Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Desert Island Discs
Presented by Sue Lawley
Concert pianist who shared the Moscow Tchaikovsky Prize with Vladimir Ashkenazi and rebuilt his career after mental illness.
Eight records
Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes
London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by André Previn
Well, I I think when Britton wrote Peter Grimes. It was like a new age beginning in English modern music. It really has such beauty and delicacy of colour, and he was such a lovely person. We knew him slightly, and he was terribly kind and awfully nice.
Well, it's a concerto that you don't hear as often as the others, and the record itself, from the technical point of view, was regarded as something of epoch making at the time. It's very finely engineered and Michelangeli plays marvellously as
which I think is given a miraculously fine performance by Vladimir Ashkenazi. And he the way he thinks the shapes, the melodies, and the wonderful rhythms are really quite spectacular.
Symphony No. 1 in B-flat minor (first movement)Favourite
London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by André Previn
Well, We knew William and Sue Walton quite well. ... And I feel the piece takes one back to the year of nineteen thirty five and you can feel the tension in it of, you know, armaments races building up and I think somehow he managed to convey this in the piece, you know, in a miraculous, fantastic way.
Thi I think'cause of his demonic burlier.
Sir John Barbirolli conducting the Hallé Orchestra
I think it's one of my favourite pieces of music.
The keepsakes
The book
Wilkie Collins
Well, that would go a long way in itself, but I thought I might take the moonstone of Wilkie Collins.
The luxury
Well, yes, yes, I think a piano would be a sine qua non and uh I think that's a a very brilliant idea for Luxury indeed.
In conversation
Presenter asks
Why does that piece mean so much to you?
Well, I I think when Britton wrote Peter Grimes. It was like a new age beginning in English modern music. It really has such beauty and delicacy of colour, and he was such a lovely person. We knew him slightly, and he was terribly kind and awfully nice.
Presenter asks
Were you any good at academic work, or was music always the one and only thing?
It is a crap. Yeah. Well, I I enjoyed history very much at the school, and it was very well taught, and there was a very active music society. The Film Society and the Philosophical and Debating Society of the Marvelous School of Music. So you enjoyed your school days? Very much. Very much better.
Presenter asks
The recording
Timestamps play the recording from that turn
Speaker 2
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 2
The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen eighty nine.
Speaker 2
And the presenter was Sue Lawley.
Presenter
My Castaway this week is one of the great concert pianists of our age. Born in Nottinghamshire, when he was twenty five he shared the Moscow Tchaikovsky Prize with Vladimir Ashkenazi, and seemed destined for a brilliant career.
Presenter
Ten years later, however, brilliance turned to despair as he was overtaken by mental illness. The virtuoso, whose spectacular playing had thrilled audiences all over the world, became a violent and sometimes suicidal figure, incapable of performing.
Presenter
Gradually he has rebuilt that career. To day he does perform and he records, and there are those who say his genius is as great as ever it was.
Presenter
He is John Ogden.
Presenter
Do you feel, John, at the age now of fifty two, that you play as well as ever you did?
John Ogdon
Well, I hope so. I certainly enjoy playing and I I hope that in some ways I'm playing a bit better.
Presenter
And do you still practice for hours and hours every day?
John Ogdon
Well, about four hours I try to do and I feel I ought to, and um I do try and practise about that much certainly.
Presenter
I take it then that um that your luxury on our desert island, to begin where we normally end, would have to be a piano, because you couldn't live without one, could you?
John Ogdon
Well, yes, yes, I think a piano would be a sine qua non and uh I think that's a a very brilliant idea for Luxury indeed.
Presenter
Would you would you look forward to the uh peace that our island would provide in which to practise, or would you fear the loneliness?
John Ogdon
I think
John Ogdon
I would look forward to the piece, and um I I think I would try and build up some sort of rituals of combating loneliness, which I'm sure would be there.
Presenter
How much difficulty then did you have in selecting the music that you I mean you could provide your own on the piano, of course. I presume you have so much music in your head.
