Scorn

by Parris, Matthew;

  J.L. Klein on Richard Wagner

  Don’t trouble yourself to play further. I much prefer the second.

  Gioachino Rossini to a would-be composer who had just played the first of two works from which he wished Rossini to choose the better

  Rossini would have been a great composer if his teacher had spanked him enough on the backside.

  Ludwig van Beethoven on Gioachino Rossini

  When I composed that, I was conscious of being inspired by God Almighty. Do you think I can consider your puny little fiddle when He speaks to me?

  Ludwig van Beethoven in reply to a complaint by a violinist that a passage was unplayable

  All Bach’s last movements are like the running of a sewing-machine.

  Arnold Bax on Johann Sebastian Bach

  The audience seemed rather disappointed; they expected the ocean, something big, something colossal, but they were served instead with some agitated water in a saucer.

  Louis Scheider on La Mer by Claude Debussy

  I like the bit about quarter to eleven.

  Erik Satie on ‘From dawn to noon on the sea’ from La Mer by Claude Debussy

  Little pink bonbons stuffed with snow.

  Claude Debussy on Edvard Grieg

  Too many pieces of music finish too long after the end.

  Igor Stravinsky

  Gaudy musical harlotry, savage and incoherent bellowings.

  Boston Gazette on Franz Liszt

  Composition indeed! Decomposition is the proper word for such hateful fungi!

  The Dramatic and Musical World on Franz Liszt, 1855

  I had another dream the other day about music critics. They were small and rodent-like with padlocked ears, as if they had stepped out of a painting by Goya.

  Igor Stravinsky, in the Evening Standard

  I can compare Le Carnaval Romain by Berlioz to nothing but the caperings and gibberings of a big baboon, over-excited by a dose of alcoholic stimulus.

  George Templeton Strong on Hector Berlioz, Diary

  A Tub of Pork and Beer.

  Hector Berlioz on George Frideric Handel

  If there is anyone here whom I have not insulted, I beg his pardon.

  Johannes Brahms on leaving a gathering of friends

  Brahms is just like Tennyson, an extraordinary musician with the brains of a third-rate village policeman.

  George Bernard Shaw on Johannes Brahms

  The scoundrel Brahms. What a giftless bastard! It annoys me that this self-inflated mediocrity is hailed as a genius. Chaotic and absolutely empty dried-up stuff.

  Pyotr Tchaikovsky on Johannes Brahms, Diary

  Music that stinks to the ear.

  Eduard Hanslick on Tchaikovsky

  I nearly trod in some once.

  Sir Thomas Beecham on Stockhausen

  Listening to the Fifth Symphony of Ralph Vaughan Williams is like staring at a cow for forty-five minutes.

  Aaron Copland

  Critics are misbegotten abortions.

  Ralph Vaughan Williams on music critics

  You know whatta you do when you shit? Singing, it’s the same thing, only up!

  Enrico Caruso

  The only time you want to see 100 gypsies on your doorstep.

  Publicity by Mole Valley District Council, for a Romany orchestra’s visit to Surrey

  It is quite untrue that the English people don’t appreciate music. They may not understand it but they absolutely love the noise it makes.

  Sir Thomas Beecham

  I had not realized that the Arabs were so musical.

  Sir Thomas Beecham on hearing that a concert by Malcolm Sargent in Tel Aviv had been interrupted by the sound of gunfire directed at the concert hall

  The musical equivalent of St Pancras station.

  Sir Thomas Beecham on Edward Elgar’s Symphony in A Flat

  Like playing a birdcage with a toasting fork.

  Sir Thomas Beecham on the harpsichord

  A glorified bandmaster.

  Sir Thomas Beecham on Arturo Toscanini

  Madame, there you sit with that magnificent instrument between your legs, and all you can do is scratch it!

  Arturo Toscanini to a woman cellist; also attributed to Sir Thomas Beecham

  If you will make a point of singing ‘All we, like sheep, have gone astray’ with a little less satisfaction, we shall meet the aesthetical as well as the theological requirements.

  Sir Thomas Beecham to a choir

  Brass bands are all very well in their place – outdoors and several miles away.

