Lord Weidenfeld

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 ninety, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:31

My Castaway this week is a publisher. When he came to Britain fifty two years ago he had a sixteen and sixpenny postal order in his pocket, and spoke very poor English. To day he is a cultured and successful business man, whose eminent friends attend his parties, speak at the important occasions which he organises, or write books for his firm.

Presenter0:51

The poor immigrant has become one of Britain's leading intellectual and social figures, and a peer of the realm into the bargain.

Presenter0:58

His title, naturally enough, is not redolent of the Shires, but of one of London's most bohemian suburbs. He is the Baron of Chelsea, George Weidenfelt. They say, Lord Weidenfelt, that you do more than commission books actually you invent them. Would you plead guilty to that?

Lord Weidenfeld1:14

Well, the most exciting thing in a uh rather arduous profession for me is to create ideas, pursue ideas, create ideas and then mate them with suitable writers. And sometimes there are

Lord Weidenfeld1:30

explosive results one way or the other. Sometimes you have a very suitable combination, sometimes a very unsuitable one. But uh it is the most exciting thing you can do.

Presenter1:40

So when you sit on our desert island, will you think back on all the missed opportunities, all the people you should have suggested a good idea to?

Lord Weidenfeld1:47

I think it would be a wonderful opportunity of thinking about past mistakes.

Presenter1:52

But I understand that you're not at all a practical man, so your chances of survival are pretty low.

Lord Weidenfeld1:57

They are almost nonexistent because I'm hopeless mechanically and uh not fit for the twenty first century when it comes to to mechanical things.

Presenter2:06

But can you at home manage to put on the kettle? I mean, can you make a cup of tea?

Lord Weidenfeld2:09

No, I can't. Unfortunately, it's not an affectation. I'm just hopeless. I can't drive a car. And I'm dependent on others.

Presenter2:16

So can you manage to wind up the gramophone on the beach? That's what you really need to do.

Lord Weidenfeld2:19

Uh just out just about just about yes.

Presenter2:22

And what's the first record you'd like to put on it?

Lord Weidenfeld2:24

Well, I should like to put on the Rosen Cavalier.

Lord Weidenfeld2:28

because it was not only one of my first operas that I ever saw, but it also reminds me of my youth and reminds me of a rather gruesome experience with a happy ending that I'll tell you about later.

Speaker 42:47

Better meal, bitch to me.

Speaker 42:51

It a meek.

Speaker 42:54

Fighter

Speaker 42:57

Oh dear.

Speaker 43:01

Los Feedbo

Speaker 43:03

With the fame with some social See what I've come for

Speaker 43:11

Ready or physics

Presenter3:33

The end of Act Two of Der Rosencavalier by Richard Strauss, with Richard Meyer and Bella Pahlin, and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Robert Hager, and that recording was made in nineteen thirty three. So, Lord Weidenfeld, your your gruesome experience with the Rosencavalier. What was that?

Lord Weidenfeld3:49

Well, as a child, my parents and I spent part of the summer in Salzburg and went to the Salzburg festivals. They had two tickets for the Rosen Cavalier. They sent me, I must have been ten or eleven, with a um local nurse who had this mother feeling that I didn't have enough to eat and that the the opera would take at least three to four hours. So she prepared enormous sandwiches with a local cheese and local fish. And we went together to the opera. And after the first act, there I was with this enormous parcel. And panic seized me. And I thought the only way to hide this parcel was simply to drop it discreetly and hope that nobody would associate me with the parcel. That's what we did. And of course the opposite happened. Everybody, the whole, all the public moved around this parcel. The first odours of the cheese, the melting cheese, were also could be felt. And so I thought that I was the center of attention and it was a terrible state. And we left and I never saw the end of the opera.

Lord Weidenfeld5:00

And my parents heard about this, behaved very tactfully, didn't chide me, didn't say anything. And two days later, at breakfast, I had in front of my mug of coffee an autographed copy by Richard Ma, who sang the wonderful aria that you just heard. And by the way, for whom Richard Strauss wrote the the wrote this aria for Richard Maar when he when he composed the The Rosen Cavalier.

