Alan Hacker

Speaker 10:00

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 10:08

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

Presenter0:29

My castaway this week is a musician. He began his professional life as a clarinetist with the London Philharmonic, but at the age of 28 he was permanently disabled by a thrombosis on his spinal column. Although confined to a wheelchair, he's been determined to prove that his disability isn't a handicap, just a nuisance, and that's what he's done: teaching, conducting, and forming his own musical groups. A pioneer in the study of early music, as well as a passionate fan of Mozart, he's also a leading guest conductor of Stuttgart Opera. He is Alan Hacker.

Presenter1:01

In fact, reading about your career, Alan, it almost seems as if it's been

Presenter1:07

Perhaps richer and more varied as a result of your being disabled. Do you think there's some truth in that, or is that? I think it's very.

Alan Hacker1:13

To think it's very true, actually. After all, it's quite possible that

Alan Hacker1:18

Although playing in an orchestra is very glorious, I still might be doing that. I mean, I had to leave the L P O because of my disability, and that meant

Speaker 41:22

Yeah.

Speaker 11:22

I mean I

Alan Hacker1:27

I got involved with my own groups, and then I had time, you see. If I'd been principal clarinet of a major London orchestra, I could have only really done that.

Presenter1:39

So you were forced into into discovering a new kind of freelance career, really?

Alan Hacker1:44

Yes. I'm forced actually. It's I mean I've enjoyed it, you know, it's been terrific. It gets better and better.

Presenter1:51

But you might never have have perhaps tried conducting, or felt that you could, if you

Presenter1:56

If you hadn't in the end set up your own groups and

Alan Hacker1:59

Yep.

Alan Hacker2:00

Double

Presenter2:00

Yes.

Presenter2:01

But obviously m music is a very fundamental part of your life.

Alan Hacker2:05

Yes, it most certainly has been a lifeline to me.

Presenter2:08

Yeah.

Presenter2:09

How difficult was it then sorting out these eight records? I mean, presumably as impossible as all musicians would find it.

Alan Hacker2:16

Yes, and also I think it's been pointed out to me several times that

Alan Hacker2:20

When I'm involved in a particular piece,

Alan Hacker2:23

like, for example, when I was doing La Finte Jardiniere of not a terribly well known opera of Mozart, that seemed to me Mozart's best.

Presenter2:33

Yeah, and you've got quite a varied selection here. I mean, some modern stuff as well. But tell me about the first one. Tell me about your the Haydn.

Alan Hacker2:36

About the foot

Alan Hacker2:39

Something that

Alan Hacker2:41

Really is right at my root. Is I do like to share music with others. I mean, that's why.

Alan Hacker2:49

I got involved with old instruments because I wanted to

Alan Hacker2:54

take music to more people. Haydn is of all people and certainly when he was writing towards the end of his life, he was really writing for everybody. And I think these London symphonies were written for everybody. And

Alan Hacker3:10

You know, they're written in a in a truly popular style. In fact, the material is so popular that the tune in the last movement of this symphony could be a Croatian folk tune, or it could be a London street seller's song. So it's quite a clever way of me getting a bit of folk music into this selection, too.

Presenter4:27

Part of the final movement of Haydn's London Symphony played by the orchestra of the eighteenth century conducted by Frantz Bruggen.

Presenter4:34

What exactly happened to you then, Alan? You were twenty eight years old, and, as far as you knew, in reasonably decent health.

Alan Hacker4:40

Yes, one day I had a a pain round me which is rather like a beer barrel being tightened round your chest.

Alan Hacker4:48

And it got rather worse. And I mentioned it to players in the orchestra, and they said, Oh, well, we've got trouble with our backs you know the Alexander technique was becoming popular then, and even Sir Adrian, the conductor of the orchestra, had written an introduction to a book on it, so I left it.

Alan Hacker5:05

And it got worse and I was teaching in a school. I was actually thinking of leaving the LPO at that time. And I was teaching in a school and felt

Alan Hacker5:14

rather embarrassedly, rather kind of drunken.

