Sir David Willcocks

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 20:09

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

Presenter0:31

My Castaway this week is a musician. A chorister at Westminster Abbey from the age of eight, and later on an organ scholar at King's College, Cambridge, he was almost bound to enjoy a career in the art in which he so accomplished. And that, apart from his time as a soldier in the last war when he was awarded the Military Cross, is exactly what he's done. He's held three important posts: Director of Music at King's College, Director of the Royal College of Music, and Conductor of the Bach Choir. He is, in a sense, England's choir master, loved and listened to by all those who love listening to and singing in Christmas carol services and the great choral works of Bach, Handel, Elgar, and the rest. He is Sir David Wilcox.

Presenter1:14

Your career, Sir David, does sound like a kind of lifetime's labour of love. Is that how you you feel about it?

Sir David Willcocks1:20

Well, looking back on it, I feel how lucky I've been to be doing just what I love and being paid for it as well.

Presenter1:27

Which is what is making music with people you get to know, with friends. It's it's just that whole coming together.

Sir David Willcocks1:33

It is. It's something you share with others. And I think that if somebody is occupied in their life doing things which they really enjoy in the company of other people, they can't ask for anything more.

Presenter1:45

And what what are the prerequisites of the job? What do you need? What kind of character? What kind of personality do you need to be to be a good choir master, as it were?

Sir David Willcocks1:53

I think first of all you must have natural talent. You've got to have a good ear for music and you've got to love music and try and convey that love to others. And I think if your task is to extract from other people the very best of that they can give.

Presenter2:09

And have you modelled yourself on anybody? Because I know when you were very small, a choir boy, you were conducted by Elgar himself, weren't you?

Sir David Willcocks2:16

That was just on one occasion in St James's Park when I think I was probably ten years of age. It was the unveiling of a statue to Queen Alexandra, and Elgar, as Master of the King's music, came dressed in his court dress and conducted the choirs of Westminster Abbey, St Paul's Cathedral and the Chapel Royal. And I'll never forget the charisma of that man. I was on the end of a row, and I thought he was watching me the whole time, but the little boy at the other end of the row told me that he was watching him. But I remember distinctly that military looking figure directing us. I can't say whether he conducted well or badly, but I certainly was awestruck.

Presenter3:02

And so obviously he made an impression. And is that something that you've always tried to do then, that everybody in the choir should feel that you're there for them?

Sir David Willcocks3:09

Well, I'd like to think I'd got that ability, but I don't think I have necessarily. Um I do try and embrace everybody in my gaze because I think everybody in a choir and everybody in an orchestra is important.

Presenter3:21

Isn't that how you found your wife, though? She thought you were looking her in the eye.

Sir David Willcocks3:23

Looking her in the eyes. Well, she was the only person who was watching me in the uh that choir which I was conducting.

Presenter3:31

But it it's a job it's a career, as I understand it, that you would never have arrived at if it hadn't been for a certain Cornish piano tuner.

Sir David Willcocks3:38

That's correct. My father and mother thought I ought to start piano lessons, which I had, and um they very early discovered through the piano tuner that I had perfect pitch, because I told him that he hadn't tuned the B flat very well, and I was the other side of the room. He said, How do you know it's B flat? I said, I just know it's B flat. And you were how old? I think I was then six. Uh he suggested to my mother that she take advice uh as to what her little son should do, and she arranged for me to have a an interview with Sir Walford Davis, who was then Master of the King's Music.

Presenter3:57

Note that

Presenter3:58

And you were how old?

Presenter4:17

And it was to be a turning point in at a very, very early age, as we shall hear. But first of all, let me hear about your first record.

Sir David Willcocks4:25

I would like Zadok the Priest by Handel, written for the coronation of King George II and Queen Caroline in Westminster Abbey, because that is one of the pieces of music which I remember vividly singing as a boy in Westminster Abbey with the King and Queen there. They would come every morn to Thursday and we would sing that piece and it it's never sounded quite the same for me since. The excitement of singing it in the very building where Handel conducted it himself and to see his statue there in the south transept and it was wonderful for a small boy to be in the midst of all this beauty.