Presenter5:32

So your parents ensured that you weren't put off for life by this dreadful embarrassment.

Lord Weidenfeld5:35

It was very nice. And in fact, it had the opposite effect. I and it really made me want to go to opera again and again and to see the Rosen Cavalier through and sit through the three acts, which I've done innumerable times since.

Presenter5:47

But that that was in Salzburg, as you say, but you were born in in Vienna, right?

Lord Weidenfeld5:50

I was born in Vienna.

Presenter5:51

A Lonely Child.

Lord Weidenfeld5:52

Only child.

Presenter5:53

Were you very spoiled?

Lord Weidenfeld5:55

Yes and no. I mean, I obviously uh had a great deal of affection from

Lord Weidenfeld6:00

doting parents and grandparents, but I was also very m lonely. I was also left alone.

Lord Weidenfeld6:07

And that, um, probably is the root of my great

Lord Weidenfeld6:11

passion for company and for conviviality.

Presenter6:14

What do you remember of the city in those days? Do you remember its atmosphere? What do you feel of that?

Lord Weidenfeld6:20

It was a time of great political instability.

Lord Weidenfeld6:24

Uh anti-Semitism.

Lord Weidenfeld6:26

was rampant.

Presenter6:28

Did you suffer from anti-Semitism?

Lord Weidenfeld6:28

Did you saw

Lord Weidenfeld6:30

Uh not so much suffer as see you you got used to it. You felt that there were

Lord Weidenfeld6:38

Them and us.

Presenter6:40

But it must have been a terrible blow when in in march nineteen thirty eight the Nazis actually marched into Vienna.

Lord Weidenfeld6:45

Well, it was of course a decisive moment. Now with hindsight people say, Well, didn't you see it coming? Of course one saw the danger of some great cataclysmic change, but one was far too optimistic or inert to do anything about it. And so when it came it really hit one very, very hard.

Presenter7:03

And your father was taken away within a few days.

Lord Weidenfeld7:05

My father was was put in prison on the Monday after the Anschlutz, the German invasion, which took place on a Saturday, and um and the whole world collapsed for my parents and and for me it meant f thinking of the future in different terms.

Presenter7:22

Let's pause there and have your second record.

Lord Weidenfeld7:24

Well, I'd like to because we are talking of that particular period introduce the Ladies at Tramp, because it was the great Smash hit in nineteen thirty seven, the night before I left Austria to emigrate and to land in Britain eventually.

Lord Weidenfeld7:42

Um some friends gave me a farewell party and that was the last record they played before we all broke up.

Speaker 47:51

I get too hungry for dinner at eight.

Speaker 47:55

I like the theatre, but never come late.

Speaker 48:00

I never bother with people I hate that.

Speaker 48:05

Why the Lady Is a Trail

Speaker 48:10

I go to Coney, the beach is the vine.

Speaker 48:14

I go to ballgames, the bleachers are fine.

Speaker 48:19

I follow Winchell and read every line That's why a lady is a tramp

Speaker 48:27

I like the green grass under my shoes.

Speaker 48:33

What can I lose? I'm flat, that's that. Hate California, it's cold and it's damp.

Speaker 48:43

That's why the lady is a trust

Presenter8:49

Edith Wright singing The Lady is a Tramp with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, and that was recorded in nineteen thirty seven and played, as you were saying, Lord Weidenfeldt, on that night in july, nineteen thirty eight, before You Left for England.

Presenter9:00

I was saying earlier you didn't know an awful lot of English. Why did you choose to come here?

Lord Weidenfeld9:05

I hadn't, in fact, thought of England first. I was looking around aimlessly from consular to consulate. It so happened that at university, at this particular diplomatic college I attended, as part of my university studies, there was a very nice

Lord Weidenfeld9:21

uh Welsh tutor of English, and he knew the passport officer at the British Legation, and I had an introduction and um my mother came with me to try and get a visa.

Lord Weidenfeld9:34

And the man relented he saw my mother's grief.

