Anthony Rolfe Johnson

Speaker 30:00

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 30:08

The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen ninety two, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:30

Mike Castaway this week is a singer. Brought up in a Methodist family in the East end of London, choral singing was a natural but by no means special part of his childhood. Indeed, it was to agriculture rather than music that he turned for a career, eventually becoming head herdsman on a farm in Sussex.

Presenter0:48

It was there that a professional teacher spotted his natural gift while he was singing in a local choir. He was persuaded to apply to the Guildhall School of Music, won a scholarship, and embarked on a new career that's made him one of the most distinguished tenors in the world. He is Antony Rolph Johnson.

Presenter1:05

I suppose the first question, Anthony, must be how much do you miss your former life, the the farming and the open air?

Anthony Rolfe Johnson1:11

Not too much, because uh fortunately I have

Anthony Rolfe Johnson1:16

parents in law who live in the country down in Wales, and we have a little house there, a sort of Tudor shack, really. And we have nothing but farmland and trees all around, so whenever I'm missing it I try and get down there and take a fix.

Presenter1:32

Were you aware, though, when you were farming, or when you were at Agricultural College be before that?

Presenter1:37

That there was part of you that was unfulfilled. Did you feel there was something more and you couldn't quite put your finger on what it was?

Anthony Rolfe Johnson1:45

Yes, I I think all my life I've been

Anthony Rolfe Johnson1:48

someone to whom things happen. I never regard myself as as a prime mover. And I suppose when I was at college, farming college, I did feel

Anthony Rolfe Johnson2:01

a little bit out of water.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson2:03

But the academic side of that took care of that for me, and it got buried, and it didn't re-emerge until quite a lot later.

Presenter2:10

The popular story about you is that it was only the cows at that time who got to hear your voice at milking time, wasn't it?

Anthony Rolfe Johnson2:17

Rather like Glengo, they used to hum in a bass key or or something while I was while I was working, and it seemed to please them.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson2:25

At least they didn't run frightened from the shed, so I guess it was all right.

Presenter2:28

Did they milk the better for it?

Anthony Rolfe Johnson2:29

They do say that music and singing helps them along. I'm not quite sure what they're saying.

Presenter2:34

But what did you sing to them?

Anthony Rolfe Johnson2:36

Mostly hymns.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson2:37

Because that's all I knew.

Presenter2:39

Well now what about your desert island discs? Do they all include the human voice? Or I mean is this a kind of sing-along choice for you?

Anthony Rolfe Johnson2:46

I suppose that they do though the Beethoven that we'll hear later is part of a a great cycle of symphonies, and I certainly need my orchestral music to come along with me.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson2:59

I suppose most of the s most of the music is is is to do with either parts of my life or they are friends whom I've known as all my career long. Um

Anthony Rolfe Johnson3:13

Or they are people who influence me very greatly, one way or another, they are pals.

Presenter3:19

So what's the first one?

Anthony Rolfe Johnson3:21

The first one is uh the recording of Peter Peirce and Benjamin Britton performing Die Schoene Mullerin by Schubert, um the the song number six, Dernoi Giriger. This is the first music outside of Sankey and Moody and the Methodist hymn book which I really had any contact with and it was like being hit over the head with a sledgehammer.

Speaker 43:55

Is Fragain.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson3:57

I be kind of

Speaker 44:01

He's brought a time and stare.

Speaker 44:06

Siegenden Mirlen is all

Speaker 44:12

I see Jeff feels a care.

Speaker 44:19

He's been a timekeeper.

Speaker 44:24

Peace and resting to hope.

Speaker 44:30

Mine face I'd feel is stronger.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson4:34

Yeah

Speaker 44:36

Of raised my friends for

Presenter4:46

Peter Peirce singing Schubert's Deschoene Muderin accompanied by Benjamin Britton.

Presenter4:50

Now why was hearing that like being hit over the head with a sledgehammer?

Anthony Rolfe Johnson4:57

It was

Anthony Rolfe Johnson4:59

A kind of music and a kind of singing that I'd not had any contact with at all, and yet I was immediately.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson5:05

um at home with it, immediately sympathetic, in fact, when

Anthony Rolfe Johnson5:11

When Ma Rogers asked me what I thought of it, I said it was wonderful, it's exactly what I would do with it.