Presenter6:07

The choir of King's College, Cambridge, singing part of Handel Zadok the Priest, with the English Chamber Orchestra, conducted by my castaway, Sir David Wilcox, and indeed sung by him as a chorister in Westminster Abbey in the late twenties. S tell me, Sir David, then, how you came to be there, from all the way from Cornwall, as a boy aged eight.

Sir David Willcocks6:26

Well, s Sir Walford Davis recommended that when I was eight I should go for an audition to Westminster Abbey. So you'd sung.

Presenter6:33

So you'd sung for him, had you? And he tested my

Sir David Willcocks6:35

Yes, and he tested my ear. In fact, he played a chord on the piano, and said to me, Can you hear God speaking to you when I play that chord?

Sir David Willcocks6:47

And I listened carefully.

Sir David Willcocks6:49

But I couldn't. But I didn't want to let my mother down, so I said uh

Sir David Willcocks6:53

Yes, sir, I think I can.

Sir David Willcocks6:56

So he said, Then you're a true musician. And he said no more to me other than give me lots and lots of ear tests.

Presenter7:03

Have you felt guilty about that ever since?

Sir David Willcocks7:04

And so he

Presenter7:07

And so he recommended that.

Sir David Willcocks7:08

He recommended that I should audition for a place at Westminster Avi, and I think he wrote a private note to the then organist, Dr Ernest Bullock, saying I commend this little boy to you.

Presenter7:18

And do you remember what you sang at that audition?

Sir David Willcocks7:20

Yes, I do. I shudder when I think of it. It was a little piece called The Keeper. And Ernest Bullock said to me, I'd like to hear you sing something. So I said, Well, I've got a piece called The Keeper. So he said, Give me the music and I'd like to accompany you. So I said, Oh, no, sir, I'd rather play for myself, because the accompaniment's a bit tricky.

Sir David Willcocks7:41

So he said, Very well, my boy and I staggered through this, making lots of mistakes, but he uh s was so nice, he sort of said that was quite a good attempt, my boy.

Presenter7:47

Uh

Presenter7:51

Didn't occur to you that he could sort of make it a little bit more.

Sir David Willcocks7:52

No, I thought the organist Westminster Avi couldn't manage anything in two sharks.

Presenter7:57

So you got in.

Sir David Willcocks7:59

I got in.

Presenter7:59

And so you were sent all the way from home on the train up to Westminster Abbey and and that's where you were. Did you get homesick?

Sir David Willcocks8:06

Well, of course, I think any small boy age sort of eight.

Sir David Willcocks8:10

first time away from home, and I remember lying awake all night listening to the chimes of Big Ben, because the choir school is in Dean's yard, just near the Abbey, and I cried my eyes out that first night, but after that I was blissfully happy for my five years.

Presenter8:25

And did you write lots of letters home?

Sir David Willcocks8:27

Well, I wasn't very good at letting we were supposed to write home once a week, but I had a much better way of telling my mother that I was well and happy, because in those days even song was broadcast from Westminster Abbey every Tuesday afternoon, I think it was at three PM and I devised a little scheme whereby she should know I was all right. When the Dean came to the end of the second lesson, he would say, Here endeth the second lesson. I'd go like that, and my mother down in Cornwall would know that I was well and happy. That took the place of my weekly letter home.

Presenter9:03

And have you felt guilty about that at least?

Sir David Willcocks9:04

I felt guilty about that. I'm ridden with guilt.

Presenter9:07

Tell me about record number two.

Sir David Willcocks9:09

Well, I'm going to be written with guilt again because all the records that I'm going to choose in this programme are ones which remind me of people whom I've respected and admired or places where I've been very, very happy. My next record is in remembrance of Boris Ord, who was my mentor when I was an undergraduate at Cambridge and taught me everything I think that I ever learnt about choir training. This record is of Adam Lehabandon. I think it's his only composition which is generally well known. It's sung, of course, very often at the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols from King's College, Cambridge.

Speaker 49:51

A thought I prison turned not too long.

Speaker 49:58

Oh, was foreign.

Speaker 410:01

I'm not sure if I can do it.

Speaker 410:04

As God is finding written in their boom.