Alan Hacker5:18

And I just had to to leave. I staggered out. I could just about push the pedals of my Skoda car. They were, you know, pretty heavy, as you can imagine, with a Skoda. And I I just about got to my doctor's. And anyway, by that evening, I couldn't get out of the chair I was sitting in.

Alan Hacker5:38

So they took me to the Middlesex Hospital.

Alan Hacker5:41

by ambulance, of course, and uh following day did a laminectomy. I think they thought I had polio, but in fact it was a blood clot and uh this

Alan Hacker5:51

lodged itself against my spinal cord and broke it from what's known as T3 downwards, which is just above your chest.

Presenter6:00

So it it was effectively your back was broken by this motion.

Alan Hacker6:03

Yes, exactly, yeah.

Alan Hacker6:06

You see, compared with people who have car accidents, I didn't have to lie for months in bed in traction.

Speaker 46:12

Hmm.

Alan Hacker6:13

I got back as soon as I could to playing.

Presenter6:17

And uh But you've never been able to move again since. Fr from from how high up is your paralysis?

Alan Hacker6:23

Well, it's it's just above my chest.

Presenter6:26

Hmm.

Alan Hacker6:26

Uh

Presenter6:26

So it it's it's quite high up.

Alan Hacker6:28

Ugh.

Speaker 46:29

Yeah.

Presenter6:29

And and it must have been a terrifying experience. I mean, you you presumably thought for a while you might be able to move again. You didn't know it was a permanent condition.

Alan Hacker6:38

I don't think you really do think actually when that happens to you.

Alan Hacker6:44

Traumatized. When I was in the Middlesex, there were doctors. In fact,

Alan Hacker6:49

A couple of them were students of mine and they were housemen, you know, they'd come to me and say, We you probably won't be able to

Alan Hacker6:56

Do so much play. You know, they're not terribly good like that, but they did their best.

Alan Hacker7:03

But anyway, eventually

Alan Hacker7:05

When I was getting a bit of strength back from the operation, a man called Pringsheim, who ran a music shop in Great Marlborough Street, brought me an old clarinet to restore. And when I'd restored it, you know, sitting up in bed, they put me in a wheelchair, you know, my first journey in a wheelchair to the OT room. I was in the in the

Alan Hacker7:28

intensive care unit, and for some strange reason I started to play the opening of the Mozart clarinet quintet, which, as you know, is a sort of upward arpeggio.

Alan Hacker7:40

and I could just play a couple of notes and really felt like dropping dead out of the wheelchair, and then the next day I could play just a little more, and by the end of the week I could go right over the top, back down again.

Presenter7:53

So it really was therapy occupational therapy.

Alan Hacker7:54

Yes, so as you can imagine, I mean, if I do find myself on a desert island, Mozart would have to be with me because he's been.

Alan Hacker8:03

With me anyway.

Presenter8:04

But is it was it something of a miracle that you could do that? After all, if your paralysis is as high up, as you say, practically under your armpits, the fact that you can m move your diaphragm, which presumably is what you use to play the clarinet, is that not something of a miracle?

Alan Hacker8:11

And

Alan Hacker8:19

Well, yes, it is actually. Mind you, your diaphragm works from a nerve that branches off high up in your neck.

Alan Hacker8:27

But even so.

Alan Hacker8:29

People or doctors that is still can't quite understand how I do.

Alan Hacker8:33

Play.

Alan Hacker8:35

So i it it took me a little time, but

Alan Hacker8:38

I made it anyway.

Presenter8:40

Record number two.

Alan Hacker8:41

Well, you might have thought that I would have chosen the Mozart quintet, but it seemed more appropriate actually to have the beginning of an opera. And I mean, this Fintejardiniera really uh demonstrates the the excitement when one's in the pit and all the audience are there and we're waiting for the curtain to go up and it's a it's a youthful piece of Mozart. In fact, it was the first Mozart opera I've conducted in England, and I did this with Opera North.

