Joseph Szigeti

Presenter0:00

This download is the only extract the BBC has of this edition of Desert Island Discs. The presenter was Roy Plumley.

Presenter0:08

I believe you come from a very musical family, mister Sagetti. Yes, of course. We were.

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Escommitted to

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Becoming musicians as

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Boys growing up among sailors and fishermen are committed to becoming.

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To following there.

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parents uh they

Presenter0:32

Their father's footsteps. Yes. I believe the the violin wasn't the first instrument you learned.

Joseph Szigeti0:37

No, I just uh dabbled in the chimbalom when I

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first started fiddling around without a fiddle and then I started uh

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regular lessons with my uncle. I mean, that was a procedure, you know, it just went from father and father to son.

Presenter1:01

And I believe you went to learn uh at the Conservatoire in Budapest. You went to study at the Conservatoire in Budapest when you were very young.

Joseph Szigeti1:05

Yeah, it's fine.

Presenter1:07

Uh

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For a very short

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The f

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Yeah.

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Just two two years.

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Cause

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Before I started uh playing in public. And when was that?

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That was uh I made my debut in Berlin in nineteen oh five and in London in nineteen o six.

Presenter1:26

Yes.

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And you stayed in London for some years?

Presenter1:30

Yes. I lived here?

Joseph Szigeti1:32

Yeah.

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Mm.

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I sort of

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Re-lived my childhood here when I was already in my teens.

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And I supplemented the very, uh, very slim uh

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education that I got during my violin study years. You see, I only went to

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to elementary school. And I started concertizing when I was uh thirteen.

Presenter2:09

Uh

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Yeah.

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He toured this country in the company of some very distinguished and famous British artists as a boy.

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Why?

Joseph Szigeti2:17

I was on on Melbourne.

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One of Melba's last tours with John McCormack.

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Well Ada Crossley would

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Those great Edwardian singers.

Presenter2:32

Now a few years later, just as you were becoming established as an international virtuoso, your career was interrupted for some years by illness.

Joseph Szigeti2:39

Yes. I um

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had to slow down. I didn't stop entirely. That was in nineteen thirteen.

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But uh my practice ta uh time was limited by my doctor to

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Uh twenty-five, thirty minutes a day.

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So you can imagine that I I couldn't go

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in for that type of intensive technical training that

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Is de rigueur.

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Anyway, I

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think that those years of

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sort of convalescence. It was a

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a suspicion of consumption.

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Uh did me agreed you.

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gave me time to to read, to think, to

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Not to

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plunge headlong into the competitive

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prodigy or virtuoso.

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Life.

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When did you first record?

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Oh, that was very early. That was in Caruso's days and

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It was in the days of of the Papillet Maché uh horn into which you had to play

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And um

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It was a very primitive

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era of of it was in its infancy, as you can imagine.

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I I first made my records for HMV.

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down at uh City Road.

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So you've been in the grammar f

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Fern catalogs for over half a century. Yes.

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Practically all my

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Korea

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Tell me about the instruments you play, mister Zagetti. How many violins do you usually travel with you? Two. I have Yeah.

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Two guan

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There is.

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One of them, the f the one I had in the twenties and played in the twenties, was

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The so-called

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Henri Petri Guarneri. Uh Henri Petri was Egon Petri's father, a famous violinist, and the one I play on now is the so-called Count Baldeschi Guarneri.

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dated uh seventeen hundred

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And one.

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Now world travel used to be a reasonably relaxed business of spending days or weeks on boats or trains. Well now the jet plane has really changed the the temper. Yes, and changed it for the worse.

Joseph Szigeti5:16

Yeah.

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Well now, yeah.

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Uh

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Because as you know

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Singers don't last as long as they used to.

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We

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Instrumentalists probably don't mature.

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It's

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One could in those days, you just

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R R

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driven from one continent to the other.

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I was on the.

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Plain

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Up to its crash.

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in which Carol Lombard perished in nineteen forty two.

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I was on a tour and she was on a bond selling tour. She s uh sold war bonds.

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And when uh some test pilots

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At one of the intermediary stops.

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uh had to be given seats, I was told to give up mine.

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And that saved my life.

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It crashed about half an hour later.

Presenter6:37

Are you superstitious, as many artists are?

Joseph Szigeti6:39

No.

Presenter6:40

No. My wife takes care of that. She is.

Presenter6:45

mister Sagetti, you are known to have a very large repertoire, and to be particularly devoted to contemporary works.

Presenter6:51

Which are the works that you're proudest to have given the first performance of?

Joseph Szigeti6:56

Well, I would say

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The one

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work that has passed into the repertoire.

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Um is

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The Prokofiev First Concerto.

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And the other one that has recently had several recordings, among them one by

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Yehudi Menouin is the Ernest Bloch Concerto.

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Which I played here.

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with Sir Thomas at um at a Royal Philharmonic concert.

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But of course, uh when I look back on my career, the name of Bartoke looms

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And

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Although I can't say that.

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The second sonata

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which I often played with him, or the first rhapsody, or contrasts.

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have become

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Household words, yet

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I think that they are in a fair way of becoming.

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And naturally there were.

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many other things by Albert Roussel, by Milot, and so on.

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You know, it's very difficult to

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Choose among

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among so many

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children that one has

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Nurture, I'm good.

Presenter8:34

You can And

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Uh

Presenter8:35

Realize that At one time you had a considerable interest in jazz. Do you still have that interest?

Joseph Szigeti8:42

I think it has uh abated somewhat. You know, yeah, in those days, in the twenties,

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And this is linked up, of course, with with this particular Bartuk work, Contrast.

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And I suggested that he write something for

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piano, violin and clarinet.

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having in mind Benny Goodman,

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with whom I had been

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very friendly all these last years. It was really

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With him

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in my hand that

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I uh made this su suggestion.

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I um

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realized that Bartog didn't know anything about Goodman's

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Uh notoriety and celebrity.

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So I had Benny send him a batch of

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his records so that he he could familiarize himself with

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with Benny's uh s uh playing style.

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He delivered this.

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Extraordinarily

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successful work. I mean, it this is not my opinion, but it's the consensus of of all musicians and composers because the assignment of of writing for this very unusual combination

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is uh a a real challenge.

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He delivered it during this.

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We gave its first performance at Carnegie Hall.

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With uh

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A g a great deal of

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writing and talking and

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Discussion

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attending this premiere.

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The first portion of this three-movement work involves

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Something

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That was usual perhaps in the seventeenth or eighteenth centuries, but quite unknown now, namely.

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A violin

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Tuned, not

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E A D G

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But

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F E

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D

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G Shar.

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I had to change over.

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very quickly in public performance because you can't tune in in the middle while the the the thing is rushing on.

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So this was an additional

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new aspect of of the composition.

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and gave rise to a lot of talk.