Speaker 410:17

They are devil and lazy or they never claim.

Speaker 410:24

Blessed be the time that I would take the marks.

Speaker 410:31

Oh, I won't sing to your cow.

Speaker 410:37

Yeah.

Speaker 410:41

God's it.

Presenter10:48

The choir of King's College, Cambridge, singing Boris Ord setting of the carol Adam Leigh Bounden, conducted by Philip Ledger.

Presenter10:55

So after Westminster Abbey, Sir David, you got an organ scholarship to Clifton College, Bristol. How unusual was that then in the thirties, you know, for a school to offer any kind of music scholarship?

Sir David Willcocks11:06

Well, there were very few public schools, I think, at that time that did offer musical scholarships. Clifton was one, and Rugby was one. And while I was there, I came under the direction of a wonderful man called Dr. Douglas Fox, who lost his right arm in the First World War. And it was a tragic thing because he was a very, very gifted young man who had a great career ahead of him, probably as a professional pianist. But he lost his right arm but became, as a result, a wonderful teacher. And I owe a very great deal to him.

Presenter11:42

So to that extent hi hi his loss, as it were, was your gain? Did he try to teach you to do the things he would love to have been able to do himself?

Sir David Willcocks11:48

Yes, and it was he he taught me also never to be sorry for yourself. He was a wonderful man, and many generations of Cliftonians and of others benefited from his

Presenter11:54

Uh

Speaker 411:54

Mm.

Sir David Willcocks12:01

Character and from his tuition.

Presenter12:04

So so your musical education uh was altogether quite character building, as uh, you know, as as well as your enjoying the music. I mean, do you think that's true of music and choral singing generally? I mean, it's what we were touching on in the beginning, that sense of camaraderie, of combined purpose.

Sir David Willcocks12:20

Yes, I think it's like sport. I mean, you if you're a member of a football team, you have to learn to live with others, to recognise the part that you play. And I I think if you're singing in a choir or playing in an orchestra, it's that shared experience about which we spoke.

Presenter12:37

Record number three.

Sir David Willcocks12:39

My third record is of the D A's Eere from Benjamin Britton's War Requiem, because that will remind me of my comrades during World War Two and also of the

Sir David Willcocks12:53

benefit I think that I personally achieved through service in the army for six years. In some way it was wasted, those years, but in other ways I've I'm very, very grateful I experienced them.

Speaker 413:15

Shut up.

Sir David Willcocks13:18

Big love best get done with

Presenter14:05

The Bach Choir and the London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus conducted by Benjamin Britton, performing part of the Die Zirae from his war requiem. And memories for you, Sir David Wilcox, of friends you lost in the war. You'd have been, what, just twenty when you were called up in nineteen forty, one year into your organ scholarship at King's.

Presenter14:23

Did did you find time or place in the army to make music?

Sir David Willcocks14:28

Yes, I always used any opportunity that I could. Generally where we were belitted or stationed there would be a piano or an organ somewhere near. And I used to amuse the troops by playing dance music of the time.

Presenter14:40

You were I mean, after it was terribly young, just twenty, to to suddenly find yourself in the middle of war. Uh you won the military cross.

Sir David Willcocks14:48

Yeah.

Presenter14:49

How did you do that?

Sir David Willcocks14:51

Well, I I I just I didn't do anything which one wouldn't do in the normal course of duty. And I suppose I was in command of some men who were extremely brave, and as so often happens on these occasions, the person in charge gets the reward, and the people who are braver don't.

Presenter15:08

But where were you? What were you doing?

Sir David Willcocks15:09

I was in Normandy and I was an intelligence officer with my battalion, and my task was to advise the commanding officer of the information available to us at the time, the position of the enemy troops, the position of our own troops, and it helped him to form his strategic plan.

Presenter15:27

It's interesting though, isn't it? It all seems such a a long way away from where you had been, Cambridge and making music and cathedrals and organ music and so on. And yet I wonder if there isn't something there in common. Again, it's this comradeship, isn't it? It's this sense of sharing of

Sir David Willcocks15:43

Exactly. I m and I don't regret those six years. I wouldn't want my own children or grandchildren to have those years, because in some ways they were wasted years, but for for me personally I think I learnt the value of discipline in life and I learnt how to make the best use of what you actually have to hand and not grumble. I don't say that nobody in the army ever grumbles, because that would be an untruth. But I mean you learn to live with what you've got.