Presenter10:02

Part of the overture to Mozart's La Finta Giardiniera, played by the English Northern Philharmonia, conducted by my castaway, Alan Hacker. So it was Mozart and the clarinet who kept you going in that bleak period immediately after you discovered you were paralysed. In fact, you went on to reconstruct some of the original solos, didn't you? Parts of the the clarinet concerto and and and Mozart's

Speaker 110:13

It is shortly after.

Alan Hacker10:14

Boom.

Speaker 110:15

Uh

Alan Hacker10:15

Yeah.

Speaker 110:15

Yeah.

Alan Hacker10:22

Yes, yes, you're absolutely right.

Presenter10:24

Uh

Alan Hacker10:24

Uh

Presenter10:24

Uh Yeah.

Alan Hacker10:25

Uh

Presenter10:25

I mean, where do you

Alan Hacker10:25

Uh

Presenter10:25

But a

Alan Hacker10:26

Well, when I was a student I couldn't understand why so many of the musical phrases kind of had their bottoms locked off.

Alan Hacker10:34

And to cut a long story short, I found that Mozart was actually writing for a clarinet that went on sort of Heineken style further than

Alan Hacker10:45

any others would reach.

Alan Hacker10:47

In the mid sixties, um Ted Planis and myself set

Alan Hacker10:52

to to reconstruct one of these instruments, and then it was possible to reconstruct the music of the concerto. So it was actually very exciting in the late sixties to

Alan Hacker11:04

play this piece of Mozart, as it were, for the f what in a way was like the first performance in modern times of the real piece.

Presenter11:12

Exactly how he had made it to something.

Alan Hacker11:14

I mean, well, not exactly, because there's no manuscript. But I mean, that this is often the case. You know, you have to do quite a bit of uh musicology really to put a piece straight.

Presenter11:15

Wait.

Presenter11:25

So you created a whole new instrument, really, a sort of alto clarinet?

Alan Hacker11:28

That's right. Yes, a um well, a soprano clarinet that stretched on further down. The bottom note of the A clarinet was no longer uh a sounding C sharp, but a low A. So of course when Mozart wrote a concerto in A, the low A was actually going to be quite an important

Presenter11:45

And this was called the Bassett clown. Yes, yes. As easy to play as the Orthodox clown.

Alan Hacker11:47

Yes, yes.

Alan Hacker11:52

Well, somewhat different actually. I mean, first of all, you've got to use your thumb,'cause you've got more holes to cover. And when you're playing in the upper register, it's harder to get that vocal quality that you associate with the clarinet. So it it was actually that part of the instrument I had to spend most of my time on rather than the extended new notes at the bottom of the instrument. And th there there's quite a nice point in that it's quite a difficult instrument to play standing up.

Alan Hacker12:21

So I had an advantage over everybody else.

Alan Hacker12:24

Yeah.

Presenter12:24

We better have your th

Alan Hacker12:24

Uh

Presenter12:24

Thirdly.

Alan Hacker12:25

Go there.

Alan Hacker12:26

Well, this is good value. It's a record called Hymn to the Sun, which is quite an appropriate record to have on a desert island. It's the only record that features me, uh, if you don't mind me presenting it.

Alan Hacker12:42

I'd like you to hear this interlude of Harry Burt whistles. I think it demonstrates the closeness that we have.

Alan Hacker12:50

still have, I think.

Presenter12:52

And he wrote this specially for you on the Bassett Clarinet.

Alan Hacker12:55

That's right. Yes, I had a recital.

Alan Hacker12:58

in London and uh

Alan Hacker13:01

These interludes were meant to be played at four corners of the concert. You see, so you had your basic clarinet on one side of the stage and you played your Brahms and your Vaughan Williams and so on round the piano, and then you or marched over or me wheeled over to the basset clarinet and played this rather strange piece.

