Sir Claus Moser

Speaker 20:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

Speaker 20:08

The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen eighty eight, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:30

My castaway this week is an academic, statistician, and banker, but those rather dry titles belie a man whose passion for music has ruled his life.

Presenter0:41

The son of a wealthy Jewish banker, he grew up in Hitler's Berlin. His family fled here to Britain before war broke out, and in the fifty years he's lived here since he's become a natural part of English public life.

Presenter0:54

Now head of an Oxford College, he can look back on a career which has taken him through the LSE, the Civil Service, a merchant bank, and the Royal Opera House. He is Sir Klaus

Presenter1:07

So class, there are at least three careers there, if not ten. Energy presumably is not a quality you're short on.

Sir Claus Moser1:14

No, I think that isn't the main problem.

Presenter1:16

You're a workaholic, said I.

Sir Claus Moser1:17

Yes, I've always worked very hard. I love it, and I always find time for music too.

Presenter1:23

That's always been a a dominating force in your life.

Sir Claus Moser1:26

Absolutely. Since I started playing the piano when I was five.

Sir Claus Moser1:31

My parents were always playing, my brother was playing, music was part of home life in Berlin.

Presenter1:38

And musicians visited your house too.

Sir Claus Moser1:39

Yes, the great memories really of the Berlin days were those evenings when my parents had rather superior musicians come to play with them, not just to give concerts, I mean my mother would play with great musicians.

Sir Claus Moser1:53

I was meant to be in bed, of course, but I crouched under the staircase listening, and I just loved it, and I've loved it ever since. And I've loved playing, I've loved listening.

Sir Claus Moser2:04

My parents were very clever. They took us to lots of concerts. They never allowed us to stay to the end.

Sir Claus Moser2:10

At the interval they said, Now it's time to go home to bed, and so I always wanted more all my life, and I didn't discover uh how Aida ended until quite late in life.

Presenter2:21

Let's have your first record, shall we? I gather it's been an impossible choice, this.

Sir Claus Moser2:25

Absolute impossible. I thought you might make an exception and let me have eighty records. But anyway, with with eight records, the first has to be.

Sir Claus Moser2:33

One of those works I used to hear from under the stairs. That's Beethoven's Archduke Trio, a most wonderful work when he was at his Beethoven was at his most confident and noble at it's a noble theme and it reminds me of those days.

Speaker 22:43

No

Presenter3:50

The beginning of the first movement of Beethoven's Arch Duke trio played by Daniel Barenboim, Pinker Zuckermann and Jacqueline Dupre.

Presenter3:58

So your childhood circlass in the twenties in Berlin was a happy one. It was a very affluent one.

Sir Claus Moser4:05

Yes, my parents were very well off. My father was a banker.

Sir Claus Moser4:10

We had a lovely home, there were dinner parties,

Sir Claus Moser4:15

We had a place outside Berlin in the country with horses and things.

Sir Claus Moser4:20

Yes, it it was a happy home and music was part of the happiness. But the other part of the happiness which really has been basic to my home whole life was the happiness of the family. I mean, my parents, my brother and I were always very close, and we had of course a wider family.

Presenter4:37

But then, of course, the shadow of Nazism fell across this very happy and cultured household, as you describe.

Sir Claus Moser4:42

Yeah.

Sir Claus Moser4:44

Yes.

Sir Claus Moser4:46

That is remarkably clear in my mind, the torchlight procession on the thirtieth of January 1933 and Hitler came to power.

Presenter4:54

You were eleven years old at the

Sir Claus Moser4:54

You were eleven

Sir Claus Moser4:55

Yes, I was eleven. I can see myself standing at the window and watching it.

Sir Claus Moser5:00

Of course.

Sir Claus Moser5:02

I I can't honestly pretend, with my memory at any rate, that the years when we remained in Germany, thirty three to thirty six, that they were miserable years for me. I can't say that, except every morning.

Sir Claus Moser5:15

Going to school. There were thirty boys, I think, roughly, in my class.