Presenter5:19

Marl Rogers was the person who played it.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson5:20

Margaret was the person who played it to me, a wonderful lady who's still alive and just celebrated her ninetieth birthday.

Presenter5:26

So who was it who eventually then said to you, Look, you really do have a huge talent here and you've got to do something about it?

Anthony Rolfe Johnson5:34

Well, when I went to work in Sussex, uh I joined a choir.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson5:38

And there were one or two people there who had actually been taking lessons from

Anthony Rolfe Johnson5:44

a teacher at the Royal Academy. And their recommendation was that I went to see this lady. And so I eventually went.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson5:54

rather grumpily, because I wasn't quite sure why I was there, and I was certainly not certain what I was going to feel if she had anything devastating to say.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson6:07

We talked, I sang, and there was a long silence, and then she said, Well, what do you want me to tell you?

Anthony Rolfe Johnson6:13

So what?

Anthony Rolfe Johnson6:15

I don't really know, but I would like an end to this bazaar.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson6:22

hollow feeling that I have, uh, that something awful is going to happen and she said, Well, okay, you're in the wrong job. Is that straight enough for you? And I I said, Well, what does that mean?

Anthony Rolfe Johnson6:34

So well, y you shouldn't be farming, you should be singing.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson6:38

But you can't do that unless you take a full-time course.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson6:43

That means you've got to go w up to London and you've got to

Anthony Rolfe Johnson6:48

Spend three or four years full time because you know nothing, you can't read music.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson6:53

You don't know any history of music, you don't know any background of music, you you know style. So it's a total saturation that you need. That takes three or four years at the minimum, and really the rest of your career. But if you do

Anthony Rolfe Johnson7:08

And you

Anthony Rolfe Johnson7:09

Stick with it. I reckon that in five years you could be well known nationally, and in ten years

Anthony Rolfe Johnson7:15

You could, who knows, be anywhere, probably international.

Presenter7:18

And did that make you feel any less hollow, or more hollow?

Anthony Rolfe Johnson7:21

It terrified me. Uh I was married with two children.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson7:26

And it was not good news.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson7:28

In the end I simply once I'd heard those fatal words that that that haunted me and I just had to do it in the end.

Presenter7:36

The fatal words You're in the wrong job.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson7:37

Mm-hmm.

Presenter7:38

You could be famous.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson7:39

Mm.

Presenter7:40

The sacrifice in the end, of course, was your marriage, wasn't it?

Anthony Rolfe Johnson7:43

Which wasn't it?

Anthony Rolfe Johnson7:46

It came very quickly and uh

Anthony Rolfe Johnson7:50

I was travelling from Sussex to London every day to work, to go to the Guildhall.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson7:59

After about eighteen months it became clear that there there were major problems, mostly because my wife married a farmer and suddenly found herself looking after a singer. They aren't the same at all.

Presenter8:12

Record number two.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson8:14

Yes, this is Christeludwig singing Mahler's Ich binderweldt abhandenkekommen.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson8:22

It's the orchestral version and.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson8:25

This comes straight out of my student times. I I I can remember sitting or laying on my student bed somewhere in Highgate early in my time at the Guild Hall and listening to Christel Vig singing this and thinking, Okay, come and get me now. I'm I'm ready to go. This is the most amazing emotional

Presenter8:42

I'm ready.

Presenter8:43

This is

Anthony Rolfe Johnson8:48

Singing. That's a terrific example, and it's stayed with me ever since. So I have to take this with me.

Speaker 49:25

Greatness with sight for God.

Speaker 49:37

We ought to follow

Speaker 49:41

Lisht for never

Presenter9:50

Krista Ludwig singing Mahler's Ichbinder Welt Appandenge Common with the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Otto Klemperer. You you were twenty nine when you went to the Guild Hall, uh therefore a lot older than the other students, but also

Anthony Rolfe Johnson10:01

Turn

Presenter10:04

Just really, as you were indicating earlier, very ignorant in comparison with most of the students. How did you cope with that kind of ignorance about music?