John Ogdon
I didn't have too much difficulty because I really did choose pieces I'd love to take to a desert island and I didn't um let too many other thoughts come crowding in. I simply chose these marvellous pieces.
Presenter
Shall we hear the first of them?
John Ogdon
Yes, the first is the first of Benjamin Britton's s four sea interludes from Peter Grimes, and a wonderful evocation, in fact, of a seascape under moonlight.
John Ogdon
And played by the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Andrei Bervin.
Presenter
And why why do you want that? Why does it mean so much to you?
John Ogdon
Well, I I think when
John Ogdon
Britton wrote Peter Grimes. It was like a new age beginning in English modern music.
John Ogdon
It really has such beauty and delicacy of colour, and he was such a lovely person. We knew him slightly, and he was terribly kind and awfully nice.
Presenter
The first of Benjamin Britton's four C interludes from Peter Grimes, played by the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Andre Previn. You were saying, John, that that was one of the first operas you ever saw.
John Ogdon
Yes, it was. I saw it at the Palace Theatre in Manchester when I was about fourteen. Uh I think Peter Pears was playing the main part and Sir Geriant Evans usually played Captain Bullstrode. And um it was simply wonderful.
Presenter
That was in Manchester, where you moved to later, but you were actually born near Nottingham, weren't you?
John Ogdon
Yes, in Mansfield Woodhouse, a suburb of Mansfield.
Presenter
What sort of family were you born into? Can you describe it to me?
John Ogdon
Well, it was a very musical family.
John Ogdon
My father wrote one or two essays on baleos and also played the trombone and the xylophone and did bell ringing. And my mother was very musical. She loved music very much. And also my brothers and sisters were.
Presenter
And there were four of them, brothers and sisters.
John Ogdon
They were, yes.
Presenter
But it but your parents weren't professional musicians, were they?
John Ogdon
No, no, they weren't. My father was an English teacher, and my mother had worked as a secretary.
Presenter
Uh
Presenter
Was there a piano in the house?
John Ogdon
Yeah.
John Ogdon
Yes, there was. There was a pianola piano.
John Ogdon
which was wonderful for playing these pianola roles, something that's rather come back into fashion recently. And also you could use it of course as a piano in the normal sense and um it was a great inspiration to me.
Speaker 2
Playing
Presenter
So how old were you? Can you remember when you first sat at the piano?
John Ogdon
About four, I think.
Presenter
But did the family
Presenter
spot even at that point that you had a very particular and rare talent, do you think?
John Ogdon
I don't know, really. Apparently
John Ogdon
could take down some chords from dictation and um my mother and father put me on to some theoretical studies and I went a little bit to the Royal Manchester College of Music when I was about eight years old.
Presenter
Good heavens above.
John Ogdon
Sort of junior exhibitioner.
Presenter
That that was quite a precocious talent, surely.
John Ogdon
Well relatively high.
Presenter
And you you composed a bit at an early age, didn't you?
John Ogdon
Yes, I did. I did write quite a few piano pieces, but I I think I've in fact lost them all by now.
Presenter
At at what sort of age were Sam?
John Ogdon
I was about seven or eight.
Presenter
And what sort of pieces were they, can you remember?
John Ogdon
Um
John Ogdon
They were little sonatas mainly.
John Ogdon
and bought one or two album leaves and
John Ogdon
you know, short pieces, but all of them for piano, in fact.
Presenter
Did you even then, then, have a favorite composer?
John Ogdon
Um, yes, my favourite composer was Vachmaninoff at that age, actually, when I was about seven.
Presenter
Why?
John Ogdon
I think I thought it was so tuneful and melodious and beautiful.
Presenter
I think that means that we ought to have your second record, don't you?
John Ogdon
Yes, yes, I'd love to hear part of Vachmaninoff's concerto number four played by Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli.
Presenter
Why have you chosen that particular piece of Ratmaninoff?