Sir Claus Moser5:20

And two of us were Jews. And um the teacher came in and said Heil Hitler and uh all the boys stood up and said Heil Hitler with the Hitler sign. And the the two Jewish boys were not me and the other one were not allowed to stand up. Now of course we didn't want to stand up and say Heil Hitler, but it was a daily humiliation and then one had fights in the breaks between lessons.

Presenter5:42

But how much did you understand? You must have heard your parents talking about.

Sir Claus Moser5:46

Yes, I I think increasingly I I understood. Uh I mean, one couldn't help but

Sir Claus Moser5:53

but see it all round one, the brown shirts, and we lived in a street very near, as it were, the Mall I mean like the Mall in London. And I saw Hitler dozens of times in Goebbels and Goering, you know, parading up and down. And my father actually had decided as long ago as nineteen twenty nine

Sir Claus Moser6:10

that there was no future for us Jews.

Sir Claus Moser6:13

in Germany, and he decided then that we would emigrate.

Sir Claus Moser6:17

And the only reason why we didn't go until thirty six was because my grandmother was too ill to move. So it was part of the f our family conversation. So we sort of understood

Sir Claus Moser6:29

We understood that we were in the firing line in quotes, we Jews.

Sir Claus Moser6:35

Naturally we understood that. What we couldn't have understood at that time was that it was going to lead in 1938 onwards to six million deaths. I mean one couldn't then have understood just what lay ahead. And after all in nineteen thirty six when we came out, we still managed to come out freely. I mean not with everything, but with something.

Presenter6:55

Shall we pause there and have your second record?

Sir Claus Moser6:59

Well

Sir Claus Moser6:59

The second record, really.

Sir Claus Moser7:02

has to go back not to Hitler, but to the piano. And um my piano teacher at the time was Fraulein Kreusschen, and she pretended that she was descended as a pupil of Liszt. I never found out whether she was, but she was a very good teacher.

Sir Claus Moser7:17

And that was when my love of the piano was really born and my determination ultimately to become a pianist, although my father wanted me to become a banker.

Sir Claus Moser7:28

And many years later I mean, we're talking about the nineteen twenties, and literally, almost sixty years later, what a lucky man I became Louis Kentner, the great pianist who sadly died last year,

Sir Claus Moser7:44

Took me as a pupil, and I can only say that the five years I was Kintna's pupil.

Sir Claus Moser7:49

were the in a sense the climax of my musical life, and I'd like to play Benediction of God in this solitude. I think my English is better than my French. A wonderful piece of list, and it shows Kentner's poetry.

Presenter9:02

This Benediction de Dieu d'An la Solitude, played by Louis Kentner, a very special piano teacher, I'm sure, said that.

Sir Claus Moser9:10

Yes, he he really was quite remarkable. I think for two reasons. First of all, he so loved playing the piano.

Sir Claus Moser9:16

That he inspired one to share that love. Also, he didn't try to dazzle.

Sir Claus Moser9:22

He just wanted to be true to the composer. That was his philosophy. I'm here to play Beethoven. And he could also be very severe. I never forget the day when he said to me, Why are you always playing the wrong note? The right one is right next door. I mean, it's just as easy to play the right note as the wrong note. A great, wonderful man and musician.

Presenter9:45

So in nineteen thirty six you were saying your family left Berlin freely, but but necessarily?

Sir Claus Moser9:50

Yeah.

Sir Claus Moser9:52

I think originally they wanted to go to America, but we stayed here happily.

Presenter9:56

But then great humiliation was to come because you and your father and your brother were interned, weren't you?

Sir Claus Moser10:03

Yes, this was May 1940 and the police came and my father and my brother and I were taken to Lingfield racecourse. It's the first time I've ever slept in a racecourse. And there we were for two or three days and it was it was rather miserable. It's very important to put this in perspective because it was miserable for the older generation. I mean my brother and I we were very young. I was actually underage, which is why I was released fairly quickly, only three months.

Sir Claus Moser10:35

But for the older generation, after all, my father and mother had given up a great deal. He was at the peak of his career, fifty-one, when he left Germany.

Speaker 210:35

Uh

Sir Claus Moser10:43

And here we were, and it so it it was humiliating, and there were some suicides in camp, and

Sir Claus Moser10:50

It was very sad for the older generation.