Anthony Rolfe Johnson10:11

One of the things it's been my observation as as

Anthony Rolfe Johnson10:14

I've become a little involved in education myself now. It's been my observation that people who are

Anthony Rolfe Johnson10:21

Of that.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson10:23

sort of vintage with that kind of disadvantage are very much more motivated than the majority of young students going in at twenty, twenty-two. Um and it's something which only, I think, years and experience and and the need to comes to you. I was so

Anthony Rolfe Johnson10:43

focused on what I needed to do.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson10:47

I I went to the Guild Hall every morning when the doors opened at nine and I left at nine at night. I used to hover constantly in corridors, waiting for somebody to finish in a room so that I could get in there for half an hour or a quarter of an hour, and professors of piano teaching and professors of singing

Anthony Rolfe Johnson11:06

and uh conducting professors and music uh general musicianship, they would all see me and indicate either yes, it it's worth waiting or buzz off and so I just I just worked every moment I could.

Presenter11:20

And had you ever been to the Opera before you went to the Guildhall?

Anthony Rolfe Johnson11:24

Nope.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson11:25

I hadn't. Uh I went to the opera

Anthony Rolfe Johnson11:29

for the first time as a student and I I sat

Anthony Rolfe Johnson11:32

or rather stood in Covent Garden and looked straight down

Anthony Rolfe Johnson11:36

Onto the stage.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson11:39

and heard Aida, and that was the first opera I'd ever heard um certainly the first opera in a foreign language.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson11:47

and I was spellbound. It was very loud.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson11:51

And no, that that rather daunted me.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson11:54

But

Anthony Rolfe Johnson11:56

So many of the things that I did during that period as a student were all for the first time.

Presenter12:00

Well, there's no Verdi on your desert island. There is, however, some Mozart, I think, opera, isn't there? Next.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson12:05

Yes, indeed. Uh, Fritz von der Lich.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson12:08

But

Anthony Rolfe Johnson12:09

The magic flute is there for several reasons. I've sung it many times myself. I've even recorded it.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson12:14

But for me the person who who

Anthony Rolfe Johnson12:18

sings the part of Tamino better than anybody I think has ever aspired to.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson12:24

is Fritz von der Rich. Um a great tragedy. He died when he was in his mid forties through a stupid accident, and I think he had he have gone on he would have been

Anthony Rolfe Johnson12:36

Certainly one of the greatest singers we've ever ever produced in this world. Um this is Mozart's singing of

Anthony Rolfe Johnson12:47

The very, very best. Um, particularly nurtured and nursed along by Carl Birm, who was one of

Speaker 413:10

Mine older yeagers

Speaker 413:15

Reef.

Speaker 413:17

Perceive

Speaker 413:22

First freedom, spat or reach.

Speaker 413:29

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 413:31

Her tea to Lord Glory.

Speaker 413:45

That's me.

Speaker 413:47

My Lord Reed.

Presenter13:56

Fritz Vunderlich singing part of the Picture Aria from Act One of Mozart's Magic Flute with the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Carl Berm.

Presenter14:04

You said, Anthony Rolph Johnson, that that music was a very natural part of your early life. How natural? Your parents were very musical, were they?

Anthony Rolfe Johnson14:12

Yes, um mum and dad were the st

Anthony Rolfe Johnson14:15

Mainstay of the music making in the the Methodist church, which was our local.

Presenter14:20

In the east end of London. Yes.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson14:21

Yes, in in Eastham. East Ham High Street Methodist.

Presenter14:26

And did you sing in the choir?

Anthony Rolfe Johnson14:28

No, I didn't sing in the choir because it was a non-conformist church, the choir was adult, so I never sang in the choir. I only ever sang in the little local festivals, and on a Sunday I think we managed to go to church most days of the week, and certainly three times on Sunday. And so.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson14:48

One of my greatest

Anthony Rolfe Johnson14:50

Enjoyments was to sing every month we had a after the on the first Sunday of the month we had a hymn singing.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson14:58

um session after the main service. So my mother played the organ, my father conducted the choir and consequently conducted the the whole process. And uh I really had a good great time singing my head off in those those those uh sessions. But I never sang as as an adult for my parents, under my parents as it were.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson15:19

Um

Anthony Rolfe Johnson15:21

Although we sang a great deal at home.

Presenter15:22

You mentioned local competitions, so did you win those?

Anthony Rolfe Johnson15:26

Oh yes, I got banned in the end. Um I won them too often. Everybody got bored with me and I found I started uh doing the elocution um competitions instead.

Presenter15:37

So so everybody recognized that you had an impressive voice, a g a good voice. Were you not under pressure from your parents, both of them being musical, to to to concentrate on it, to develop it, to do something with it?