Speaker 413:53

Uh

Alan Hacker13:56

It has an electronic tape, which we kind of chose like wallpaper, and the tape gets louder and then softer.

Alan Hacker14:05

And parallel it parallels the shape of the melody, which begins loud.

Alan Hacker14:11

goes higher and louder, and then lower and quieter.

Presenter14:15

And that was one of the interludes that were.

Alan Hacker14:17

That was the first interlude.

Presenter14:18

And together they're called Hymn to the Sun, written in the whole rhythm.

Alan Hacker14:21

Well the whole the whole record the whole record is called Him to the Sun.

Presenter14:24

Right. Tell me about your musical roots, Alan. Do they go deep? I mean, is it in the family?

Alan Hacker14:30

Yes, my mother, she can still play actually, and she's one of these people who can play things by ear rather beautifully. And I think my dad

Speaker 114:37

Ear.

Alan Hacker14:40

He's very moved by music.

Alan Hacker14:43

Played the cello when he was a student.

Alan Hacker14:46

They kind of

Alan Hacker14:47

left me alone. I'm in the nicest possible uh liberal way when I was a boy. And uh I actually joined the choir, had a duff piano teacher.

Alan Hacker14:59

unfortunately. And I also made my own wind instruments. I don't really know why, but you remember those shops called Dryad, where you could buy bamboo and wa w raffia and things like that? Well, they sold a kit for making bamboo pipes. So I made those and I made used old gas pipes for things. I it's odd, isn't it, how things appear in your

Alan Hacker15:25

Youth, and you don't know why they do, but anyway, cubes did, as far as I was concerned.

Presenter15:27

Yeah.

Presenter15:29

When did the clarinet appear?

Alan Hacker15:32

when my grannie told me I wasn't allowed to play the oboe, and I wanted to play the oboe because we had a record of Leon Goosens. I thought it was wonderful because although it was an instrument,

Presenter15:45

It sounded like somebody singing.

Alan Hacker15:46

Pink.

Presenter15:46

But why was Granny so against the Ober?

Alan Hacker15:49

Well, she thought she knew about instruments because we had a relation called Arthur, who played the harp in the New York Philharmonic, and so she thought I get consumption if I play the oboe. So I played the clarinet and became a paraplegic.

Presenter16:06

Were your parents happy that you should become a musician, and did they go along with it all?

Alan Hacker16:10

Well, I had petty mal, you see, which kept me out of the army, you know, national service.

Presenter16:15

What is that a kind of epilepsy?

Alan Hacker16:16

That's right, yes. some blackouts and that kind of thing. And the neurologist said uh I should let him follow his own devices.

Alan Hacker16:26

So it was through him, really, that I was allowed to be a musician.

Presenter16:30

So you you followed a musical career?

Presenter16:33

With the help of your parents you won lots of prizes, you've studied at the Royal Academy,

Alan Hacker16:36

This you

Presenter16:38

You're obviously jolly precocious. You were awarded a professorship there when you were barely twenty. What did that mean?

Alan Hacker16:45

Well, Reginald Kell, a great English clarinetist, returned from America and taught at the Academy for a few years, and I was one of his pupils. And when he left he said I'd like Allan to take over. But I was only nineteen at the time and I'd got a job in the LPO.

Alan Hacker17:03

And

Alan Hacker17:05

I think the authorities thought, well, we can't really call him a professor at this age, but they paid me the professor's money and

Speaker 117:05

I mean the author

Alan Hacker17:12

I taught myself to teach.

Presenter17:14

But you also, as you say, at nineteen you were offered this job with the London Philharmonic. That in itself was was was quite an achievement, and you stayed with them for seven years.

Alan Hacker17:18

Money.

Alan Hacker17:21

And you stay.

Alan Hacker17:23

Oh, more than that. In fact, I the only reason I left was when I was more or less forced to leave by

Alan Hacker17:30

becoming disabled. I was quite angry about it, actually.

Alan Hacker17:34

Go ahead.