Presenter10:52

Why did you believe you were there?

Sir Claus Moser10:55

It was a real puzzle. We certainly understood that the British government were very worried about spies, but I think it was quite hard to take.

Sir Claus Moser11:05

That in order to catch a few spies, all the enemy aliens, as we were called, had to be put behind bars.

Sir Claus Moser11:14

And the army people who looked after us in camp didn't know we were we were friends. They had just been given the instruction, I think by MI5.

Sir Claus Moser11:24

That we were Germans.

Presenter11:25

So you were treated like prisoners of war.

Sir Claus Moser11:27

Rather, yeah.

Presenter11:28

Badly?

Sir Claus Moser11:30

No, but I could talk about one or two sort of slightly humiliating moments for my father more than for us. I mean, why did we have to be stripped of all our valuables when we came in? I remember it so clearly, our watches and our pins and so on. But there were also funny moments. I mean, um

Sir Claus Moser11:48

After all, there we sat in Hayden internment camp.

Sir Claus Moser11:53

And um every afternoon, miraculously, in june nineteen forty, Battle of Brittany.

Sir Claus Moser11:59

There was a Viennese cafe behind bars. We had cream cakes, iced coffee, or could be nice. Where did you get it from? God knows. I have no idea. I really do not know. But I do remember that the army officers who were our guards used to share these enjoyments with us.

Presenter12:06

When did you

Sir Claus Moser12:17

There was a bank. I've often wondered about this since, because there's nothing to buy. But, you know, if you put five thousand Jews behind

Sir Claus Moser12:25

But why we will find something to do.

Presenter12:27

Let's have your third record.

Sir Claus Moser12:29

Well, amongst those who were interned I didn't actually know them at the time were some members of the Amadeir's Quartet.

Sir Claus Moser12:37

And not because of internment, but because of what they've done for life in Britain, for musical life, for chamber music. And this is one of the great works. Richard Strauss called it one of the greatest works of music ever written, Mozart String Quintet.

Presenter13:49

Uh

Presenter13:54

The opening section of Mozart's String Quintet, K five one six, in G minor, played by the Amadeus Quartet. I can see, Sir Klasse, in your enjoyment of your music, you're looking forward to going on this island, aren't you?

Sir Claus Moser14:05

Yes, I I think if I can have all these records it it begins to feel moderately attractive.

Presenter14:11

Will you be able to survive?

Sir Claus Moser14:13

Oh.

Sir Claus Moser14:14

Well

Sir Claus Moser14:16

I've of course been thinking about that. I think I might be able to build a sort of shelter because I was quite keen on carpetry at school. But I don't think it'll be uh for very long because I I actually don't think I'll survive. I I think the main problem is this. First of all, I couldn't bring myself to kill anything, so I'd I'm a great meat eater, so I'd have to become a vegetarian.

Speaker 414:36

Carrier.

Sir Claus Moser14:38

But I'm also a hypochondriac. Not totally converted, but I'm a bit of a hypochondriac. So I don't think I'd eat any sort of fruit or vegetables in case it might give me some illness. So I don't know how I'm going to live. And and the other thing is that I'm absolutely obsessed by crawlies and creepies. I mean spiders and things like that. So if there are any of those on the desert islands, it's not a good outlook.

Presenter15:02

So even Mozart would not overcome these horrors.

Sir Claus Moser15:05

Yeah, I I I think it's very, very gloomy.

Speaker 415:05

Yeah.

Presenter15:09

Let's go back to your life after you said you were released from internment camp after three or four months because you were underage. What what sort of war did you have after that?

Sir Claus Moser15:14

Yes, because you were underage.

Sir Claus Moser15:19

Well, not very heroic. First of all, I wanted to go into the hotel business.

Sir Claus Moser15:24

But that didn't work out, so I went to LSE and I studied, so it was three years of the war, studied statistics.

Sir Claus Moser15:31

And then three years in the RAF.

Presenter15:34

What did you do in the RAF?

Sir Claus Moser15:36

Oh, that was good. Um

Presenter15:36

Oh.