Anthony Rolfe Johnson15:47

To do something.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson15:48

Quite the reverse. Um my parents, especially my mother, felt that it was something which was a gift, uh a God-given gift, and and I must

Anthony Rolfe Johnson15:59

Um treat it as such and and with respect and with

Anthony Rolfe Johnson16:04

as a as a a form of worship really. And therefore, although I was allowed to enjoy it, it was never something which I was encou I was at all encouraged to do as as a as a living.

Presenter16:14

Record number four.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson16:16

Oh, record number four is is uh

Anthony Rolfe Johnson16:19

Bach, I I suppose, if I was pressed, I would have to admit that Bach was probably my favourite composer. And this is part of the Mass in B minor, performed by the Academy of Saint Martyrs in the Fields.

Presenter16:34

And your wife is singing.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson16:35

Yes, I I was going to explain that I made that announcement, as it were, because it's one way of taking my my lovely.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson16:42

Lady with me. Um we met on an academy tour in Germany singing the Mozer Requiem and we've never been apart since and uh this is wonderful to take this with me. It's also a wonderful piece of music.

Presenter17:57

Part of Gloria in exchelsis Deo from Bach's Mass in B minor performed by the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, conducted by Sir Neville Mariner.

Presenter18:06

Tell me about th the voice, Anthony. When you first arrived at the Guildhall twenty three years ago, what was it like? Can you describe it to me?

Anthony Rolfe Johnson18:14

It was very sweet.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson18:16

Um very small and not very high.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson18:21

Not promising really.

Presenter18:24

They certainly spotted something there. But training expanded it, it developed. Did that all happen very quickly?

Anthony Rolfe Johnson18:30

Yes, it did. One of the benefits of being twenty nine or so when you start this lark is that you are physically okay, you're physically mature. And that's one of the problems that younger people do have, is that they've got to wait to grow up.

Presenter18:43

And what about actually going on the stage and singing in public? Did you immediately like that?

Presenter18:49

Long draw.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson18:50

Yes, I liked it. Well, I liked it. I also did it with great trepidation.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson18:57

There's something which uh when you sing especially s a role or or a um a part which with which you can identify very closely, that you lose something of yourself when you do this. Uh you give and of course you get many things back, but you never get back what you give. So you have to regenerate that.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson19:19

And as I've grown up, as it were, through my work, I've found that the energy which I use in the performance is is increasing and the loss is greater and the regeneration is is more necessary.

Presenter19:33

So you've uh you've made many friends. You've obviously enjoy it all in many ways. You knew uh Peter Peirce and and and Benjamin Britton, didn't you?

Anthony Rolfe Johnson19:41

Yes, I knew Peter quite well, Ben less so. Um

Anthony Rolfe Johnson19:46

They were both very kind to me and

Anthony Rolfe Johnson19:50

Peter was very influential.

Presenter19:53

You sang the part of Aschenbach in in Britain's Death in Venice some, what, eight years ago, when you were forty-three.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson19:56

Some

Presenter20:00

Which of course is a a part that Peter Piers had made his own when he was sixty-three, I think.

Speaker 420:04

Yeah.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson20:05

Yeah.

Presenter20:05

That must have taken some guts, because you know, when a part has been made so publicly by someone else.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson20:11

Yes.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson20:13

It takes a signal.

Presenter20:14

It takes a certain audacity on your part.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson20:17

Uh

Anthony Rolfe Johnson20:18

I was really very touched to be asked to do it.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson20:24

Peter came.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson20:26

to Geneva, where it was all happening. He wasn't very well, in fact he was really quite poorly, but we had a great time.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson20:32

And uh I was

Anthony Rolfe Johnson20:36

encouraged eventually, after a great deal of hesitation, to ask him what he thought.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson20:42

and he he was very kind.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson20:45

Um and then he said to me very puzzledly,

Anthony Rolfe Johnson20:49

Tony, it's it's it it's wonderful, but

Anthony Rolfe Johnson20:52

Where's the well?

Anthony Rolfe Johnson20:55

Noel is one of the one of the places to which which Ashenbach rushes when he's in delirium and and and uh crashes over onto and

Anthony Rolfe Johnson21:04

It was it's a it's a production feature, it's it's a stage stage scenery feature, but

Anthony Rolfe Johnson21:11

It doesn't have a great deal to do with the music.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson21:13

And it took me a long while to realize what he meant by where the well was.