John Ogdon
Well, it's a concerto that you don't hear as often as the others, and the record itself, from the technical point of view, was regarded as something of epoch making at the time. It's very finely engineered and Michelangeli plays marvellously as
Presenter
Part of Ragmaninoff's concerto number four, played by Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, with the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Ettore Gracchis. So music was your passion from a very early age. You went on from Nottingham, as we said, to Manchester, to Manchester Grammar School. Were you any good at academic work, or was music always the one and only thing?
John Ogdon
It is a crap.
John Ogdon
Yeah.
John Ogdon
Well, I I enjoyed history very much at the school, and it was very well taught, and there was a very active music society.
John Ogdon
The Film Society and the Philosophical and Debating Society of the Marvelous School of Music.
Presenter
So you enjoyed your school days? Very much.
John Ogdon
Very much better.
Presenter
And you went on to the uh the Royal Northern College of Music, that was in the early fifties.
John Ogdon
Yeah.
Presenter
Can you describe to me what it was like, then?
John Ogdon
Well, it had a a marvellously well agreeably spontaneous character.
John Ogdon
And those of students who were interested in modern music, like Alexander Goh, Maxwell Davis and Harrison Birchwhistle, we could all get together in really complete freedom within the structure of the college as a whole, which was marvellously run by Frederick Cox, a singing teacher, and he seemed to be able also to start a teaching department there and to send Bender and myself off for competitions and that sort of thing.
Presenter
'Cause indeed that's where you met your your future wife, Brenda Optim.
John Ogdon
Yes, I can see it.
John Ogdon
Um yes, we went off to the Brussels competition and uh I got knocked out in the the first round and but it did give us an opportunity to hear some of the outstanding
John Ogdon
Young people from other countries, including Vladimir Ashkenazi, who won the competition.
Presenter
Brenda uh always says, of course, that she fell in love with your genius at the piano when you were playing a List sonata.
John Ogdon
Oh, it is very kind. I hope it was all right. I don't know.
Presenter
Sure it was.
John Ogdon
Sure it was
Presenter
So were you then convinced at that stage, although you got knocked out of the Brussels competition, were you convinced you wanted to make the piano your livelihood and your life?
John Ogdon
Uh yes, I was. I was terribly keen to, and I was
John Ogdon
enthusiastic about composing as well and
John Ogdon
playing chamber music, but mainly piano playing.
Presenter
Let's have your third record.
John Ogdon
Well, the third record is Debussy's Lille Do IS, which I think is given a miraculously fine performance by Vladimir Ashkenazi. And he the way he thinks the shapes, the melodies, and the wonderful rhythms are really quite spectacular.
Presenter
Debussy's Lille Joyeuse played by Vladimir Ashkenazi.
Presenter
We mentioned Ashkenazi, with whom, of course, you jointly won the much-coveted Tchaikovsky Piano Competition in Moscow in 1962.
John Ogdon
Covetes
John Ogdon
competition in Moscow.
Presenter
Tell me about that competition.
John Ogdon
We had a wonderful time. It was very exhilarating, very nerve wracking. And after this three week sort of exciting s solid on, um Vladio Ashkenazi and I were each awarded the first prize.
Presenter
It was
John Ogdon
It was very intense. The I mean, the Americans were tremendously friendly and were following the competition with intense interest. There were one or two very good French competitors, and of course two or three fine competitors from the Soviet Union.
Presenter
How great a chance did you feel you had of winning?
John Ogdon
Well, I didn't know. I mean, I'd always been enthused with Russian music. I mean, my father was enthused with Russian music. And so I felt with this affinity that I ought to enter at any rate and, you know, have a go at it.
Presenter
Tell me about the day of the final. How did that go on?
John Ogdon
Well, that was very exciting, and I I thought it had gone very well, and we awaited the results, really, through an evening into the early hours of the next day.
Presenter
But had you heard any of the others play?
John Ogdon
No, no, I hadn't.
Presenter
What on purpose?
John Ogdon
Really on purpose. I thought really one one is trying to play in one's own way and, you know, hoping it'll come out all right.