Presenter16:11

But did you ever consider not going back to your organ scholarship to still?

Sir David Willcocks16:15

I did actually because when we were interviewed on being demobilized, the general who sort of interviewed us said to me, Don't you think you'd be foolish to go back to music now? Because if you stayed on for another ten, fifteen years, you could

Sir David Willcocks16:31

Probably have a good military career, and then retire on a good pension, and then do your music without any financial worries.

Presenter16:38

To tempt you.

Sir David Willcocks16:39

I was tempted for an hour or so, but then when I'd slept on it, I decided to go back to King's, and I've never regretted it.

Presenter16:47

Next piece of music.

Sir David Willcocks16:48

The next is part of Vaughan Williams' Fantasy on a Theme by Thomas Tallis. It'll remind me of a man who influenced me greatly when I was at Worcester. He was a wonderful composer, but a beautiful character.

Presenter18:05

Part of Vaughan Williams' Phantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis, played by the Sinfonia of London, conducted by Sir John Barbarolly and memories, Sir David, of Worcester Cathedral, where you were organist in the fifties, and you'd been at Salisbury Cathedral before that. How how well did you come to know Vaughan Williams then at Worcester?

Sir David Willcocks18:22

I got to know him very well because he used to come to each of the Three Choirs festivals, and he was the dominant figure. He replaced Edward Ogar, who had been sort of the grand old man of English music for so long. And what I admired about Vaughan Williams was his essential humility. Here was a great man in his late seventies, early eighties, who was prepared to talk to people of my age as equals. And I remember asking him very often when I was conducting his music with him there, I said, Please tell me.

Sir David Willcocks18:56

You know, if I'm doing exactly as you would wish,

Presenter18:58

Incredibly intimidating.

Sir David Willcocks19:00

Yes, and he said, You do it how you feel it. I've written the music, and it's up to others to interpret it. And I thought, what a modest man.

Presenter19:07

Did he ever conduct it himself?

Sir David Willcocks19:08

Yes, he did. Um sometimes it was terrifying, because he by then he was seventy-eight or nine, and I think he was actually eighty-two when he conducted the first performance of his piece Hodier in Worcester Cathedral. We were all very nervous on his behalf because his sight was failing and his hearing had started to go as well. But at the final rehearsal things ground to a halt because his beat wasn't very clear. Now most conductors would have blamed the choir. They'd have blamed the orchestra and said, No, watch me more carefully. He banged the desk and said, I've told you a hundred times, don't watch me. And everybody thought what a wonderful man. And it it went beautifully in the evening at the first performance, and I shall always remember that as a

Presenter19:09

He did.

Speaker 219:47

And every

Sir David Willcocks19:55

Lesson in Humility

Presenter19:58

And then in nineteen fifty seven you were offered the big job at your Alma Mater, Director of Music at King's College, Cambridge. You've been quoted as saying, because you you took it, obviously, and spent the next seventeen years there, you've been quoted as saying that it was the most important part of my life. Why do you feel that?

Sir David Willcocks20:15

Well, I think each chapter of my life has been enjoyable, but I think the i importance lay in the fact that the long playing record was being developed during those years, and it was the excuse to record a great deal of music, some of which hadn't been sung perhaps

Sir David Willcocks20:33

For four hundred years

Presenter20:34

So it was the advent of the LP, really, and stereo sound as well, I think, at the same time.

Sir David Willcocks20:38

Yes, and we even had one or two records in quadraphonic sound, but they were very short-lived.

Presenter20:44

That all went away. How did you persuade the boys? I mean, how what's the technique of these you know, these little boys? How did you give them the confidence in that moment to hit those top C's just at the moment when it really matters?

Sir David Willcocks20:57

Well, I would generally have three or four boys who were capable of singing the solo at very short notice, and I always felt it was unfair to tell them a week before that they were going to do the solo, because that would give them time to get nervous if they were. Or even worse, their parents would get nervous and the grandparents, and they would write saying, Don't be nervous, dear, don't have too much chocolate cake beforehand whereas little boys don't get nervous at all. They're not aware that millions of listeners are tuned into them.