  Sir Thomas Beecham. Attrib.

  Jazz is the only form of music that the musicians seem to be enjoying more than the audience.

  Adage

  There are two golden rules for an orchestra: start together and finish together. The public doesn’t give a damn what goes on in between.

  Sir Thomas Beecham

  Dominoes.

  George Bernard Shaw to the conductor of a palm-court orchestra in a restaurant, who had asked what he would like the orchestra to play

  One should try everything once, except incest and folk-dancing.

  Arnold Bax

  Music written by dead guys.

  Nigel Kennedy on classical music

  Nothing thrills a classical music crowd more than a new piece of music that doesn’t make them physically ill.

  Joe Queenan

  When Jack Benny plays the violin it sounds as if the strings are still in the cat.

  Fred Allen

  George Melly you’re a repulsive sweaty faced lout singing love songs. Why your past it. Hang your gun up. And all your dirty jokes leave them to real comedians. You have a mouth like a ducks ass. Have you only one suit and shabby at that. And your dirty suggestive songs. Somebody ought to tell you. You dirty minded oaf. You’re a load of rubbish.

  Anonymous letter, as spelt, to George Melly

  His approach to the microphone is that of an accused man pleading with a hostile jury.

  Kenneth Tynan on Frankie Lane

  Miss Truman is a unique American phenomenon with a pleasant voice, of little size and fair quality … There are few moments during her recital when one can relax and feel confident she will make her goal, which is the end of the song.

  Paul Hume on the singer Margaret Truman, in the Washington Post

  I have just read your lousy review buried in the back pages of the paper. You sound like a frustrated old man who never made a success, an eight-ulcer man on a four-ulcer job, and all four ulcers working. I have never met you, but if I do you’ll need a new nose and plenty of beefsteak and perhaps a supporter below.

  Harry S. Truman replying to a review of Truman’s daughter’s recital in the Washington Post

  Frank Sinatra is a singer who comes along once in a lifetime … why did he have to come along in my lifetime?

  Bing Crosby

  I always knew Frank would end up with a boy.

  Ava Gardner on Sinatra’s marriage to Mia Farrow

  Mr Jones is, in the words of his own hit, not unusual … at least not as a singer; as a sex symbol he is nothing short of inexplicable.

  Sheridan Morley, in Punch

  Do you gargle with pebbles?

  Prince Philip to Tom Jones, after a Royal Variety show

  He sang like a hinge.

  Ethel Merman on Cole Porter

  If white bread could sing it would sing like Olivia

  Newton-John.

  Anonymous review

  For years I’ve been vaguely aware of [pop star] Michael Bolton’s existence, just as I’d been vaguely aware that there was an Ebola virus in Africa. Horrible tragedies, yes, but they had nothing to do with me.

  Joe Queenan

  I don’t like country music, but I don’t mean to denigrate those who do. And for the people who like country music, denigrate means ‘put down’.

  Bob Newhart

  The Beatles are not merely awful, I would consider it sacrilegious to say anything less than that
they are godawful. They are so unbelievably horrible, so appallingly unmusical, so dogmatically insensitive to the magic of the art, that they qualify as crowned heads of anti-music, even as the imposter popes went down in history as ‘anti-popes’.

  William F. Buckley, Jr.

  Their lyrics are unrecognisable as the Queen’s English.

  Edward Heath on The Beatles

  Europe is not just about free trade and single currencies, it’s about building a continent fit for Sir Edward Heath to conduct the European Community Youth Orchestra in the Ode to Joy.

  Mark Steyn, the Daily Telegraph

  He’s not even the best drummer in The Beatles.

  John Lennon, when asked whether Ringo Starr was the best drummer in the world. Attrib.

  John Lennon ain’t no revolutionary. He’s a fucking idiot, man.

  Todd Rundgren, in an interview with Melody Maker in 1974

  I guess we’re all looking for attention Rodd [sic], do you really think I don’t know how to get it, without revolution? I could dye my hair green and pink for a start!

  John Lennon, in a letter of reply to the same magazine, titled AN OPENED LETTUCE TO SODD RUNTLESTUNTLE

  This man has child-bearing lips.