Presenter17:34

You were edged out, were you?

Alan Hacker17:36

Well, I no, no. It was simply that they said, was I capable of doing a German tour? and I said yes, but I thought it was important to travel in a car rather than be lifted by my colleagues into a coach.

Alan Hacker17:52

And they wrote back to me.

Alan Hacker17:55

A couple of weeks later said We don't think you can manage it.

Alan Hacker17:59

So, um

Alan Hacker18:01

I said the sort of things you're not supposed to say on the B B C and left.

Presenter18:05

Because you were playing as well as ever by this stage again. I mean you were perfectly capable of doing the job.

Alan Hacker18:09

Oh, yes, yeah. Mind you, I mean, when I look back on

Presenter18:10

Uh

Alan Hacker18:13

Many years of my life

Alan Hacker18:16

It was quite a sort of nightmare, actually, really. But one has to keep going, otherwise you stop.

Presenter18:22

But so you don't blame the LPO so much in hindsight. You'll you feel more understanding at this distance in time, do you?

Alan Hacker18:27

Um, I've I have an aggressive side to me, actually.

Alan Hacker18:34

I don't think people should do that.

Alan Hacker18:36

I don't think disabled people uh should be fired.

Presenter18:40

Tell me about record number four.

Alan Hacker18:42

I was on tour with the L Pi O in Delhi.

Alan Hacker18:45

And some neighbours of mine suggested that I visit some friends of theirs. And this was dinner before the concert, and a taxi driver drove me through the streets of Delhi and dropped me in my tail coat. You can imagine it was pretty stifling, even though it was evening. Dropped me at the wrong block of flats. Well,

Alan Hacker19:09

I knew where I had to go, so I ran through these streets, and when I got to this place I was absolutely dripping.

Alan Hacker19:17

And we sat down at this rather formal dinner table, and there was one of those very, very slow moving fans in the roof. But musically what happened was they said you really must hear this recording of this famous Indian oboe player, Bhismullah Khan.

Alan Hacker19:37

and I was absolutely entranced by it. It was again the fact that somebody was playing an instrument in such a vocal way.

Speaker 420:10

Yeah.

Presenter20:28

Biz Miller Khan playing the Shennai, an Indian oboe. You formed various music groups over the years, Alan Hacker, the Pierrot players in the beginning who became Fires of London, and then your own group Matrix and later the Classical Orchestra.

Alan Hacker20:40

This is a

Presenter20:43

So that was how you arrived at conducting, was it by by popular request, as it were, of your own decision?

Alan Hacker20:47

Yes, I suppose it was, actually. I mean, after all, in classical music

Alan Hacker20:52

Quite a number of the pieces don't include the clarinet. So colleagues of mine said, Well, why don't you conduct? And of course I had pupils who were playing on the old clarinet, so yes, that's how it happened.

Presenter21:03

But how naturally did you take to it? Did you find it very easy?

Alan Hacker21:08

I didn't really think very much about it.

Alan Hacker21:10

And the more I do it,

Alan Hacker21:12

The more

Alan Hacker21:14

I get involved rightly so in the technique of it.

Presenter21:17

So do you often feel the lack of uh when you're conducting a conventional orchestra now, do you feel the lack of an old instrument on occasions? Do you think, I wish there was a basset clarinet there?

Alan Hacker21:29

No, I don't think so, really. I mean, I think that

Alan Hacker21:31

It's very exciting conducting an orchestra that one night'll be playing.

Alan Hacker21:37

Berg, and the next night we'll be playing Puccini, and then perhaps after a night off, we'll be playing Mozart.

Alan Hacker21:44

It's a living musical.

Alan Hacker21:46

thing to do that.

Presenter21:47

And do you find that um the members of a conventional orchestra accept you very easily? Or does your reputation for having been involved with authentic instruments and early music and very modern music, Harrison Burtwhistle, Peter Maxwell, Davis, that sort of thing, does it Mm-hmm.

