opera , symphony , all sorts of instrumental and vocal music but not chamber music . his reading was considerable in classical and English and French literature . he knew Dickens by heart , but ranked vanity fair of Thackeray the greatest English novel of his period . he was sceptical of contemporary writing as he was of the latest composition . I guessed that in politics he was a conservative - with freedom to be against the government whatever its colour or party . he loved good food and good wine , and his cigars , but not to excess . no alcohol had power over his quick balanced mind . I was taken aback when he reflected one day on his career : do you know , I sometimes wonder if I have n&apos;t wasted myself to some degree by giving myself almost wholly to music . for music does not ever encourage abstract thinking or pungency of comment or dialectical agility . perhaps I was really born for the legal profession . I pointed out that in music he was an absolutist , that he had no patience with music which carried extra-musical significances , and that also he had no patience with conductors , or any other performer , who found an argument , a dialectic or the faintest hint of a metaphysic in music . he did n&apos;t seek beyond the notes and the forms of music for some inner meaning . often he gave me the impression that he was not so much the possessed artist in music as the connoisseur , collecting composers as he collected his furniture and plate . he fondled music , handled it carefully and dotingly - unless it was of the sort that protested too much , assaulted fastidiousness of taste and sensitivity . Mahler ? Wagner ? Bruckner ? he would say , cross-examining me . they are not civilised . Mahler exposes his self-pity ; Wagner , though a tremendous genius , gorged music , like a German who overeats . and Bruckner was a hobbledehoy who had no style at all . all three of them knew nothing about poise or modesty . even Beethoven thumped the tub ; the ninth symphony was composed by a kind of Mr Gladstone of music . all that does n&apos;t imply that he was at all short of masculinity , red corpuscles . he could ride roughshod over his dislikes , people or compositions . given the impulse from the right source , his musical energy - ( his physical energy too ! ) - concentrated into artistic and proportionate shapes . his interpretation of the requiem mass of Berlioz has seldom been equalled for emotional intensity and sure-minded control of the outlines . his temperament and intelligence responded more readily to Latin than to German stimulations , aesthetic or other . sometimes he gave his conscience a holiday . at Liverpool an inordinately heavy programme was goading the orchestra to open rebellion , especially as Sir Thomas prolonged the interval . the concert was taking place on the eve of the world &apos;s greatest steeplechase . when Sir Thomas returned to the platform he immediately sensed the temper of his players - and the next work to tackle was the great C major symphony of Schubert . Sir Thomas extended his arms , the baton militant . now , gentlemen , he said , now for the grand national . the performance was magnificent . one gust of his humour dispersed all animosities . he was not , as I say , liked or admired by everybody while he was the spruce disdainful Mr Thomas Beecham . he was suspected of dandyism and , in fact , he was the last of the dandies . he kept audiences waiting at his concerts . in Manchester , during one of his opera seasons there , he kept the audience waiting half an hour for a performance of Isidore de Lara &apos;s Nai&quot;l . in those years his manners at a symphony concert did not appeal to the taste of the establishment of British music . the music critic of the Manchester guardian - Samuel Langford - took him to task on account of his acrobatic gestures as he conducted . at one concert his baton flew from his hand and nearly impaled the first trombone . moreover , he was suspected of amateurism - long before Toscanini actually called him an amateur . a complex character ! - Falstaff , Puck and Malvolio all mixed up , each likely to overwhelm the others . witty , then waggish ; supercilious , then genial , kindly , and sometimes cruel ; an artist in affectation yet somehow always himself . Lancashire in his bones , yet a man of the world . Rachmaninoff told a friend that he was unhappy about a forthcoming concert . the conductor - so-and-so - he has no temperament . it is always so in England . too many the English gentlemens . but , his friend pointed out last year you said your concert with Sir Thomas Beecham was one of the best and happiest of your life . ah , rejoined Rachmaninoff , but Sir Thomas is not one of your English gentlemens . in the prime of his life and career , Sir Thomas was as closely associated with Manchester as with London or anywhere else . during the 1914-1918 war he kept the city &apos;s music alive by the sparkle , vivacity , and sway of his personality . his concerts with the Hall&amp;eacute; orchestra and his opera productions in Quay Street elevated the city far above provincial levels . until he dominated the scene Manchester &apos;s music was mainly of German extraction , as we have noted already and will probably note again . Richter had not served Manchester in a backward-looking way . he conducted all the symphonic poems of Richard Strauss in one season at a time when - mirabile dictu ! - Strauss was considered as modern , iconoclast and unmusical as any later Scho&quot;nberg , Webern , or Boulez . Stanford went so far as to compose a musical satire of Strauss - an ode to discord . Ernest Newman abjured us to listen to Strauss horizontally while the battle-section of Ein Heldenleben was played . it is nowadays generally forgotten that Strauss came to renown or notoriety in this country exclusively on the strength of his symphonic poems . outside London der Rosenkavalier , Salome and Elektra were little known here . but Richter &apos;s enterprise ended with the progressive German composers . it is true that he was the first conductor to put Elgar on the musical map , the reason being , I fancy , that in Elgar he heard here and there the echo of his own native musical language . to a deputation of Manchester &apos;s youthful avant garde , demanding some representation at the Hall&amp;eacute; concerts of modern French music , Richter replied , zthere iss no mod&apos;n F-french musik . Beecham brought pagan allurements to the Hall&amp;eacute; non- classical - scene 4 of act 2 of Delius &apos;s a village Romeo and Juliet , Stravinsky &apos;s Firebird suite , Borodin &apos;s Polovtsian dances , all in the same programme . between the two wars he naturally modulated to a conversation indicative of the fact that he was now old enough to put behind him childish things . but never would he desert Delius . on the classical side he discovered Haydn for English ears . he even proposed introducing to Manchester Stravinsky &apos;s le sacre du printemps ; but the orchestral parts went astray . the Hall&amp;eacute; concerts committee asked for a substitute piece at short notice . Beecham suggested a Beethoven symphony . no ; already the season &apos;s programme had included enough Beethoven . they asked Sir Thomas to conduct Mendelssohn &apos;s Italian symphony . impossible , replied Sir Thomas , quite impossible , with only two rehearsals . but , argued the committee , you were content with two rehearsals for le sacre . quite so , said Sir Thomas blandly , I could play le sacre well enough after two rehearsals . for the Italian symphony five at least is absolutely necessary . his creation of the London philharmonic orchestra absorbed him and his time in the 1930s ; consequently his appearances in Manchester became intermittent . after the resignation of Sir Hamilton Harty in 1933 as the permanent conductor of the Hall&amp;eacute; concerts , the orchestra declined in its ensemble . another permanent conductor was needed , but the Hall&amp;eacute; society were reluctant to appoint one for fear of losing Sir Thomas &apos;s presence altogether . and Sir Thomas scared the society by attacking the B.B.C , forecasting that broadcasting would keep people away from concerts . as critic of the Manchester guardian , in Manchester in the 1930s , I pointed out week by week the falling away of the orchestra in unity of style . but my friendship with Sir Thomas , resumed soon after our argument about his cuts in der Rosenkavalier , was now apparently unclouded . I was vastly surprised and amused to learn from Michael Kennedy &apos;s history of the Hall&amp;eacute; concerts that in 1937 Sir Thomas wrote to the society stating that he refused to conduct any concert to which Mr Neville Cardus was invited . et tu , Sir Thomas ! and all the time I imagined my notices were generously kind about him . never did he refer to this letter to the Hall&amp;eacute; society , demanding my excommunication , at any of my subsequent meetings with him , not even during our day by day , night by night expressions of brotherly love in Australia . it was round about 1931 that he told me he was about to form a new orchestra in London . but where , I asked , where do you hope to find the players ? - the B.B.C orchestra has taken the best . maybe , he admitted the B.B.C has indeed attracted the best known instrumentalists of Great Britain . but you &apos;ll see ! in 1932 the royal philharmonic orchestra played for the first time at the Queen &apos;s Hall . the performance of the carnaval Romain overture of Berlioz was staggeringly brilliant . a highly finished performance of Mozart &apos;s Prague symphony almost jerked me from my seat when Sir Thomas brought in the D major principal theme , after the introduction , at the same adagio tempo , instead of allegro . my notice next day called for some explanation of this curious treatment or maladjustment . in his flat in Hallam Street , and while he was still in bed , working on a score , he took away my breath ( not for the first or the last time ) by assuring me that his tempo for the main theme after the introduction was authentic . you are probably acquainted only with the published score &amp;hellip; but I have seen the original manuscript written by Mozart &apos;s own hand &amp;hellip; . all the same , the next time he conducted the Prague symphony the theme in question was allegro all right and unmistakably . he was in a word , capable de tout ! apart from some piano lessons in boyhood he was self-taught . he states the contrary in his biography , a mingled chime , where he writes , in public accounts of my career has frequently appeared the assertion that I am almost entirely self-taught and , beginning as a rank amateur , have attained a professional status with some difficulty after a long and painful novitiate . nothing could be more remote from the truth . it is possible that at the age of twenty I might have failed to answer some of the questions in an examination paper set for boys of sixteen in a musical academy ; but probably I should fail with equal success to-day ; and I venture to say that a tolerable number of my most gifted colleagues would do no better . on the other hand , owing to my travels abroad and wider associations with musicians here and there , my miscellaneous fund of information was much more extensive than that of others of my age . for Sir Thomas , this is positively nai&quot;ve . there was music of sorts in his St Helens home ; his father practised music as a hobby . Sir Thomas substantially educated himself , as Elgar did , and Ernest Newman and Delius , perhaps the most cultured and influential figures in our music &apos;s history since Purcell . he came down from Oxford after only a year or so there because , as he explained to me , there was no musical life broad and humane enough . as for the rest of my studies at Oxford , they were not attractively conducted . and I could discover no mind or intelligence among my fellow undergraduates which did n&apos;t indicate permanent adolescence . in those days , even to-day in fact , the average university-educated Englishman is a case of arrested development , emotionally , aesthetically and sexually . his own capacity for deep feeling was not often or obviously hinted at in his studied deportment away from the concert platform or desk at the opera . he gave unmistakable proof of it in my company only once , during one of the last evenings I spent with him alone a few months after Lady Betty &apos;s sudden death . 