Sir Claus Moser15:38

I went to the RF recruiting office and they said, um, have you got any education? And I said modestly, well,

Sir Claus Moser15:46

I did get the best degree of the year this year, you know, boasting a bit because I was trying to be honest. Ah, just what we need, he said, flight mechanic. And I was thrilled because I thought, well, obviously they're going to use my mathematics and statistics, not realizing that in the RAF they were c we were called grease monkeys. I mean we sort of cleaned out aeroplanes.

Sir Claus Moser16:05

I loved it actually. I look back on those three years as very important in my life, not because I won the war, but because.

Sir Claus Moser16:13

I realized what a prig I was. I really was. Uh I'd I'd had a very glossy youth and life and I hadn't really mixed with a wide range of people and in the RAF I did and I learned a lot from that.

Presenter16:29

So then you began after the war your your first career at at the LSE as a lecturer. You've written quite a few books on the subject of statistics, which you've described yourself as boringly, Germanically systematic.

Sir Claus Moser16:33

Is it actually?

Presenter16:43

I mean, is that it?

Sir Claus Moser16:43

I'd forgotten that description. It's very accurate. One of them i is a textbook which still sells, I'm happy to say.

Sir Claus Moser16:50

I did meet a former student of mine the other day who said it was the most boring book she'd ever read. But anyway, a lot of people buy it. That's on social statistics.

Presenter16:58

It does strike one as as odd about you a bit of a contradiction, that that you so cultivated, so sensitive, such a lover of the arts, are actually totally at home, positively revel in the dry old dust of statistics.

Sir Claus Moser17:10

Yes, well, I don't of course regard it as dry. And I believe that statistics, good statistics, just like good writing.

Sir Claus Moser17:18

have a tremendously

Sir Claus Moser17:21

compassionate

Sir Claus Moser17:23

Job to do in throwing light

Sir Claus Moser17:26

On the life of people and all my statistical work, both when I was writing books and when I then was head of government statistics.

Sir Claus Moser17:36

Related to that.

Presenter17:38

Your fourth record, please.

Sir Claus Moser17:41

Ever since I was young

Sir Claus Moser17:43

Playing duets.

Sir Claus Moser17:45

has been a great joy.

Sir Claus Moser17:47

And so here is one of the greatest, perhaps the greatest, piano duet duet ever written, is the Schubert's Fantasia in F minor.

Sir Claus Moser17:56

which I've played with my father, with my mother.

Sir Claus Moser17:59

With all my three children.

Sir Claus Moser18:01

Not not at once.

Presenter19:06

Schubert's Fantasia in F minor, played by Alfred Brendel and Eveline Crochet.

Presenter19:12

So so class, it was I think in 1967 that you began your second career because Harold Wilson invited you to become

Sir Claus Moser19:19

Come.

Presenter19:20

Director of statistics?

Sir Claus Moser19:21

Yes, it was called the post to them was called Director of the Central Statistical Office.

Sir Claus Moser19:26

It was a very exciting period in my life.

Sir Claus Moser19:29

What rather amused me about my appointment was that four years before, when I was entitled to a sabbatical from L S E,

Sir Claus Moser19:38

I applied to the Central Statistical Office to work there. As an ordinary statistician, I was told no, in view of my German birth and as it was the highest security office in Whitehall, the Cabinet Office, this was not on. Well, when Prime Minister Wilson asked me to be the head of it, suddenly that little problem was overcome and I was allowed in as the head of it, but I hadn't been allowed in as one of the underlings. Anyway, that was fine. And it was a wonderful decade for me. I served three Prime Ministers, Mr Wilson and Mr Heath and Lord Callan, as he now is.

Sir Claus Moser20:16

And it was heady stuff. I was at the centre of policy making. And as I believe passionately I mean, passionately is the right word in the importance of statistics for a democracy.

Sir Claus Moser20:29

I worked myself.

Sir Claus Moser20:31

very hard to try to serve the governments.

Presenter20:34

There must have been times when your political masters, and you mentioned the the three main ones Wilson, Heath, and Callaghan required such figures to be massaged is perhaps the best euphemism. And were you asked to do that?