Presenter21:16

So you dropped the well, had you in Geneva friend? And had you listened to his recording of it before you sent it?

Anthony Rolfe Johnson21:22

No, absolutely not. Uh this would have been fatal.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson21:27

I don't

Anthony Rolfe Johnson21:29

As a general rule, listen to other people's performances when I'm learning the role, because I do feel that I I would be very susceptible to them. And also I think most singers f feel this, that when they listen to other people singing, they will all think always think that they're a great deal better than one can ever be oneself. And so I defend myself from those two things, and I only listen afterwards.

Presenter21:56

Next record.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson21:58

This is uh Peter Pearce.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson22:01

and Dennis Brain, the great duo.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson22:04

performing

Anthony Rolfe Johnson22:05

the serenade for ten horn and strings.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson22:08

Um

Anthony Rolfe Johnson22:11

Benjamin Britton conducting his own great piece. It is a a masterpiece, and I have so much fun seeing it.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson22:20

Um I've recorded it and sung it many times and uh

Anthony Rolfe Johnson22:24

It never ceases to to amaze me that the musical structure of

Anthony Rolfe Johnson22:29

The insight that this man had.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson22:32

were tremendous.

Speaker 422:35

Please let me know.

Speaker 422:37

Now the sun is late to see, Seated in thy silver chair, State it won't dead man the king, Esperus and feast thy light. Test for the century's thy night. Gondis, goldness, goldness, excellent definite.

Speaker 423:08

Earth and not thy end your shame

Anthony Rolfe Johnson23:10

Uh

Anthony Rolfe Johnson23:12

Yeah.

Speaker 423:13

There it's of the winter pose Since the shiny hole was made.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson23:18

Yeah.

Speaker 423:20

Heaven proclaim when they declaw Bless us then with wishes I Bless us then with wishes I God bless God, that's God bless

Anthony Rolfe Johnson23:24

Patients are

Presenter23:27

And we should talk.

Presenter23:34

I

Presenter23:34

Peter Piers and Dennis Brain performing part of Benjamin Britton's Serenade Opus thirty one for tenor, horn and strings, with the Boyd Neal String Orchestra, conducted by Benjamin Britton.

Presenter23:45

It was five years ago that disaster struck Anthony Rolfe Johnson. You were about to make your debut at the New York Met, and the voice disappeared. Can you describe to me what happened that day?

Anthony Rolfe Johnson23:58

Well

Anthony Rolfe Johnson24:00

It had been happening really for probably three or four years before that.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson24:05

And there's one does.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson24:07

I was ignoring it.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson24:10

and trying to deal with it.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson24:12

Um

Anthony Rolfe Johnson24:13

It seemed only to happen when I was singing opera, when the voice was being worked really hard.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson24:20

And it would stop, simply stop.

Presenter24:23

But no sound came.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson24:23

No sound. It would be a kind of click.

Presenter24:26

Could you speak?

Anthony Rolfe Johnson24:27

Um yes, but very gruffly.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson24:32

I went to the Met to make my debut, and it was around Christmas time.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson24:37

and I sang for perhaps ten days before Christmas, and it was quite clear that the voice was already beginning to suffer. And I came back after Christmas, having spent three or four days with my family, and started rehearsing again.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson24:50

and within five or six days it had gone completely, and showed no prospect of returning.

Presenter24:59

So you went to a doctor.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson25:00

I went I was recommended to to go and see two rather special gentlemen uh in New York.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson25:06

And they said immediately that they knew what was wrong, the symptoms were very clear, and that.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson25:15

Before they could do anything they had to see it. They actually had to physically see the problem. And the nature of the problem was that it kept itself hidden.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson25:27

And I went to them every day for ten days, and each day I'd been been to them I reported back to the Met and said, Sorry, not today and and we got closer and closer to the performances, and eventually the performances came.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson25:39

and I was still not able to sing and on the final day, when I was packed and ready to go home, because I'd run out of money and I was desperate, miserable, and so on,

Anthony Rolfe Johnson25:50

I went down for my examination, and they found it.

Presenter25:53

Uh

Anthony Rolfe Johnson25:53

Yeah.

Presenter25:53

Yeah.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson25:53

Well, it was something very extraordinary, a tiny thing.

Presenter25:53

What is it?