Presenter22:03

To put it bluntly, they can be a bit snotty about you, can't they?

Presenter22:06

Because there are certain members of certain orchestras maybe feel there's only one way to play Bach or Mozart, and that's the way they've always done it in the accepted twentieth century traditional

Alan Hacker22:15

Yes it is.

Alan Hacker22:17

But you see, that's the problem now with people who play on old instruments. They can be as rigid as the people who play on modern instruments.

Presenter22:26

Let's have record number five.

Alan Hacker22:29

I think I'd like this on the desert island because it's so awesome.

Alan Hacker22:33

I mean, with great music, you can give many kind of pictures, but I mean, there is really the whole heaven and earth and sea or universe or whatever you however you like to view it in this first chorus from the St John Passion. It was the first bach I ever heard. My first girlfriend took me to St Bartholomew the Great, where it was always this or the St Matthew was played every year. And when I was about fifteen, I think I heard this.

Presenter24:08

The opening of Bach's St. John Passion with the Vienna Consentus Musicus and the Vienna Chorus conducted by Nicholas Arnon Court.

Presenter24:15

Um but just tell me a little bit more about the job of conducting, Alan. How does sitting down to the job affect it? I mean, surely it must affect the the tempo or the attack of your conducting, does it?

Alan Hacker24:25

No, I think sitting down makes you conduct in a much more economical way. I mean, you don't actually need your knees and arse, you know, which

Alan Hacker24:36

Most conductors do use

Alan Hacker24:39

All you need is just a clear

Alan Hacker24:42

battle and occasionally using the other hand for

Alan Hacker24:48

Extra dynamics or expression.

Presenter24:51

But you use a a an extended baton, don't you?

Alan Hacker24:54

Well, I use a long stick, but

Alan Hacker24:57

So did the old conductors, too.

Presenter24:59

And you obviously have balance in your upper body. I mean, you don't have to be.

Alan Hacker25:02

You don't have to I don't have balance in the way that a normal person does, but I can just about balance. I mean, I tend to hang on actually and if I get rather spasmy

Alan Hacker25:14

Um you may have noticed when I came into the studio I've got straps round my feet. I mean sometimes your trunk and your legs and your feet will move involuntary. And when that happens, especially if it's in the middle of a uh accompanied recitative, uh nobody knows this, I don't tell anybody, but I sort of hang on with one hand and conduct with the other. And actually, oddly enough, I feel quite confident doing that. I know I'm not going to fall out of the chair or or anything. And just to know that everything is invested in in the clarity, or hopefully the clarity of one hand, can only be good from a conducting

Alan Hacker25:54

Technique point of view.

Presenter25:56

And what about pain? Are you in pain?

Alan Hacker26:00

Well, my back aches all the time and my

Alan Hacker26:04

Legs are my feet.

Alan Hacker26:07

Sting rather like if you've been sitting on the Louvre too long with a good book. I mean, I can remember things like that, even though I've been like this for about twenty-eight, twenty-nine years.

Presenter26:17

Because you can't feel your feet, can you?

Alan Hacker26:19

Not on the outside, but I can feel this kind of fizzy pain inside me. It's rather curious. I mean, I could actually.

Alan Hacker26:29

I suppose I could sort of knock a nail into my knee and I wouldn't I wouldn't feel pain in that respect. Probably cause a spasm, but I wouldn't actually feel the nail

Alan Hacker26:38

Touching.

Alan Hacker26:40

My knee.

Presenter26:41

But you can feel an ache inside and

Alan Hacker26:43

Yes.

Presenter26:44

But it's also something obviously that you learn to control and lear and learn to be confident in spite of.

Alan Hacker26:49

Confident in spite of the majority of the Hmm, hmm.

Presenter26:52

With a lot of effort.

Alan Hacker26:55

I think so, really, yes. Yes, I mean I've

Alan Hacker26:57

I do tend to make light of it, but on the other hand I did say to you earlier on that

Alan Hacker27:05

Life was a bit of a nightmare to begin for quite a long time actually.