Sir Claus Moser20:44

Next

Sir Claus Moser20:47

There were a number of occasions when I had cause to be unhappy about ministers.

Sir Claus Moser20:54

But all my life I've believed in fighting for what I was doing, what I am doing.

Sir Claus Moser21:01

I don't believe in silence. So I always fought. And there were actually two occasions when um I resigned.

Sir Claus Moser21:09

One actually is a well-known story, the Jumbo Jets in nineteen seventy, which, Mr Wilson believed, lost in the election.

Sir Claus Moser21:17

And uh I I fought very hard, as uh this wasn't a lone battle, all of us did, for integrity and uh of statistics, because it's just as important as integrity with words. And on the whole we won.

Presenter21:30

Can I ask you an awful question? How many people when you meet them come out with the phrase about lies?

Sir Claus Moser21:34

I think one in three. But I had a I had a terribly good comeback at dinner parties if there was a pretty lady sitting next to me and I was beginning to warm up and she would say, What do you do? And I say, statistician,

Sir Claus Moser21:49

she quickly turned the other way, and that used to irritate me. So in my later days, when it then got to the stage when she turned back towards me for the second bout of conversation, I used to say, I'm also chairman of the Royal Opera House. And then she'd suddenly become very friendly. It's so difficult to get tickets for Domingo and so on.

Sir Claus Moser22:08

And then I would turn the other way.

Presenter22:10

I want to talk about the Royal Opera House next, but let's pause for your fifth record, please.

Sir Claus Moser22:15

Well, I suppose one of the great people in my life, and I will never cease to be.

Sir Claus Moser22:22

Grateful that I met him was Lord Robins, Lionel Robbins, a great man in every way, a wonderful economist, colleague at L A C.

Sir Claus Moser22:29

He was very much in the arts, National Gallery, Covent Garden. I I'm sure I owed to him that I was put on the board of the Royal Opera House.

Sir Claus Moser22:38

He loved a lot of music.

Sir Claus Moser22:40

But perhaps above all

Sir Claus Moser22:43

Bach's wonderful double violin concert, and perhaps particularly that incomparable slow movement which brings tears to the eyes.

Presenter23:49

The beginning of the slow movement the Largo of Bach's double violin concerto played by Isaac Stern and Itzek Pellmann.

Presenter23:57

Well, now, as well as being a government employee sir class, as you were just saying, you were on the board of the Royal Opera House, so.

Presenter24:05

You were urging your masters, as it were, to put money into the arts. Was that ever compromising, working alongside Prime Ministers who could grant you more grant?

Sir Claus Moser24:13

I don't honestly think there was any conflict, but it was the beginning, of course, for me.

Sir Claus Moser24:18

Especially when I became chairman, but the whole period of Covent Garden of an absolute high point in my life. It's a great institution and uh I loved every moment and um the only reason why I'm not playing or taking eight operatic records or balletic records to the Desert Island is that I worked out that during my time on the board I attended two thousand performances roughly. So I thought I'd have a bit of a break.

Presenter24:48

Well now the the the Royal Opera House of course receives a a lot of money from the state although I'm sure you would say not enough.

Presenter24:55

But it's still nevertheless perceived by many people as being elitist. I must ask you that question that was.

Presenter25:02

What can be done about it?

Sir Claus Moser25:04

Well, there's imagined reality. It is inevitable that a place which is a grand building

Sir Claus Moser25:11

And it's a great sort of evening.

Sir Claus Moser25:14

will always have a bit of an image of elitism. And the number of people who've said to me, we don't go there because we don't like wearing black tie, well, it's you can hardly see a black tie, but the image remains.

Sir Claus Moser25:26

It is inevitable.

Sir Claus Moser25:28

Given the financing in this country.

Sir Claus Moser25:31

of the arts, which I am very unhappy about. I have been for some years.

Sir Claus Moser25:35

that a lot of prices are rather high.

Sir Claus Moser25:38

It is also inevitable

Sir Claus Moser25:41

That um

Sir Claus Moser25:42

They will get higher because the pressure of the present government is on self-help and that includes the box office.