Lord Weidenfeld9:37

which was quite genuine and he was very sweet and he gave me a very tenuous visa that only allowed me to come to England for three months and that's how I got into England.

Presenter9:47

So you were nineteen years old, coming up to twenty, and this postal order for sixteen and sixpence in your pocket. Who'd given you that?

Lord Weidenfeld9:54

Well, that was your limit, that that was the all you could take out legally.

Presenter9:59

But can you remember when you arrived here, can you remember those first sights and smells and sounds?

Lord Weidenfeld10:02

Old Perry said though clearly.

Lord Weidenfeld10:06

You had to adjust yourself to a completely new new world, and it was a very different world.

Lord Weidenfeld10:13

It took me the better part of a year to find my feet.

Lord Weidenfeld10:17

It was a year that I remember more distinctly than another year of my life.

Presenter10:23

Let's pause for the next piece of music. What is that to be?

Lord Weidenfeld10:26

Brown's academic overture.

Presenter10:29

Why would you like that?

Lord Weidenfeld10:29

Well, I uh it reminds me of two things. It reminds me of uh student life, it reminds me of

Lord Weidenfeld10:38

the jollity and conviviality of um

Lord Weidenfeld10:42

My youth as a student and as a member of a

Lord Weidenfeld10:47

A student fraternity.

Lord Weidenfeld10:49

that filled my late teens in every sense of the word. I my we had friends, we were friends, we worked politically together, and uh the sense of loyalty and friendship and and conviviality

Lord Weidenfeld11:06

has never left me as one of the my main sort of planks of my existence.

Presenter11:57

Brahm's Academic Festival Overture played by the Symphony Orchestra of Bavarian Radio, conducted by Sir Colin Davis.

Presenter12:05

So how, Lord Wiedenfelt, and where did you spend your social life in these days? How did you meet other people?

Lord Weidenfeld12:11

Well, there was this routine of um Austrian and German and Czech refugees. Um they would meet in usually in the hotel halls of the West End. You could sit there for hours and spend either twopence halfpenny on hot Loganbury juice, threepence on tea, I think, and fourpence coffee. So for a shilling you could spend, generously spend, um, most of the afternoon and evening. And that was a very important part. It was sort of also new it was news exchange and social centre.

Presenter12:47

But it was also perhaps a kind of recreation of Viennese society.

Lord Weidenfeld12:50

And the sort of echoes of cafe life, yeah.

Lord Weidenfeld12:53

The

Lord Weidenfeld12:55

adjustment to English life was a a slow one.

Lord Weidenfeld13:00

But it really only sort of escalated and became intensified when I joined the BBC shortly before the war.

Presenter13:07

Just as we mentioned.

Presenter13:10

parties and society and so on. You are, of course, renowned for your your love of parties, for your giving of parties really, rather than your your going to them. Do you find true enjoyment giving parties?

Lord Weidenfeld13:20

Well, I do enjoy seeing many friends.

Lord Weidenfeld13:23

from different countries and also from different s uh milieus, uh meeting and either getting on or finding that some of the prejudices were misplaced. I do like this um idea of uh bridge building. Now that's all very sounds pompous and also banal, but there is certainly an element of that.

Presenter13:45

But you must enjoy it.

Lord Weidenfeld13:45

I do like seeing people Having a good time.

Presenter13:48

What about their liking of you? Is it important to you that people like you?

Lord Weidenfeld13:53

I think it's one of my vices to

Lord Weidenfeld13:56

want to be liked. And I think it is a great handicap in life.

Presenter14:00

But is there an art to it? Can you define it? This this knitting or choreographing, and perhaps is a more elegant phrase, uh of people?

Lord Weidenfeld14:09

I wouldn't consider it an art. I mean, it comes natural to me if other people find it more difficult uh I can quite understand that, but it's like casting for a film or a play.

Lord Weidenfeld14:21

It's it's really

Lord Weidenfeld14:23

Mainly to avoid pain and give pleasure to other people while they are under one roof.