Alan Hacker27:11

More music.

Alan Hacker27:12

When my two daughters were at primary school, one of them was playing the clarinet and the other was playing the piano.

Alan Hacker27:19

And they played for the school concerts, Raindrops Are Falling on My Head, or My Head, or however you pronounce it.

Alan Hacker27:28

Sadly, my wife and I couldn't go to it because I had a concert abroad somewhere and she was accompanying me and I've always felt remorseful. You know, right back to those days, I still feel bad and and miserable that I didn't hear them. To kind of make up for it really, and because this piece has always been on my mind connected with them, when Sophie the Younger One got married, I arranged the piece for

Alan Hacker27:58

clarinet and for Katie, she's a soprano, and we played and sang at Sophie's wedding.

Speaker 428:08

Drops keep falling on my head

Speaker 428:11

And just like the guy whose feet are too big for his bed.

Speaker 428:17

Nothing seems to fit.

Speaker 428:19

Hello.

Speaker 428:20

Raindrops are falling on my head, they keep falling.

Speaker 428:25

So I just didn't need some talking to the sun.

Presenter28:30

Raindrops keep falling on my head from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and thoughts of your daughters, Alan. And you have a son, too, called Alcuin. Is he musical?

Alan Hacker28:39

Yes, he's a rock drummer. He's. Nearly seventeen.

Presenter28:43

And you're able to help him with that too, are you?

Alan Hacker28:45

Yes, yeah.

Presenter28:46

But you you obviously need help from other people to to get around. Oh, absolutely. But but as a personality you're reasonably self you're very self-sufficient by the sound of it. Do do you actually like the idea of being on a desert island mentally?

Alan Hacker28:52

And

Alan Hacker29:02

I think if you're disabled you're more on your own.

Alan Hacker29:05

So I suppose if you're disabled you're rather more prepared for it perhaps than others.

Presenter29:12

Do you think you could control you mentioned earlier on that you uh you had some aggression in you. I mean, is that aggression because of your disability? I mean, and c can could you control that?

Alan Hacker29:21

Yes, I think it is, actually. In fact, I mean, to go back to to musical points, in the sixties when uh Peter Maxwell, Davis and Burke Whistle were writing very

Alan Hacker29:33

fierce white red and white hot expressionist music, I couldn't understand why I was able to play this music over and over again.

Alan Hacker29:44

But to put it in um kind of South London terms, I was actually getting rid of dirty water because I was just disabled.

Presenter29:51

Uh But you found a obviously a snap and a palm.

Alan Hacker29:54

Yes, that was a good idea.

Presenter29:57

It's just taken those years.

Alan Hacker29:57

Hmm.

Alan Hacker29:58

Yeah.

Presenter29:58

So there you are alone on your desert island. I mean what are you going to do there?

Alan Hacker30:04

I'd have to cook. I don't think I'd have much problem with that.

Alan Hacker30:08

I actually I think I'd like to teach myself to compose.

Alan Hacker30:13

Yes, that's something I'd do.

Presenter30:15

Let's have record number seven.

Alan Hacker30:17

Well, I have to play a record of Tony Cohen selection.

Alan Hacker30:22

Firstly, because he's a great friend of mine, and secondly, because

Alan Hacker30:27

although some people might not know of him.

Alan Hacker30:31

Uh he's a great musician.

Alan Hacker30:34

He's he's a well known tenor player. I mean, he's the tenor player who plays the Pink Panther tune. Anyway, this is from Neil Ardley's suite, A Kaleidoscope of Rainbows.

Presenter31:47

Tony Coe playing part of A Kaleidoscope of Rainbows

Presenter31:50

Conducting, then, Alan Hacker is your principal occupation these days Vienna, Barcelona, Paris, Stuttgart.

Presenter31:56

Where next?

Alan Hacker31:58

Well, I've just come back from Berlin.