  Joan Rivers on Mick Jagger

  Surely nothing could be that funny.

  George Melly when told the wrinkles on Mick Jagger’s face were laughter lines

  You have Van Gogh’s ear for music.

  Billy Wilder to Cliff Osmond. Attrib.

  Among certain more affluent hippies Bowie is apparently the symbol of a kind of thrilling extremism, a life-style (the word is for once permissible) characterised by sexual omnivorousness, lavish use of stimulants – particularly cocaine, very much an elitist drug, being both expensive and galvanising – self-parodied narcissism, and a glamorously early death. To dignify this unhappy outlook with such a term as nihilist would, of course, be absurd … [Bowie] is unlikely to last long as a cult.

  Martin Amis on David Bowie in 1973

  Wood Green shopping centre has been committed to vinyl.

  The New Musical Express on the pop group Five Star

  The ‘Mode’ make very dubious puffing noises as though they were blowing up a paddling pool.

  Smash Hits on Depeche Mode

  He has an attractive voice and a highly unattractive bottom. In his concert performances he now spends more time wagging the latter than exercising the former.

  Clive James on Rod Stewart

  Her voice sounded like an eagle being goosed.

  Ralph Novak on Yoko Ono, in People

  I remember when pop music meant jerking off to pictures of Marc Bolan and duffing up Bay City Rollers’ fans in lunch breaks. Being 13 was never as vapid as this. If it had been, we would all be traffic wardens by now.

  Melody Maker on the pop group Bros

  They are the Hollow Men. They are electronic lice.

  Anthony Burgess on disc jockeys, in Punch

  Bambi with testosterone.

  Owen Gleiberman on Prince, in Entertainment Weekly

  Michael Jackson’s album was called Bad because there wasn’t enough room on the sleeve for Pathetic.

  Prince

  If you’re horrible to me, I’m going to write a song about it, and you won’t like it. That’s how I operate.

  Taylor Swift

  I don’t want a wig that looks like a wig; I want one that could pass for a weave.

  Nicki Minaj

  All that money, and he’s still got hair like a fucking dinner lady.

  Boy George on Elton John

  I never liked the sound of my own voice. Till it made me rich.

  James Blunt responding to criticism of his music

  What can you say about five women whose principal distinguishing characteristic is that they have different names?

  Roger Ebert on the Spice Girls

  If you can imagine a soothing blend of jojoba oils, vanilla, and WD40 being poured into both ear holes simultaneously, then you will have only been able to scratch the surface of the feast of pleasure that is Katie And Pete’s ‘A Whole New World’ Album. I also found the case very useful for replacing a tile that had been missing in my bathroom for the past two and a half years.

  R.C. Murray, Amazon Review of Katie Price and her then husband Peter Andre’s A Whole New World

  Liam Gallagher, the younger of the Oasis brothers, has the kind of eyes in which the pupils are half-hidden under the eyelids; as if the eyes had stopped between floors.

  Alan Bennett

  A man with a fork in a world of soup.

  Noel Gallagher on Liam Gallagher

  Zorro on doughnuts.

  Noel Gallagher on musician Jack White

  What has he done to me? Nothing. He’s just somebody I’d like to hang.

  Noel Gallagher on Robbie Williams

  With people in the world such as Jamie Oliver and Clarissa Dickson-Wright there isn’t much hope for animals.

  Morrissey, a vegetarian, on chefs Jamie Oliver and the late Clarissa Dickson-Wright

  It’s the refuge for the mentally deficient. It’s made by dull people for dull people.

  Morrissey on dance music

  The fire in the belly is essential, otherwise you become Michael Bublé – famous and meaningless.

  Morrissey on passion

  He referred to me as an ‘insufferable puffed-up prat’. This is a bit rich coming from a man who actually married his own mother.

  Morrissey on daytime TV host Richard Madeley

  St Mary’s Secondary Modern School on Renton Road in Stretford may indeed be secondary, but it is not modern.

  Morrissey on his school

  What’s the difference between God and Bono? God doesn’t wander down Grafton Street thinking he’s Bono.