Presenter14:29

So you hope they're all going to like each other?

Lord Weidenfeld14:30

Go into like each.

Lord Weidenfeld14:31

You have to find people who either like each other or do not grate on one another or have a sort of contrapuntal relationship.

Lord Weidenfeld14:41

where they have something to give to each other.

Lord Weidenfeld14:45

And I don't mean it in a utilitarian sense, I mean it in a sort of give each other pleasure or a new experience.

Presenter14:51

And do you come out of the end of most of your parties with another book in the making or another idea for a book?

Lord Weidenfeld14:58

Well, absolutely. That's the most um from a professional point of view justification for having a rather intensive sort of social life.

Presenter15:07

Who, then, or what are your latest catches? Can you confess any?

Lord Weidenfeld15:11

Quite a few celebrity memoirs and political memoirs in this country.

Presenter15:16

Nigel Lawson.

Lord Weidenfeld15:18

Uh ob obviously very interested, yes.

Presenter15:20

Norman Fowler.

Lord Weidenfeld15:22

Very interesting.

Presenter15:23

But you haven't signed them up yet.

Lord Weidenfeld15:25

I mean, that I'm afraid I can't talk about.

Presenter15:28

Right. Let's pause there then and have your fourth record.

Lord Weidenfeld15:32

Well, I am a great Veddy fan.

Lord Weidenfeld15:36

I think that Don Carlos is to me the most exciting of the Verdi operas, and it's it's it's it's a difficult, agonizing choice because so many of his operas are wonderful. And this particular duet to me is a ode to the notion of friendship and loyalty.

Lord Weidenfeld15:54

and patriotism too, because it is the scene in which Don Carlos is pays his last visit to his great friend the Marquis de Posa, who stands for liberty and the idea of independence for oppressed peoples.

Speaker 416:19

Okay, I'm mine.

Presenter16:53

Placido Domingo and Cheryl Milnes in the duet from Verde's Don Carlos with the orchestra of the Royal Opera House Coven Garden, conducted by Carlo Maria Gielini.

Presenter17:02

We left you um in your life, Lord Reinfeldt, about to work for the BBC, where you set up a an anti-propaganda service, I think.

Lord Weidenfeld17:10

Uh no, actually what happened is I started off uh

Lord Weidenfeld17:13

As a monitor in the BBC monitoring service, I started a special service where every day we chose suitable bits from enemy propaganda and with a suitable juxtaposition of different items, notes and comments, sent them back to the BBC output services, the the people who broadcast to Europe, to help them in their propaganda to Europe. It proved to be quite a useful service, and so I came to the notice of Richard Crossman, who in those days was a very powerful figure in the world of overseas propaganda. He was in charge of propaganda to the Germans. And so he became my mentor and he got me transferred and I became a news commentator on European affairs in the BBC overseas services. And then I started this publishing

Lord Weidenfeld18:14

Concept of a magazine called Contact before I became a book publisher. And in the course of that, of course, I met a great many literary people.

Presenter18:23

But it founded through lack of paper, simply that.

Lord Weidenfeld18:26

Well, it not so much funded because it could not we were not allowed to call it a magazine because there was paper rationing. So we published it as a series of books.

Lord Weidenfeld18:37

And could not go on with it because we were not allowed to call it a magazine. But.

Lord Weidenfeld18:44

used our staff and our resources to change from that into book publishing and incorporated our publishing firm, Bytenfeld Nicholson.

Presenter18:53

which was born in what, nineteen forty nine.

Lord Weidenfeld18:55

The first book came out in'forty nine', it was actually Born in Forty Eight Years.

Presenter18:59

What was its first publication?

Lord Weidenfeld19:01

Mussolini's Memoirs.

Presenter19:04

But did you not also, in those early days, publish something written by a rather unknown young lecturer at the LSE?

Lord Weidenfeld19:11

Well

Lord Weidenfeld19:12

We had a series of uh contact books dealing with current affairs. The very first book we published was b by a young statistician in the Ministry of Fuel and Power called Harold Wilson.