Alan Hacker32:00

Doing Messiah

Alan Hacker32:02

And

Alan Hacker32:04

I've got more Don Giovanni in Stuttgart, and then I go to Vienna to the festival there to do the whole of Peer Gynt.

Presenter32:11

So how far ahead are you booked?

Alan Hacker32:14

About three years.

Presenter32:16

So, you're a performer. I mean, whether you're playing the clarinet as you used to, or now you're on the conductor's roster, how much do you see it as your job to please your audience, and how much to present them with new music or new interpretations? I mean, after all, a large section of the music going public is pretty compartmentalized in its approach in your book, I would have thought. I mean, it will adore Mozart and Bach, it will shun Bertwhistle and Maxwell Davis. I mean, you're a performer who loves both. Well, I think we're very

Alan Hacker32:46

Vol

Presenter32:46

Yeah.

Alan Hacker32:46

Uh

Presenter32:46

In

Alan Hacker32:46

compartmentalizing in this country. When I play on the continent, I mean, I play free jazz, I arrange Monteverde, I conduct

Alan Hacker32:59

Mozart, I play Boulez, I I do everything. I mean, they just consider me a musician. Then they're not concerned in putting me in categories. And actually we had somebody round to the house who was keen on brass bands.

Alan Hacker33:14

And we played him the Stuttgart recording of Mai and Clifford Bartlett's realization of of Monte Verde's Ulisse, and he was absolutely entranced.

Alan Hacker33:26

Now

Alan Hacker33:28

He was coming out of one compartment and getting thoroughly involved i in another.

Presenter33:35

So in an ideal world the audience should move as freely across the range as you do.

Alan Hacker33:39

Yes, if they want to.

Presenter33:40

But not if they don't.

Presenter33:42

No.

Alan Hacker33:42

Oh, they'll miss something.

Presenter33:45

We better have you a last record.

Alan Hacker33:48

Well, actually, the last record is the Monte Verde I was talking about. Happens to be another recording by.

Alan Hacker33:55

Arnenko because we haven't recorded our version in Stuttgart yet.

Alan Hacker34:01

I suppose the reason why I'd like Monte Verdi, the reason I had

Alan Hacker34:06

Haydn at the beginning of the programme is because they so describe the human experience in such a touching Shakespearean way. This is just one little excerpt from it. A suitable desert island piece in a way.

Speaker 434:39

Feel

Speaker 434:43

It is friends and people disillusion

Speaker 434:47

Nothing.

Speaker 434:55

Get a troll

Speaker 434:59

Barely, I'm not sure.

Presenter35:15

Rotrand Hansman singing the part of Minerva from Monteverdi's Return of Ulysses, with the Vienna Consentus Musicus again conducted by Nicholas Arnoncourt.

Presenter35:24

So if you could only take one of those eight records, Alan.

Alan Hacker35:29

Well, I take the Haydn. I think there's something very

Alan Hacker35:33

Modest and solid and comforting about Haydn.

Presenter35:38

Haydn's London Symphony.

Alan Hacker35:40

Yeah.

Presenter35:40

And uh what about your book?

Alan Hacker35:42

Oh, I think I'd take Middle March.

Presenter35:44

Hmm.

Alan Hacker35:45

And your luxury?

Alan Hacker35:46

Well

Alan Hacker35:48

It's always difficult getting around if you can't walk.

Alan Hacker35:51

So I think I'd actually like maybe I could have a hovercraft wheelchair that would get across the jungle quite easily. And it did strike me that if you went on a little expedition

Alan Hacker36:07

When you got to the other side of the island, it would be nice to turn the switch off and

Alan Hacker36:12

relax a bit and maybe I could have a

Alan Hacker36:16

I could have a sort of cappuccino or a Weizenbeer machine fixed to the wheelchair. Well, cappuccino would do fine actually.

Presenter36:20

Which is the first time?

Presenter36:24

Alan Hacker, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs. Thanks.

Speaker 136:35

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