prerogative. Doughty Sir Thomas himself had no intention of disappointing anyone. Boomed he: "I intend to make a bigger noise than ever ... I believe in the free use of an unbridled tongue. I am glad I have one." Earlier in the week, he had proved it still wagged without rein. Looking like a ferocious teddy-bear, he interrupted a Mozart concert to glower at his Glyndebourne audience, tell them to stop stomping out the beat. Said he: "I feel this is a prerogative which in this instance must be left to me." A few days later, he showed the Liverpool Philharmonic musicians the way to play Mozart (a way few critics quarrel with) and gave his admirers another piece of his mind. "There is no great music being written today . . . Modern music is not only dead but thrice damned."

Flanked by Lady Beecham, he turned up at a reception, received a 15-lb. cake from the U.S.'s RCA Victor, replied to a toast by apologizing for not having anything cutting to say ("It is only before vast audiences that I let myself go").

My Multitudes. Finally, surrounded by his close friends at lunch at the Savoy, Conductor Beecham got into a vivace finale. After the toastmaster had read telegrams from Jan Sibelius and Richard Strauss, he roared, "Where's the one from Mozart?" When one speaker said Sibelius had once remarked that Beecham was the "greatest living conductor," Sir Thomas chirped "Hear! Hear!"

On his feet and puffing a big cigar after many toasts, he let them in on his plans. He would continue to record, for the "benighted and tone-starved multitudes of the New World who lack the advantages of English musical culture." More important, he let them in on the anatomy of his vitriol: "There is something about a large gathering that brings out my basest instincts. Before a crowd of 1,000, I am malicious. Before 5,000, I am positively evil, and, facing a crowd of 10,000, I am compelled to say the most abominable things."

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