Speaker 221:02

Mm.

Presenter21:15

The grandparents.

Presenter21:29

But they don't get nervous if they don't know they're going to have to do it. But they're also keyed up because they might be.

Sir David Willcocks21:32

And they're also

Sir David Willcocks21:34

They're keyed up so that they might. And I I felt it was better that way, and I think my successors have adopted the same attitude.

Presenter21:40

And how did you tell them? I mean, did you have the whole choir in front of you and then you're going to have to do it?

Sir David Willcocks21:44

Yes, they'd be gathered there and the red light would come on and do a point.

Presenter21:50

Tell me about your fifth choice.

Sir David Willcocks21:52

My fifth choice is of Roy Goodman singing part of Allegri's Miserare, a piece of music which we always sang in King's College Chapel on Ash Wednesday. Roy Goodman then, I suppose, was aged about thirteen, and I think on the day when we recorded it, he'd been playing football and ran all the way to the chapel in order not to be late for the recording session, having had no time to change, arrived with muddy knees and sang most beautifully as though he'd been lying down resting for three hours, which was not the case.

Speaker 422:44

Often thy grace, Gordon.

Speaker 423:15

According to the multitude of thy mercies.

Speaker 423:22

To away my love answers

Presenter23:29

Roy Goodman and King's College Choir, singing part of Allegri's Miserary, conducted by my castaway, Sir David Wilcox. Um you then, as well as your day job at King's, as it were, uh took over the Bach Choir in nineteen sixty. How how can you define it for someone who doesn't know exactly what it does? I suppose it's the most serious amateur choir there is, isn't it?

Sir David Willcocks23:50

But I'd like to think so. They're dedicated people. None of them are paid, although many of them are professional musicians, and they come every Monday evening to Westminster Cathedral Hall to rehearse, just for the joy of singing.

Presenter24:05

And they have to audition.

Sir David Willcocks24:06

Yeah.

Presenter24:06

It's a very rigorous audition.

Sir David Willcocks24:08

Quite a rigorous audition, particularly from the point of view of sight reading. I'm less interested in the quality of the voice, provided a man or woman can sing beautifully in tune, because the bar choir is n numbers some two hundred and fifty, and there the individual quality of the voice is less important than the ability to blend well with others and to read at sight. Of course, the repertoire of the choir is very large, and we do a lot of concerts each year.

Presenter24:14

And why did

Sir David Willcocks24:39

and therefore sight reading is an absolute essential.

Presenter24:41

And you only meet on a Monday night together. Can you hold a choir together in that way when you meet?

Sir David Willcocks24:46

Well I try to.

Presenter24:47

Uh

Sir David Willcocks24:47

Uh

Presenter24:47

Uh

Presenter24:48

So wherever you've been in the world over these thirty-eight years you've been in charge of the bar quarter, on a Monday night you've always been in London for rehearsal?

Sir David Willcocks24:55

Just very occasionally I've been abroad and haven't been able to get back, but I've always made Monday night a priority for the Barquois.

Presenter25:02

And tell me about the sound. I mean, the the sound generally, I mean, with kings as well, that that you produce. How much is the sound of a choir dictated by the choir master, by his ear?

Sir David Willcocks25:13

A great deal, I think. Of course a choir master naturally doesn't want to live with a sound which he doesn't like, and I think you encourage the sort of sound that you do want, and of course the training, the voice production, is very, very important.

Presenter25:30

But take the the boys at King's, for example. I mean, how does the sound that you got from them differ from, say, the Vienna Boys' Choir?

Sir David Willcocks25:38

Well, I think it is that you train on certain vowels and you do exercises and you eliminate things that you don't like. You don't want um in English choirs we tend not to want t too much vibrato, whereas in some of the foreign choirs there's a large element of vibrato and they think that our singing is unemotional.

Sir David Willcocks26:01

and cool, whereas we think that they are over-romantic. So it it's just a matter of taste. And I think nobody can say that one type of tone is right and another is wrong. It's rather like wines. Some people like a sweet wine, some people like a dry wine. So with beauty of tone, some people like a brighter tone than others. I know what I like, and I work towards that always.