Presenter
And what had you played in the file?
John Ogdon
and the Listy Flat Concerto.
John Ogdon
The first one.
John Ogdon
And the Tchaikovsky first winter attack.
Presenter
And did you feel that you gave them your best that day?
John Ogdon
I d I did feel it had gone exceptionally well. I felt very happy, certainly.
Presenter
And then, as you say, in the early hours of the morning you crowded into a small room to hear the judgments.
John Ogdon
Yeah.
John Ogdon
And well, Volodya and I had each been given a first prize, and Susan Starr of the USA and In Cheng Sung of the Chinese People's Republic had been given each a second prize.
Presenter
And how did you feel in that moment?
John Ogdon
Um well, I felt really wonderful, but stunned at the same time.
Presenter
It was the first time, was it not, that a Briton had won that Tschaikovsky?
Presenter
Do you think then that obviously the the Russians
John Ogdon
Yeah.
Presenter
at the same time had to award the prize jointly to Arush and to Ashkenazi that perhaps on that particular day you might even, in reality, have played better than he.
John Ogdon
I don't know, really, I think.
John Ogdon
We both played on pretty much top form.
John Ogdon
I felt very happy with the result, certainly. I felt very honoured.
Presenter
And
Presenter
Both of you the same age.
John Ogdon
Both of us are the same age, seem to.
Presenter
And both of you to become firm friends.
John Ogdon
And give us that one.
John Ogdon
Yes, yes indeed.
Presenter
Then that's a friendship that's lasted, is it?
John Ogdon
Yes, it is. It is, really. Yes.
Presenter
Shall we pause for your next piece of music? What's it to be?
John Ogdon
Um the first movement of William Walton's Symphony No. One in B flat minor, played by the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Andrei Pervin, who I think interprets this piece better than any other conductor.
Presenter
And why do you particularly want William Walton?
John Ogdon
Well
John Ogdon
We knew William and Sue Walton quite well.
John Ogdon
And I feel the piece takes one back to the year of nineteen thirty five and you can feel the tension in it of, you know, armaments races building up and I think somehow he managed to
John Ogdon
convey this in the piece, you know, in a miraculous, fantastic way.
Presenter
Part of the first movement of William Walton's Symphony No. One in B minor, played by the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Andre Previn.
Presenter
So, John Ogden, you were twenty five, and celebrated as one of the great pianists of the world. The concert circuit became your life.
John Ogdon
Yeah.
Presenter
You toured Australia, the United States, Europe. He became very, very famous.
John Ogdon
Yes, we had a wonderful tour of Australia which we really enjoyed and did took in Fiji, played at the Fiji Music Club and we played in Singapore as well. It was wonderfully exciting.
Presenter
And you lived very well, and you were very well off.
John Ogdon
Yes, yes, yes, indeed.
Presenter
You had achieved everything you wanted to achieve in many ways, had you?
John Ogdon
Well, I felt very happy and fulfilled and um you know I think um tre tremendously happy playing the piano, going on the concert to a circuit, really.
Presenter
But then after after ten years of that life in the fast lane, many would say, it it all began to go seriously wrong, didn't it?
John Ogdon
After
John Ogdon
Yes, yes, I began to get some depressions over.
John Ogdon
Um
John Ogdon
a long period of time and suddenly they culminated in a in a nervous breakdown, really. I think over a period of concerts, over a period of about a month, I've suddenly felt much worse than I'd felt before.
Presenter
Can you recall how you felt?
John Ogdon
Um I felt rather given to irrational moods and not connecting things up properly, you know, words and things and needed some well treatment, you know, some sort and
Presenter
But you recognised it in yourself, didn't you? Because you you asked your wife to send for the psychiatrist. You knew that was what you needed.
John Ogdon
Yes, that's true. Yes, I said please send for a psychiatrist and I think we need one.
Presenter
But during that time you you you did attempt to take your own life, didn't you?