Presenter19:26

And that was how you met the man who was to make you a lord?

Lord Weidenfeld19:28

That was his first book, and we were his f publisher, and he was our first author, as it were.

Presenter19:35

Let's have some more music.

Lord Weidenfeld19:38

Well

Lord Weidenfeld19:39

The next

Lord Weidenfeld19:40

Um item is um the duet of Boris Godunov and his son.

Lord Weidenfeld19:49

from Musorks's opera Boris Kordonov, and which made me actually also think it was an agonizing choice. Suddenly it made me think why I do choose

Lord Weidenfeld19:59

Music and why I like music, what music means to me. And I suddenly came to the conclusion that it means to me something.

Lord Weidenfeld20:07

That is not purely aesthetic.

Lord Weidenfeld20:10

I mean, of course, I love beautiful music and I like it to.

Lord Weidenfeld20:16

Make its impact on me, but it's also an excuse for two things for daydreaming.

Lord Weidenfeld20:23

and particularly daydreaming about history.

Lord Weidenfeld20:26

It's an introduction to pastimes and mentalities, and I think invariably about what the composer might have thought when he wrote it, what the audiences felt, who they were, what they looked like, what they wore.

Lord Weidenfeld20:43

and what the mood of the time was. To me it's a link with history. And for instance, Boris Kordunov to me is the epitome of Russian history. It is as valid to day as it was when it was written. I mean Boris Kordunov

Lord Weidenfeld21:00

Mikhail Gorbachev, The Time of Trial and Turbulence of the Russian People.

Lord Weidenfeld21:06

The Amorality of Politics.

Lord Weidenfeld21:10

all that kind of thing.

Lord Weidenfeld21:11

comes out in this particular opera, and therefore to me it always gives rise to thinking a great deal about A, what happened in Russia and B what will happen tomorrow.

Speaker 421:23

What magarat of otkassan?

Speaker 421:28

Uh

Speaker 421:29

Footman.

Lord Weidenfeld21:30

Uh

Speaker 421:32

Plus you all gave me a

Speaker 421:48

Shaskablakov, here in Lim Fov, the three morning shabbazriens.

Speaker 422:06

Oh man

Speaker 422:10

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 422:11

Peace Phil

Presenter22:19

Part of Act Two of Mazorgsky's Boris Gudenoff with Nikolai Giarov and Olivera Miliakovich and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Herbert von Karian.

Presenter22:30

You took a a year off from your embryo publishing company, I think in nineteen forty nine fifty, Lord Weidenfeldt, to work for Chaim Weizmann, doctor Weizmann, the the first President of Israel. What did you do for him?

Lord Weidenfeld22:43

Well, I was offered a job to be his um

Lord Weidenfeld22:47

the head of his office, in fact, just of chief of staff, if you like, and political adviser.

Lord Weidenfeld22:52

And it was an agonizing, wonderful offer, but agonizing in the sense that I had just had started my publishing firm and was obli obligated to other people who had invested in me, as it were, and also the responsibility for starting something and leaving it.

Lord Weidenfeld23:11

uh at that stage. So I didn't quite know what to do.

Lord Weidenfeld23:14

and um Nigel Nicholson, whom my co founder, my publishing firm, and his father Harold Nicholson, whom I had met in the B B C days

Lord Weidenfeld23:24

Um

Lord Weidenfeld23:25

took me out to lunch and Harold Nicholson describes it in his memoirs, his diaries.

Lord Weidenfeld23:30

Said you're you've got to do something that you won't regret. You must accept this job, but do it for a year only.

Lord Weidenfeld23:39

They need you now, and after a year, you must come back and continue to work with in your firm. And this is what I did. And so I spent a year in Israel, in the second year of the state's existence, and it was most

Lord Weidenfeld23:54

exciting and exhilarating experiences.

Presenter23:57

So there you were, Chief of Staff to the President of Israel. You must have been, though, tempted to stay, tempted perhaps to find a political role in Israel.

Lord Weidenfeld24:09

my moral obligation to continue with my publishing work, I've been sorely tempted to stay.