Presenter25:49

Perhaps it should become more of a company and less of a vehicle for highly expensive imported start.

Sir Claus Moser25:55

Yeah, but don't forget that the public do want to hear Domingo, and they do want to hear Jesse Norman.

Presenter26:02

It's just that they can't always afford to pay to do so.

Sir Claus Moser26:02

It's just the

Sir Claus Moser26:04

Well, actually the fees of of the great artists are a very minor part of uh Opera House costs, ten percent or something of that order.

Presenter26:14

So then it must be the costumes and the sets and all those other things. Perhaps they should be less ambitious.

Sir Claus Moser26:16

And all those other things.

Sir Claus Moser26:19

I think that is absolutely right. I mean, I I care about the music above all, and I can't bear all these over elaborate productions.

Sir Claus Moser26:29

laser productions nowadays, you know, all the technology and so on.

Presenter26:34

Your sixth record.

Sir Claus Moser26:35

Well, my wife and I got married in

Sir Claus Moser26:39

in nineteen forty nine, and we both remember the ring performances of that year. And then when I became chairman, the first thing was the great Colin Davis Friedrich Ring. So there has to be

Speaker 226:47

And

Sir Claus Moser26:53

Wotan's Farewell to Me One of the Most Moving Moments, sung by Hans Hotter.

Presenter27:55

Wotan's Farewell from the last act of Wagner's Devalkery, sung by Hans Schwotter, with the Vena Philharmonica, conducted by Sir George Schulte.

Presenter28:04

We now, Sir Class, you're warden of Wadham College, Oxford, which is presumably an elegant life.

Sir Claus Moser28:10

Yes, it's elegant, but the excitement is the the mix of youngsters. It makes me feel quite young again, who come to Wadham for three, four, more years.

Sir Claus Moser28:22

It's most satisfying working with the young

Presenter28:25

We missed out, of course, your third career, if you like, because at the age of fifty six you you took up your father's profession, you became a banker.

Sir Claus Moser28:32

Okay, the bang

Sir Claus Moser28:33

Yes, I'd been in Whitehall for ten years. I was going to stay until my retirement age, and then I had this lucky invitation from Evelyn Rostel to become vice chairman of the bank.

Presenter28:44

Did you discover that banking was in your blood?

Sir Claus Moser28:47

I don't think I'm a natural banker. Or put it this way, I don't think one becomes a natural banker at that age, at fifty seven or whatever it was.

Presenter28:56

There is a way, isn't there, in which your your life has come full circle. Going to banking now, which your father was, as we've said, your musical friendships, your elegant lifestyle, you've somehow recreated what your family had in Berlin half a century ago.

Sir Claus Moser29:11

Well, not too romantic. I don't think I've gone back to sort of lifestyle of where I began, but I think the elements were there, namely a sort of respect for a profession, which is to me to be an academic.

Presenter29:13

Is that too romantic?

Sir Claus Moser29:29

respect for the private sector, which is banking, and above all the importance of on the one hand education and the arts, make up this this funny mishmash that I've lived.

Speaker 229:41

Your seventh record, please.

Sir Claus Moser29:44

Well, the seventh is rather easy in a way because, um, to me

Sir Claus Moser29:49

Amongst the most poignant composers are Purcell and Monteverdi,

Sir Claus Moser29:54

And Monteverdi had the good sense of writing his greatest work, perhaps The Vespers, in the year in sixteen hundred and ten, in which Wadham College was built. So that's rather natural.

Presenter31:08

The beginning of Claudio Monteverdi's Vespers with the Monteverdi Choir and Orchestra conducted by John Elliott Gardiner. You've been here in Britain now for more than fifty years, as we've said. Do you feel yourself

Presenter31:20

To be British, or or are you in your heart still German?

Sir Claus Moser31:24

No, not German. I am.

Sir Claus Moser31:27

British, as we like to say, but

Sir Claus Moser31:30

Deep down

Sir Claus Moser31:32

I still regard myself as not totally.

Sir Claus Moser31:37

English.