John Ogdon
Uh well I did, I'm ashamed to say, yes, and the thing will never show up.
Presenter
And were you did you in between times have lucid moments when you realized that what you had been doing was totally irrational?
John Ogdon
Totally irrational.
John Ogdon
that I determined not to do it again.
Presenter
Because your your wife, Brenda, has said that it it was really like a bomb dropping on your lives because it it had the most disastrous effect on it.
John Ogdon
Almost disastrous effects. Terribly disastrous, yes. But we feel much better now and are tremendously happy to be, you know, recording and playing and, you know, feel many ways perhaps happier than before, you know.
Presenter
Mm-hmm.
Presenter
Mm.
Presenter
But it was a a a lengthy period you had to go through because your your family and your friends had to
John Ogdon
In your friend.
Presenter
Admit, really, that your career was at an end at that
John Ogdon
Yes, that is true, that is true.
Presenter
And you can see that.
John Ogdon
It was a long and protracted period, it certainly was.
Presenter
You went into a psychiatric hospital.
John Ogdon
Yes, but did.
Presenter
Let's leave your story there for a moment, and let let's hear your next piece of music, the fifth one, I think, I'll tell you.
John Ogdon
Well the next piece is Vladimir Horowitz playing the sonata in B minor of Liszt, um a historic recording that caused great furori when it came out.
Presenter
Why does it cause a great frost?
John Ogdon
Thi I think'cause of his demonic burlier.
Presenter
Vladimir Horowitz playing Liszt's sonata in B minor. So, John, you were admitted to the Maudsley Hospital in South London.
John Ogdon
Yeah.
John Ogdon
You
Presenter
You lived there for some time, didn't you?
John Ogdon
Yes, about eighteen months, I believe.
Presenter
What was life like there?
John Ogdon
Well, it was very well
John Ogdon
organized and regulated and there was plenty of opportunity for recreational activities like painting, listening to music, practising on the hospital piano, which is a kind of bluthener.
Presenter
Oh, they had a piece of mine.
Presenter
And you learned to cook, didn't you?
John Ogdon
Yes, I took some cook cookery lessons.
Presenter
What did you call?
John Ogdon
Uh
John Ogdon
A sponge cake.
Presenter
Was it any good?
John Ogdon
Was it any good?
Presenter
But happily they had a piano, so could you spend hours sitting at that?
John Ogdon
Yes, yes, actually. They were very kind. We sort of arranged it, you know, and practised for about two hours, really. They had a badminton court and used to have social club meetings in the evenings once in a while. It was very a lovely hospital.
Presenter
So it wasn't it wasn't a bad life.
John Ogdon
No, no, no, no, no.
Presenter
It's always been said, though, John, that when you you sit at a piano your personality changes completely, that that you light up.
John Ogdon
Yeah.
Presenter
Is that how you feel? Can you describe how you feel?
John Ogdon
I'm
John Ogdon
Well, I've I feel I do light up a bit a bit more. Yes, I get very involved with the music, and I think it's something to do with the feeling of the the keys under the fingers, that sort of tactile feeling that seems to spark things off.
Presenter
I presume, then, during your illness one of your biggest fears was that you might never be able to play in public again.
John Ogdon
Uh well, yes, it was. For a time I I had some bad chemical reactions, I think possibly. But um I had a lot of help from Brenda in getting my playing back to normal, and also quite a lot of help from Gerard Sherman, who would listen very carefully for, you know, any lack of coordination. And um I I was very happy to resume on the concert circuit, very honoured, and um I did make a comeback recital at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in January 1981, I think.
Presenter
And that must have been um a tremendous occasion for you. What did you play?
John Ogdon
Well, I played the Schumann Symphonic Studies, opus thirteen, which are tremendously difficult, and they're not the most pianistic pieces in the world, but they are very beautiful musically.
Presenter
So there you were, after a a nine-year absence, on the stage, on the platform of the Queen Elizabeth Hall. How did it go? How were you received?
