Victor de Sabata

My father worked in Bristol many years ago and often attended concerts in The Colston Hall. One evening after a concert had finished, the manager of the hall came on stage to make an announcement: the next evening would be a concert given by a certain top-notch orchestra with a visiting conductor from La Scala, Milan - Victor de Sabata. Not many people had heard of him. But the manager assured everyone that he was one of the world's great conductors. The trouble was the concert was sparsely booked and he urged the audience to please come the following evening assuring them they would have an experience never to be forgotten.
So my father had a choice to make. He was a smoker and he had in his pocket just enough money for the concert or for a packet of cigarettes.
It was a big decision to make. He needed his fags and he had never heard of de Sabata.
But he made the right decision for two reasons: he was present at one of the finest performances of symphonic and operatic works he had ever heard and, he told me, ever would again; also he gave up smoking for good.
Victor de Sabata'a name cropped up a couple of days ago in an obituary of the great Italian tenor Giusseppe di Stefano; de Sabata had conducted what is still considered to be the finest performance on disc of "Tosca" with - wait for it - di Stefano, Maria Callas and Tito Gobi.