Sir Thomas Beecham. A Memoir

London England: Collins. Very Good/Good. 1961. First Edition. Cloth. 12mo - over 6¾" - 7¾" Tall Duodecimo Hardcover Hardcover. First Edition. Sir Thomas Beecham. A Memoir by Neville Cardus. Slight foxing to edge. Slight shelf wear and a small tear to edge of D/J. The author first heard Sir Thomas conduct in Manchester in 1912; in 1931 he met him over a white lady at Salzburg in the company of Lady Cunard. Their association spanned the greater part of this century, their friendship some thirty years, and when n 1958 the question of a biography of Sir Thomas came up, he commented that were it to be rwritten, it would be to Neville Cardus that he would turn. It was not written, but what we have here is in some ways more appropriate. This book is a memoir, a portrait, almost an evocation of this extradorinary man, written by an old friend and admirer who, through all the years of friendship and controversy, never lost his affection or his critical integrity. Neville Cardus writes of him as a man and as a musician, as the last of the dandies who none the less belonged entirely to the nineteenth century and remained at bottom a Lancastrian, born in St. Helen's. He was not so much a wit as a wage, and the famous stories which are told of him lose much of their flavour unless they are seen as the response to a living situation by an artist in comedy. Illustrated. 126 pp. (We carry a wide selection of titles in The Arts, Theology, History, Politics, Social and Physical Sciences. Academic and Scholarly books and Modern First Editions ,and all types of Educational Reference Literature.) .