John Ogdon
Well
John Ogdon
The audience were very warm and and they seemed to receive it very well.
John Ogdon
Um I enjoyed it enormously.
Presenter
I think I think you're too modest. I think there was a standing evasion in many encores, was there?
John Ogdon
Oh.
John Ogdon
Well, they were very kind, but I think I did do about three uncles.
Presenter
And and the critics said that the old Ogden magic was back.
John Ogdon
Well, if they seem to enjoy it, yes, they were very kind, very nice.
Presenter
But the relief after those many years of illness must have been enormous in that moment.
John Ogdon
That is
John Ogdon
Well, yes, it was really. I did really feel I'd been able to start again and, um, I hope really with practising a considerable amount. I mean, I'm you know, I'm terribly optimistic, really.
Presenter
So we have your sixth record.
John Ogdon
Yes, I'd love to hear one of the Rachmaninoff two piano suites played by Brenda and myself, preferably perhaps the tarantella from the second suite.
Presenter
Part of the fourth movement of Rachmaninoff's Suite No. Two, Tarantella, played by John Ogden and Brenda Lucas. You return then, John, to the concert platform, but not as actively as in those first ten years of fame.
John Ogdon
No.
Presenter
Do you sometimes think it might have been such hard work that triggered your illness?
John Ogdon
I think so. I think at the time that it was, but of course I feel recovered now and I feel quite differently, you know, about the amount of work I could do and that sort of thing.
Presenter
But you now take um a certain drug, don't you, which maintains your balance?
John Ogdon
It maintains your balance. Yes, I take lithium, lithium carbonate, which is a bl a blood salt that we have in our blood naturally, and this has proved a a wonderful stabilizer. And um uh it helps to control any swings of mood and I I think it gives you a blood salt that you need biologically as as well.
Presenter
But does it um does it keep you so at one level that perhaps you don't get the surge of adrenaline that you need per for performance?
John Ogdon
I think one has to simply try and get the surge of adrenaline and, you know, yes, the drug does have a calming effect, I think, yeah.
Presenter
But you still get keyed up before you walk onto the platform.
John Ogdon
Yes, yes I do.
Presenter
Um and how do you live, John? You you you have a permanent nurse to look after you.
John Ogdon
Uh yes, yes. Um, Dennis Ridewood. He's very good and um he's very helpful as well. And well, we live in two different flats. Benda has the basement flat, I have the one on the first floor, and we communicate through the telephone a lot and of course see each other as often as possible.
Presenter
And uh so you're doing um uh performances, as we've heard. Do you also teach?
John Ogdon
Yes, yes, I have one or two pupils. They're they're very talented and it's an inspiration and joy to teach them. It really is.
Presenter
What would you say gives you your greatest pleasure in life these days?
John Ogdon
I think I still enjoy it best doing concerts, you know, recitals, two piano concerts.
Presenter
Is there one particular musical performance that you still covet? Is there one thing that you would love to be invited to do?
John Ogdon
Well, I'd I'd love to play more Mozart concertos, but I think I've got to improve my mu Mozart technique first, really, but I love the pieces.
Presenter
And is there any one particular orchestra that you would love to play that with?
John Ogdon
I love the English Chamber Orchestra, I think they're marvellous.
Presenter
Shall we have your seventh record, talking about Mozart?
John Ogdon
Yes, yes, um Mozart's piano concerto, number twenty in D minor. And if we could have it played by Daniel Barrenboim, one of our greatest Mozartians with the English in fact the English Chamber Orchestra.
Presenter
Mozart's piano concerto number twenty in D minor, played by Daniel Barenboen with the English Chamber Orchestra.
Presenter
How much, John, do you go over in your head everything that's happened to you and and wish perhaps that it might have been different?
John Ogdon
Um
John Ogdon
Well
John Ogdon
I do go through different things in my head, but I've I feel I've had the good fortune.
John Ogdon
After this illness.
John Ogdon
Thanks to Brenda's devotion, to make a good recovery.
Presenter
How important is family life to you, John?