Presenter24:18

But politics is very much a part of your life, isn't it?

Lord Weidenfeld24:22

I am very interested in politics, but not so much in domestic or local

Lord Weidenfeld24:27

Uh politics. I'm interested in foreign affairs.

Lord Weidenfeld24:30

And in um broadening

Lord Weidenfeld24:34

issues and ideas and problems. And I'm lucky that my job has always given me the opportunity of being a platform for research contacts, ideas, activities in that sphere.

Presenter24:52

Right, record number six.

Lord Weidenfeld24:53

Yeah.

Lord Weidenfeld24:54

Well, I think

Lord Weidenfeld24:56

Um

Lord Weidenfeld24:57

I admire Alfred Brendel, the great pianist.

Lord Weidenfeld25:03

particularly when he plays Schubert. And there is one of Schubert's German dances that I like because again it evokes memories of my youth. But more than that it is a wonderful

Lord Weidenfeld25:19

example of the the dual Viennese character, the duality of the Viennese soul, the um

Lord Weidenfeld25:30

a balliant, effervescent, but also the darker melancholy side, and it comes out in that very short dance.

Presenter26:36

One of Schubert's German dances played by Alfred Brendel.

Presenter26:41

Um all of your work, obviously, Lord Weidenfeld, is is tremendously time consuming. You have no family now to to keep you at home. In that sense, you're fancy free. But you have been married three times and Divorced three times. Do you do you blame?

Presenter26:55

in any way the ending of those relationships on your enormous appetite for work.

Lord Weidenfeld26:59

Uh I probably married uh my first wife uh was very young.

Lord Weidenfeld27:05

Uh she was a young nineteen and I was a very old thirty two.

Lord Weidenfeld27:10

And therefore perhaps um there was this difference.

Lord Weidenfeld27:14

and I didn't have enough time to devote myself to

Lord Weidenfeld27:18

cultivating the marriage to nursing it.

Lord Weidenfeld27:21

And um I regretted the breakup of my first marriage very much because I had this because uh the notion, the idea of a sort of really conventional

Lord Weidenfeld27:32

uh family life, sort of patriarchal life, um, was a romantic notion that I always had. My second wife, who was recently written and uh much discussed,

Lord Weidenfeld27:42

Um and very widely reviewed book.

Lord Weidenfeld27:45

was um a very different thing altogether.

Lord Weidenfeld27:48

Uh that was um the um

Lord Weidenfeld27:52

It's the the story of um passion, uh you might say obsession, which had an unhappy end.

Lord Weidenfeld27:59

Um and um

Lord Weidenfeld28:02

The m third marriage.

Lord Weidenfeld28:05

might have worked.

Lord Weidenfeld28:07

Very well. But there were logistical problems. She was American. She had a family in America that she thought needed her, and children needed her, and found certain found problems of adapting herself to English life and so on.

Lord Weidenfeld28:21

And but we've remained very good friends indeed.

Presenter28:23

But you've been single, as it were, now for what, fourteen years?

Lord Weidenfeld28:27

Something like that, yeah.

Presenter28:28

There might, of course, b be a a a fourth Lady Weidenfeld, in fact.

Lord Weidenfeld28:33

Well, you see, I think life is so unpredictable. I might never get married again, or there may be um a bride to be around the corner whom I haven't met yet.

Presenter28:42

Record number seven.

Lord Weidenfeld28:44

Well, I'm sorry to produce now something which has an undeservedly somber title. It's it's Siegfried's funeral march from the Getterdemrung, the Twilight of the Gods, Wagner's Ring. I say undeserved because of course it is technically a funeral march, but it's much more.

Lord Weidenfeld29:02

In terms of this great work of art, Wagner's Ring, is the summation.

Presenter30:05

Part of the funeral march from Wagner's Goethe Demerung, played by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Sir George Schulte.

Presenter30:12

We mentioned earlier, Lord Weidenfeldt, your lack of practical ability and your need to be liked. I wondered if you had any other shortcomings or vices that you could identify.

