Beecham's next visit to the College was in 1934 to conduct three performances of Delius' "A Village Romeo and Juliet" by which time I had graduated to playing bass clarinet. It was a work ideally suited to a student performance as it required a large orchestra and a vast number of small-part singers; also we could have unlimited rehearsal time. At the early rehearsals we were taught the note by Constant Lambert, but only Beecham could shape the work satisfactorily. Delius's music is notoriously difficult to conduct, it is architecturally fragmented and can sound as if it were constantly stopping and starting; in fact I think Rudolf Kempe is the only other conductor I have played for who could achieve that overall flowing smoothness. As people have perfect pitch, Sir Thomas had perfect tempo - he could seize on the tempo he wanted and reproduce it exactly whenever he needed it. "A Village Romeo and Juliet" is a very beautiful piece but rather weak dramatically and without Beecham could well have seemed merely episodic. << less