Sir Claus Moser31:38

I'm not, after all. I I'm not saying anything very significant in saying that. I'm partly foreign, and I'm ni neither proud of it nor ashamed of it. I mean my I'm a European.

Sir Claus Moser31:49

Above all, I'm a Jew.

Sir Claus Moser31:52

I don't regard myself now as a refugee. I don't regard myself as without roots. I don't regard myself as insecure. If I said any of those things it would be false.

Sir Claus Moser32:04

I think

Sir Claus Moser32:05

The fact, though, is that when I became head of a major government department, the Central Statistical Office, within a top security office, the Cabinet Office, I was rather proud to be so appointed, and part of my pride was that this happened to somebody who hadn't come up the straight

Sir Claus Moser32:29

Not exactly Eaton Oxford root, but you know what I mean.

Sir Claus Moser32:33

And I must confess that when I was knighted, again that gave me an extra little bit of pleasure. And above all I confess that when I was appointed first to the Board of Kaufman, but above all chairman, I was absolutely astonished that

Sir Claus Moser32:50

Having come from a childhood where from very early days, when I was five, six, seven, music and opera

Sir Claus Moser33:00

were part of my life and happiness. It absolutely amazed me.

Sir Claus Moser33:06

that Britain, as it were, could appoint somebody from outside to this

Sir Claus Moser33:12

Dare I say top job in the arts?

Presenter33:16

Your last record, please.

Sir Claus Moser33:19

Well, once I had decided that not all eight records could come from Figaro, that that might be rather tedious, the last one does have to, to me it's the greatest, the most perfect opera ever written. And I suppose one of the most astonishing moments of happiness in my life was when on my retirement from the Royal Opera House, the Opera House decided to give me as a present a performance to my wife and myself, a performance of Figaro in my honour, conducted by Hai Tink with a great cast. And it was a wonderful performance. I mean a really wonderful performance.

Sir Claus Moser34:04

And when the cast bowed to me, led by Heitinger at the end,

Sir Claus Moser34:10

I thought for a moment that perhaps Mozart had written it for me.

Speaker 434:20

Standard.

Speaker 434:22

Yeah.

Speaker 434:44

Ah

Speaker 434:45

Uh

Speaker 435:03

Yeah.

Presenter35:06

The sextet from Mozart's Marriage of Figaro with Blindborn Festival Opera conducted by Bernard Heitink.

Presenter35:14

The three moments of choice, Sir Claus. First of all, which of the records would you choose above all others?

Sir Claus Moser35:20

Well, it's difficult of course, but um one bit of me would like to have Louis Kentner with me forever on the island, but I think that um he would understand if um in fact I end up with Figueroa. All of it.

Presenter35:39

You shall have all of it, and your book.

Sir Claus Moser35:42

I've I've been agonizing over this choice. You're you're presumably not going to let me take the twenty volumes of Grove's Encyclopedia on Music.

Presenter35:50

I think there's a fairly statutory ban on collected works other than the Bible and Shakespeare which you have.

Sir Claus Moser35:52

On collective

Sir Claus Moser35:56

Yes.

Sir Claus Moser35:57

Well, I hesitated between getting the having with me the Oakman University course in physics so that I could learn something about the world.

Sir Claus Moser36:05

But I think in the end I I need a bit of a laugh every now and then. James Serber.

Presenter36:10

A volume of the

Sir Claus Moser36:11

Yeah.

Presenter36:11

Right. And your luxury.

Sir Claus Moser36:13

That's rather easy.

Presenter36:13

Uh

Sir Claus Moser36:14

Um as long as you're moderately generous. Um a concert grant, Steinway, um But of course. Thank you. Um tuning fork.

Presenter36:25

All right.

Sir Claus Moser36:26

And then possibly, um I don't know what will happen to the humidity problem, but uh we may have to have a bit of humidifier equipment. But but then if I have that, then I can prepare for the recital at the festival hall that the world's been waiting for.

Presenter36:42

We look forward to hearing it. Sir Klaus Moser, in the meantime, we very much enjoyed hearing your Desert Island discs. Thank you.

Speaker 236:55

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