Presenter26:24

And now, after thirty eight years, it's all over. You've you've given them up. I is it is it like the end of an affair? Does it break your heart?

Sir David Willcocks26:32

It does break one's heart because you get very attached to the choir as a whole and to the individuals. They're your friends. It's like a a bereavement in a way. But I'm not saying that I'm never going to see them again, because I shall take the keenest interest in the choir, and I've got the greatest confidence in my successor, David Hill, who's a fine musician, and incidentally taking over the choir at exactly the same age as I did thirty-eight years ago. He's forty.

Presenter26:58

And in the meantime, you get your Monday nights back.

Sir David Willcocks27:01

I get my Monday night's virgins.

Presenter27:03

Yeah. Um record number six.

Sir David Willcocks27:09

My sixth record is of course one of the Bach choir singing, because I would love on my desert island to remember the choirs with whom I've worked and the people with whom I've worked. I'd like, I think, the chorale, O Sacred Head from the St. Matthew Passion, which the choir performed three times a year in recent years and two times a year throughout most of my time. So I suppose we've done eighty performances together.

Presenter27:09

Mate.

Speaker 427:39

Save the blessing.

Speaker 427:56

Is the soul?

Presenter28:38

The Bach choir singing the chorale O Sacred Head from Bach's Saint Matthew Passion, with the Thames Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Sir David Wilcox. How much did it break your heart, Sir David, in nineteen seventy four, to leave King's for the Royal College of Music, I wonder?

Sir David Willcocks28:53

Well, it was a big wrench. Of course, again, it was like leaving one's family. I'd got to know generations of boys and generations of young choral scholars, and I felt very much part of the college. But uh the Royal College of Music was a very exciting job. It's one of Britain's leading conservatoires.

Presenter29:11

All those distinguished predecessors George Grove, Hubert Parry. How could you say no?

Sir David Willcocks29:12

Exactly.

Sir David Willcocks29:15

How could you say no? Exactly. And Hugh Allen, who nurtured Douglas Fox, who was one of my teachers, and Ernest Bullock, who was one of my predecessors, he was the man who I didn't trust to play my piano accompaniment. And he when I'd occupied the director's chair, he said how lovely it was that the little boy who didn't think I could play a piece in D major should be occupying the director's chair as one of my successors.

Presenter29:44

So great sense of tradition, obviously, has has you know has been very important to you throughout your career. But what's very interesting, I think, for a man who's spent a lifetime in in cathedrals and chapels making religious music is you're you're not, I think I'm right in saying, particularly religious.

Sir David Willcocks30:01

Well, it depends what you mean by religious. I think I feel deeply the beauty of the religious poetry and the religious music which has been composed. But I think in two minutes or three minutes you can't um describe exactly what your beliefs are. I mean much of the Christian creed I accept without any reservation, some I find great difficulty in accepting. And I think on my desert island I shall hope to have the space and the quiet to think things through, because I think the whole of one's life is a search for truth, and it's no good trying to delude yourself if you don't really believe things.

Presenter30:41

Record number seven.

Sir David Willcocks30:43

My seventh record is of Mozart's Eine Kleiner Nachmusik. This is played by the Hanover band, and I wonder if any of your listeners will guess who's conducting.

Sir David Willcocks30:56

It's none other than the little boy, Roy Goodman, whom we heard singing part of Allegri's Miseri a few moments ago. And I like to think that the experience which he gained as a small boy singing in the King's College Choir had a considerable influence upon his subsequent development. He's a very fine violinist and a wonderful conductor, and I'm very, very proud of him.

Presenter32:18

Part of Mozart's Einekleine Nachtmusik, played by the Hanover band conducted by Roy Goodman.

Presenter32:24

What about your family, David? You produced two boys and two girls. Did they follow in your musical tradition?

Sir David Willcocks32:29

Well, one did. My elder boy, Jonathan, is a professional musician, and I like to think that he had the same sort of opportunities I did when I was young. He sang as a boy in the King's College Choir for five years.

