Strauss, the new conductor, seemed a hopeless failure; he kept the band as smooth, and also inane, as a linen collar; and his tempi, except for the occasional gallop in the wrong place, were for the most part insufferably slow. We all sat wishing we had not come, and that Strauss had never been born.

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "Strauss, the new conductor, seemed a hopeless failure; he kept the band as smooth, and also inane, as a linen collar; and his tempi, except for the occasional gallop in the wrong place, were for the most part insufferably slow. We all sat wishing we had not come, and that Strauss had never been born." in the context of "George Bernard Shaw, reviewing the 1894 Bayreuth Festival at which Strauss appeared for the first time on 22 July, conducting Wagner's opera Tannhauser. Quoted in Great Wagner Conductors: a listener's companion, Jonathan Brown, Canberra: Parrot Press 2012. Page 523. Shaw went on to become a friend and admirer of Strauss: they met a few times later on in London and elsewhere. In 1947 Shaw sent Strauss a signed copy of one of his lartest books, to which Strauss replied with a thank you letter. When he heard of Strauss's death, Shaw sat and played the piano reduction of Ariadne auf Naxos." to mean that wisdom is timeless.