John Ogdon
Um well, very important really. I love to see my children and m I mean we get together as often as we can and mm no no no Brenda loves to see them and uh we arrange to get together s as often as possible actually at neighbourhood restaurants.
Presenter
Because in a sense, um having the great talent that you have, it's it's a lonely business, isn't it, being a concert pianist?
John Ogdon
Um
John Ogdon
Uh it can get rather lonely and it's lovely to come home, but it's exciting to travel and, you know, take in the sights of a different town and to get to know it. I'm I'm particularly fond of Sweden myself. I love going there.
Presenter
And how much do you worry about the future?
John Ogdon
I just
John Ogdon
I practice as hard as I can and I I feel very optimistic. I've had so much help from so many different friends.
Presenter
Shall we have your last record?
John Ogdon
Well, the last record is Debussy's La Mer, played by Sir John Barbirolli, who, in the opinion of some, is the greatest conductor since Arthur Nickish. I think it's one of my favourite pieces of music.
Presenter
De Bus's Lamaire played by the Halley Orchestra conducted by Sir John Barbaroli.
Presenter
Do you think, John, you're going to be any good at coping on our desert time and
John Ogdon
Well, I don't know. I'll t try and put a stove together somehow and cook some meals.
John Ogdon
And
Presenter
You could always cook a sponge cake.
John Ogdon
Yes Yeah.
Presenter
Now you've told us what your luxury is, of course. At the beginning we said it should be a piano. Perhaps you'd like to say what kind of piano?
John Ogdon
The beginning of
John Ogdon
Yes, um, I'd love it to be a a Steinway, perhaps a Steinway upright. I think that would be wonderful on a desert island.
Presenter
But you prefer the upright to a grand, would you?
John Ogdon
Well, now a grand if possible.
Presenter
You just have to promise not to live underneath the ground,'cause then it would be of practical use, you see. It would be a shelter.
John Ogdon
Yes, yes, yeah well I I promise that not a different.
Presenter
Yeah.
Presenter
Good. And we also have to know which of those eight records would be most important to you. Is it possible to pick one of them?
John Ogdon
Perhaps the Walton Symphony for personal reasons, certainly.
Presenter
I wonder why you choose that.
John Ogdon
Well I think we knew them so well and used to see so much of them and
Presenter
And then a book, because we give you quite a lot of reading to do. We give you the Bible and we give you the complete works of Shakespeare.
John Ogdon
Yes, yes, that's marvellous. Well, that would go a long way in itself, but I I thought I might take the moonstone of Wilkie Collins.
Presenter
John Ogden, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your Desert Island disc.
John Ogdon
Okay.
John Ogdon
Thank you.
Speaker 2
You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.
How great a chance did you feel you had of winning?
Well, I didn't know. I mean, I'd always been enthused with Russian music. I mean, my father was enthused with Russian music. And so I felt with this affinity that I ought to enter at any rate and, you know, have a go at it.
Presenter asks
Can you recall how you felt?
Um I felt rather given to irrational moods and not connecting things up properly, you know, words and things and needed some well treatment, you know, some sort and
Presenter asks
So there you were, after a nine-year absence, on the stage of the Queen Elizabeth Hall. How did it go? How were you received?
Well The audience were very warm and and they seemed to receive it very well. Um I enjoyed it enormously.
Presenter asks
How much, John, do you go over in your head everything that's happened to you and wish perhaps that it might have been different?
Um Well I do go through different things in my head, but I've I feel I've had the good fortune. After this illness. Thanks to Brenda's devotion, to make a good recovery.
“Um well, I felt really wonderful, but stunned at the same time.”
“Uh well I did, I'm ashamed to say, yes, and the thing will never show up.”
“The audience were very warm and and they seemed to receive it very well.”
“I take lithium, lithium carbonate, which is a bl a blood salt that we have in our blood naturally, and this has proved a a wonderful stabilizer.”
“Um well, very important really. I love to see my children and m I mean we get together as often as we can”