Anthony Rolfe Johnson25:59

Um it was a polyp.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson26:01

Now

Anthony Rolfe Johnson26:02

Most people, I think, in the profession go, don't talk about it, don't talk about it. I see no reason why not. But a little growth. It was a little.

Presenter26:08

What you're listening

Anthony Rolfe Johnson26:11

Soft

Anthony Rolfe Johnson26:12

A sea anemone shaped thing.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson26:16

with a long thin neck and a little round head, and it waved about.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson26:21

and it strangled one cord and beat the other one to a pole.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson26:24

And that's why I couldn't sing.

Presenter26:26

And then you sang again your next professional engagement. You wept and you

Anthony Rolfe Johnson26:31

I certainly did. I certainly did. It was such a funny little concert. It was over in Geneva, and it was a Bach Maas, and the voice was huge.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson26:42

It's sort of settled down a bit now, but it's still quite mu quite a great deal bigger than it used to be.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson26:47

Um and it was like a flame thrower, and I I blasted my way through this mass in the most unstylistic way possible, and everybody was grinning from ear to ear, including myself, and afterwards I just did have a good old weep, yes.

Presenter26:53

Yeah.

Presenter27:01

More music.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson27:04

Well this is

Anthony Rolfe Johnson27:06

My dose of orchestral music because although I have

Anthony Rolfe Johnson27:09

So much of my time is spent

Anthony Rolfe Johnson27:11

with the voice and with other people's voices. Um I do love orchestral music too. And this is part of the Beethoven symphony cycle.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson27:23

Uh ironically it's it's the slow movement from the ninth, which is the choral symphony. And this is played by the Leipzig Gewantaus Orchestra and conducted by Koet Mazur. These wonderful people are our recent friends, no less dear but recent, and they I'm afraid they follow the the same pattern as everybody else really. They are mates. And uh I'd just love to hear that. And this movement sensational.

Presenter27:23

Yeah.

Presenter28:51

Part of the slow movement of Beethoven's Choral Symphony, No. nine, in D minor, opus one hundred and twenty five, played by the Leipsic Gewanthaus Orchestra, conducted by Court Mazur.

Presenter29:02

I see you're not taking any of your own recordings, Anthony, to this island.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson29:05

I know what I sound like. I don't and I can make make noises on this island, and um that'll do. I just need all my friends with me.

Presenter29:11

Yeah.

Presenter29:13

How much of your family do you manage to see? As successful professional singers notoriously have diaries that are booked five years in advance, and you're always away from home.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson29:21

Yes, this is a ve this is a very big problem.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson29:25

And we try

Anthony Rolfe Johnson29:28

The the slightly unholy triumvirate of my wife and my agent and myself get done.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson29:36

to rather desperate sessions uh every now and then to try and plan how I can spend enough time at home to watch the children growing up and to be part of their lives, not just be a visiting celebrity.

Presenter29:50

And do you ever find time to go to other people's concerts and hear other people sing, other people's operas?

Anthony Rolfe Johnson29:56

Not very often. Oddly enough, this comes best when I'm um away from home already and perhaps working in an opera house, and then I just by myself at the end of the day will stay on at the opera house and sit in the music box and listen to as much or as little as I can stand, and then go away.

Presenter30:12

Go away.

Presenter30:14

So so the listening life on the desert island will suit you down to the ground, and I think that's a good idea.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson30:17

Oh, absolutely, yes.

Presenter30:18

Looking forward to it.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson30:19

Yes, indeed.

Presenter30:21

Record number seven.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson30:22

Well this is Glenn Gould playing.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson30:28

The Goldberg variations. This is the record I suppose I play more than any other.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson30:33

I love Bach very much. I love his invention and the joy that comes from this music.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson30:43

From all accounts he could be a very grouchy old person and uh difficult. But I forgive him everything. And these

Anthony Rolfe Johnson30:53

These variations played by Glengould.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson30:57

Are extraordinary because the man also sings from time to time.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson31:03

He sings in the way that I think I would if I could play. I just at uh en enhancing the bass line sometimes and sort of humming.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson31:11

happily to himself, a man happy in his work. This is the second variation.

Presenter31:54

Glenn Gould playing part of Variation Number Two from Bach's Goldberg Variations. You're now fifty one. Ulysses you're playing you're singing next at the Coliseum. That's right.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson32:04

Yeah.

