BRITAIN’S DAME OF MUSIC

Dominion, Volume 27, Issue 148, 20 March 1934, Page 5

BRITAIN’S DAME OF MUSIC

“Anything associated with Dame Ethel Smyth is always a joy and a racket.” Thus Sir Thomas Beecham’s cliairmanly speech at a “Literary” luncheon given with musical honours, reports the “Daily Mail.” He was right- Dame Ethel, a robust figure in her green tweed suit and her inevitable three-cornered alderman’s hat, was at the top of her form. She talked, quite literally, about mice and men. “I wish,” she said, “conductors would see eye to eye with mice about music. Mice are wonderful judges of music. They have thoroughly nibbled the best of my manuscripts.” And here are some more quips by this wonderful young woman of 75: “I shall not be the first woman invited by a man to make a fool of herself —only'such invitations generally come earlier in one’s life.’’ “Petticoats, reduced in volume though they are to-day, arc an extra handicap.” “In me one of the world’s greatest grocer’s assistants was lost.’’ “I cannot describe the animal noises with which Sir Thomas Beecham works up his orchestra.” But the biggest laugh was raised by Sir Thomas himself when he described his first glimpse of Dame Ethel, 30 years ago. on a Riviera road—seabed on the box of a landau smoking a large cigar. “I fell in love with her at once,” he added gallantly, “and have remainded so ever since.”