Lord Weidenfeld30:21

You don't drink, do you? I don't drink.

Lord Weidenfeld30:24

I smoked

Lord Weidenfeld30:25

Cigars.

Lord Weidenfeld30:27

And uh I'm incurably optimistic.

Lord Weidenfeld30:30

And that's that's I think that's quite advice.

Presenter30:33

Are you impatient?

Lord Weidenfeld30:36

Not really. I'm restless more than impatient.

Presenter30:39

Hmm.

Presenter30:40

You were you were seventy last autumn, weren't you? And and rumours abounded yet again that you were going to retire. People these rumours erupt every now and then.

Lord Weidenfeld30:48

I feel that my job isn't finished and probably never will be finished, so I think I want to go on working as long as health and providence allows me to go on working.

Presenter30:58

You are British. You took British citizenship, didn't you? And you've spent more than two-thirds of your life. Do you feel British, or is that anything?

Lord Weidenfeld31:00

Yes, indeed those in it.

Lord Weidenfeld31:02

Better more than two-thirds.

Lord Weidenfeld31:05

Well, I feel very much a loyal British citizen and tremendously grateful to this country. And I don't mean this in a sort of a sentimental way. I find that England is the ideal place to live.

Lord Weidenfeld31:19

Because people live and let live here in a more tolerant way than anywhere else.

Lord Weidenfeld31:26

Well, my last record is the

Lord Weidenfeld31:29

Quintet from the final scene of Mozart's Don Giovanni.

Lord Weidenfeld31:34

And I think that I chose it because I believe that Don Giovanni.

Lord Weidenfeld31:41

is probably to me.

Lord Weidenfeld31:43

The most

Lord Weidenfeld31:46

Satisfying, exciting.

Lord Weidenfeld31:48

Musical work.

Lord Weidenfeld31:50

certainly most exciting opera. And if I were forced on this wonderful desert island to just choose one record, I would choose Don Giovanni.

Presenter32:56

The quintet from the final scene from Mozart's Don Giovanni with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Herbert von Karian, and that is your

Presenter33:05

Choice of the eight records, Lord Wiedenfeld. What about your book now? What what can we supply you with?

Lord Weidenfeld33:10

Well, I came out strongly in favour of the Pickwick Papers by Dickens.

Lord Weidenfeld33:16

Because I read him first as a child in German.

Lord Weidenfeld33:19

And found it a very quaint book. And as I re-read the Pickwick Papers once, twice, three, four times in English, and almost every decade I discovered new nuances which were, of course, the result of growing up, or having had disappointments, or having had experiences I didn't have at the last reading. And so to me, this is a sort of quintessentially English book. At the same time, it has a universal message, and it is immensely popular, for instance, in Russia.

Presenter33:51

And alongside that book, what about your luxury? What can we give you for that?

Lord Weidenfeld33:56

That must end with an enormous um

Lord Weidenfeld33:58

Confession

Lord Weidenfeld34:00

I hate islands.

Lord Weidenfeld34:01

I hate the idea of being alone on the island, but as I but I said before that I am an incurable optimist. So what I like to feel that I have a very limited stay on the island, and therefore for that purpose, my luxury would be a very well sprung arm chair with a

Lord Weidenfeld34:18

footrest and two um

Lord Weidenfeld34:22

Flaps on either s uh one flap on either side. On one would be a built-in

Lord Weidenfeld34:27

Machine producing endless.

Lord Weidenfeld34:31

A Turkish coffee.

Lord Weidenfeld34:33

The other one would have a highly sophisticated surveillance system that would signal signal the nearest tanker to pick me up at at my discretion.

Speaker 234:33

What happened?

Presenter34:42

I'm not sure we can allow the signalling. We'll allow you the Turkish coffee, otherwise it's of too much practical use. But you shall lie on it and read Pickwick papers to your heart's content, and ever optimistic that that tanker will come by. Lord Weidenfeldt, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Lord Weidenfeld34:58

Uh

Presenter34:58

Yeah.

Speaker 235:06

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Islandists archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.