Presenter32:05

You've sung with many of the world's finest orchestras and conductors. Who or what are left for you? What what what role do you covert with whom?

Anthony Rolfe Johnson32:18

That's a difficult one. Uh until recently I I yearned to sing Peter Grimes, and I've got my wish now.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson32:25

and in two months time I I actually get to record it.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson32:29

I've never sung it on stage, which is a big disadvantage, but I'll manage. Um and I think

Anthony Rolfe Johnson32:37

I would love to sing that on stage. I I know that there are two opportunities for this to happen coming up.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson32:45

Um one, I think, in Scotland, and the second one definitely on the stage at the Met.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson32:51

And

Anthony Rolfe Johnson32:52

Yeah.

Presenter32:52

I can wait for that.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson32:53

Yeah.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson32:53

That's in nineteen ninety four five.

Presenter32:56

That's yours, is it, that part?

Anthony Rolfe Johnson32:58

That's mine. Slightly mad. Um misunderstood. Something of a

Anthony Rolfe Johnson33:09

Alona

Anthony Rolfe Johnson33:11

But needing people. Yes.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson33:14

Not a bad description.

Presenter33:16

Last record.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson33:18

The last one uh

Anthony Rolfe Johnson33:21

A way of taking

Anthony Rolfe Johnson33:24

Pretty well, all the other friends that haven't been included so far.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson33:28

John Elliott Gardner and the Monte Veddi Orchestra and the English Baroque Soloists have been a huge part of my life for a long time.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson33:40

We work wonderfully together and

Anthony Rolfe Johnson33:43

We've produced a whole lot of

Anthony Rolfe Johnson33:45

Very interesting records, I think. But we've had a great time.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson33:49

One of the roles that I've never sung with them is is is the tenor

Anthony Rolfe Johnson33:53

part in in one of the tenor parts in Monteverdi's

Anthony Rolfe Johnson33:57

Vespers

Anthony Rolfe Johnson33:59

1610, and they made an absolutely splendid recording, both video and and uh audio.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson34:06

Last year in in in Venice, in in Saint Mark's.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson34:10

And I just like to hear that. I love the music so much, and whenever I hear it, I shall think of all the times that we've had together.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson34:19

And I love hearing other tenors sing, so hear about four of them.

Presenter35:26

Part of the duo seraphim from Monte Vi's Vespers of the Blessed Virgin, sung by Mark Tucker, Nigel Robson, and Sandro Nahlia, with the Monteverdi Choir and the English Baroque Soloists, conducted by John Elliott Gardner.

Presenter35:40

So if you could only have one of those eight records, Anthony, which one would it be?

Anthony Rolfe Johnson35:48

I think it would have to be the Massimby minor from from Saint Academy of Saint Martin's, because I understand your rules say that I can't take my wife, even though she says she won't be useful, she promises not to be, it just won't wash. So that's the only way I can take her with me. I shall miss her so much.

Presenter36:05

And your book, as well as the Bible and Shakespeare?

Anthony Rolfe Johnson36:08

Ah, my book

Anthony Rolfe Johnson36:10

Well?

Anthony Rolfe Johnson36:11

This took a long time to decide, but I thought in the end what I would like to do

Anthony Rolfe Johnson36:16

It's taken me the biggest

Anthony Rolfe Johnson36:19

Welsh English dictionary I can find, and some tapes, which I already have.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson36:25

and learn to speak the language, so that if I ever did get rescued, I wouldn't then have to spend my time in the back kitchen down in Lamberta.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson36:33

Reading the newspaper while everybody else talked over my head.

Presenter36:38

And being a man who's already, since changing careers, mastered German and French and some Italian, that shouldn't be too difficult for you.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson36:45

No, I think it would be a great pleasure.

Presenter36:48

And your luxury.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson36:51

Well, again, as I say, since I can't take Liz.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson36:54

I thought that what I might do is to ask if I might take a couple of square metres of parquet flooring.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson37:03

and an inexhaustible supply of tap shoes and an instruction book.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson37:09

And then I could learn to tap dance and get fit at the same time.

Presenter37:12

It's going to be very busy on this item for you.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson37:13

Yom is hiding for you.

Presenter37:15

You can have exactly that. And I shall say Anthony Rolf Johnson, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson37:21

Thank you.

Speaker 337:29

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