  Louis Walsh

  There are probably more annoying things than being hectored about African development by a wealthy Irish rock star in a cowboy hat, but I can’t think of them at the moment.

  Paul Theroux on Bono

  If I don’t win, the award show loses credibility.

  Kanye West

  You’ve had three hairstyles, what’s next for your career?

  Zach Galifianakis to Justin Bieber

  Your bus leaves in ten minutes … be under it.

  John Cooper Clarke in response to a heckler

  You couldn’t get a fan if you were hangin’ from the ceiling.

  Nicki Minaj

  Next time someone offers a penny for your thoughts – sell.

  Peter Kay putdown to heckler

  My apartment is too nice to listen to rap in.

  Kanye West

  Theatre, Film and Television

  When your grandmother’s swinging from a tree, it’s really hard to care about best documentary foreign short.

  Chris Rock on the historical lack of participation in the Oscars by black people, while presenting the Oscars

  Mummy, what is that lady for?

  Child at a matinee performance by Hermione Gingold

  She was good at playing abstract confusion in the same way that a midget is good at being short …

  Clive James on Marilyn Monroe

  I watched The Music Lovers. One can’t really blame Tchaikovsky for preferring boys. Anyone might become a homosexualist who had once seen Glenda Jackson naked.

  Auberon Waugh in Private Eye

  I invariably miss most of the lines in the last act of an Ibsen play; I always have my fingers in my ears waiting for the loud retort that means the heroine has just Passed On.

  Dorothy Parker on Henrik Ibsen

  A bargain basement Bette Davis, whose lightest touch as a comedienne would stun a horse.

  Time on Susan Hayward

  What exactly is on your mind – if you’ll excuse the exaggeration?

  Inquiry by David Letterman

  [A] vamp who destroys families and sucks on husbands like a praying mantis.

  Il Tempo on Elizabeth Taylor

/>   Overweight, overbosomed, overpaid and under-talented, she set the acting profession back a decade.

  David Susskind on Elizabeth Taylor in Cleopatra

  Miss Taylor is monotony in a slit skirt, a pre-Christian Elizabeth Arden with sequinned eyelids and occasions constantly too large for her.

  New Statesman on Elizabeth Taylor in Cleopatra

  Just how garish her commonplace accent, squeakily shrill voice, and the childish petulance with which she delivers her lines are, my pen is neither scratchy nor leaky enough to convey.

  John Simon on Elizabeth Taylor’s Kate, The Taming of the Shrew

  Elizabeth Taylor has more chins than the Chinese telephone directory.

  Joan Rivers

  … An incipient double chin, legs too short, and she has a slight pot belly.

  Richard Burton on Elizabeth Taylor

  In general, Mr Burton resembles a stuffed cabbage.

  Harry Medved and Randy Dreyfuss on Richard Burton in ‘The Assassination of Trotsky,’ The Fifty Worst Films of All Time

  She cannot change her face, which is that of a worried hamster.

  Review of Prunella Scales playing all six female parts in Anatole France by David Tylden-Wright

  Like acting with two and a half tons of condemned veal.

  Coral Browne on a leading man

  He has taken to ambling across our stages in a spectral, shell-shocked manner, choosing odd moments to jump and frisk, like a man through whom an electric current is being intermittently passed.

  Kenneth Tynan on Ralph Richardson in The White Carnation

  Tony Britton’s habit of curling his lip villainously and so relentlessly gives one the impression that he had it permanently waved.

  Plays and Players on Tony Britton in A Woman of No Importance by Oscar Wilde

  A bore is starred.

  Village Voice review of A Star is Born starring Barbra Streisand

  She looks like a cross between an aardvark and an albino rat surmounted by a platinum-coated horse bun.

  John Simon on Barbra Streisand

  A woman whose face looked as if it had been made of sugar and someone had licked it.

  George Bernard Shaw on Isadora Duncan

  Marie Osmond is so pure, not even Moses could part her knees.

  Joan Rivers

  You should never say bad things about the dead, you should only say good … Joan Crawford is dead. Good.