Presenter32:42

One of your daughters sings in the bath corner.

Sir David Willcocks32:43

Yes, she does. Yes. She has to get auditioned by her father. Which is rather terrifying.

Presenter32:48

But you'll miss them all, I'm sure, dreadfully on your desert island. You'll miss your choirs, the camaraderie we've talked about. Will you survive without without them all, do you think?

Sir David Willcocks32:56

Well, I think I'll have to. I think the army again trained me to make do with what you've got and adjust as quickly as you can. And I did, after all, as a cub and as a scout, I think I got a fire lighting.

Sir David Willcocks33:09

certificate, and I got a little badge for cooking. So although I've never been a good cook, never even done more than open a tin, I think I would get by somehow.

Presenter33:19

And desert island apart, you know, you you've you've left in any case a lot of this behind you now as you move towards your seventy ninth birthday. What what will you do now with all the time you have on your hands? Or are you, like so many musicians and opera sines, booked up for years to come yet?

Sir David Willcocks33:35

I'm booked up for two years to come anyway. Then I may wind down. I shall go on as long as people want me to go on genuinely, and I think I can tell whether they're asking me because they want me, or they're asking me because they're sorry for me.

Presenter33:48

Record number eight, Glasgow.

Sir David Willcocks33:50

Well, my last record is one which will remind me of my family, of the joy I've had from them all.

Sir David Willcocks33:57

and um the only one of them has actually composed anything, and that is my son Jonathan Wilcox. And I'd love for my last record to have the Bach Choir singing The Holly and the Ivy, which he was asked to write by the Bach Choir in honour of my seventieth birthday.

Speaker 434:35

It's a

Speaker 434:52

You don't try to say any more

Presenter35:12

The Bourquai, singing the Holly and the Ivy, arranged by my Costaway son, Jonathan Wilcox, with the Graham Ashton brasse ensemble, conducted by Sir David Wilcox. If you could only take one, Sir David, which would it be?

Sir David Willcocks35:25

Well, I think it would have to be the music of Bach, which has been a lifelong love of mine. So it would be the Bach choir singing O Sacred Head from the Saint Matthew Passion.

Presenter35:37

What about your book?

Sir David Willcocks35:39

Now my book I think would be a book on astronomy, because it's a subject I know absolutely nothing about, and I think it'd be wonderful on the desert island to be able to look up at the sky and learn about it. So I'd like the biggest book available on astronomy, particularly with reference to the hemisphere where I am.

Presenter35:59

And your luxury.

Sir David Willcocks36:00

Now my luxury, I've got an awful feeling you're going to deny it to me, so I'm going to ask for two luxuries. My second choice first, because I have an awful feeling you're going to say no to my first choice. My second choice is a bag of golf clubs, a plentiful supply of golf balls, and just um as a little extra, if you'll allow it, eighteen baked bean tins, which I would put into the sand to be the whole.

Presenter36:25

Well, you can have that. Yes, that's right. Yes, but what's the first choice?

Sir David Willcocks36:27

Yeah.

Sir David Willcocks36:30

My first choice would be

Sir David Willcocks36:32

King's College Chapel to take it with me. Now, you allowed John Major the Oval.

Presenter36:37

This is food.

Sir David Willcocks36:37

So it would be very, very unfair if you didn't allow me King's College chair for a while.

Presenter36:41

And it's so much more original than the golf clubs anyway, so I think you can take the chance.

Sir David Willcocks36:45

May oh that will be marvellous,'cause I shall be able to sit there looking at the the sun streaming through the windows. I never had time when I was there to look at those windows carefully. I'll be able to see the carvings in the stone and wood. I'll be able to examine them, because when you're living in a place you don't have time.

Presenter36:52

The heart.

Speaker 236:52

Uh

Sir David Willcocks37:03

to get to know it in the same way.

Sir David Willcocks37:05

And it's one of the most beautiful buildings, and even my records, my chosen eight, will sound better.

Sir David Willcocks37:11

There.

Presenter37:12

In which case you've got to have it. So Dave, you'll be able to. Thank you very much. Thank you very much for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Sir David Willcocks37:13

Thank you very much.

Speaker 237:24

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