Paul Daniel

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.

Presenter0:32

My castaway this week is a conductor. He went to school in Coventry and became a choir boy at the Cathedral there, enjoying the everyday life of the musically gifted. He read music, of course, at Cambridge, and then joined the staff of the English National Opera, where he learned his trade. But it was at Opera North in the early nineties that he came into his own. Only thirty one, he galvanised the musical direction of the company, making it daring and exciting. Then last year he took over as music director of the English National Opera. Within weeks of his arrival, his boss had resigned, and there was talk of merging with Covent Garden.

Presenter1:06

The war for ENO survival has since been won. It's my castaway's job now to help win the peace. Happily, he's an optimist. I believe it's worth dreaming, he says, and often you get half of what you dream. He is Paul Daniel. So what you dream of, Paul, is presumably you know what anybody who runs a a big theatre on w in which you put on entertainment, which is that you want to have full houses and you want critical acclaim, and you want licence to put on more of what you believe should be on your stage. What kind of thing is that in your case?

Paul Daniel1:40

It's

Paul Daniel1:41

All kinds of work that challenge an audience, challenge that traditional audience that has come because their fathers and their grandfathers came, but also challenge people to think of

Paul Daniel1:52

The act of performance is something very fresh.

Presenter1:55

So it It's more it's more contemporary than traditional, is it? It's more Birtwhistle than Beethoven.

Paul Daniel2:00

No, not necessarily. I think all art is contemporary, because Verdi never thought of his piece as as something that actually was in a museum. It was there to be revived, revised, put on, changed so that it became a fresh piece of work for the audience, and he changed his mind about the piece because he knew the audience that would be watching it.

Presenter2:17

But a lot of the audience don't like traditional things set in modern dress and so on, do they?

Presenter2:22

That's your problem.

Paul Daniel2:26

That's not my problem. It's probably their problem.

Presenter2:29

But it's obviously clear that you you stand for a kind of breaking of the rules, isn't it? I mean, when you conducted your first opera as music director at the inno last autumn, The Flying Dutchman.

Presenter2:38

you know, you wear you don't wear the tails, you wear the casual jacket, collarless shirt, you get up on the stage at the end, pull out a member of the chorus to to take the applause with you. That's all very important to you, isn't it? Just saying, let's get rid of the rules, let's let everybody share the the laurels here.

Paul Daniel2:54

I'm not interested in wearing tails particularly because tails once upon a time used to be the common currency between the audience and the and the performers. Everybody wore tails, it was just what you wore in the evening. Nowadays it actually is there to say we're special, we're something different from you and the audience out there. I don't like that. I'm not interested in that. Actually the Coliseum's an incredibly hot place so it's actually quite good not to wear big heavy clothes.

Presenter3:15

But were you nervous, l last autumn, first time as music director of the ENO?

Paul Daniel3:22

I was very aware of the responsibility.

Paul Daniel3:26

It is a very big theatre, it is a very big company, it has a very, very big reputation. I wasn't there to suddenly make it daring and challenging. That company stands on the fact that it dared to challenge accepted ways. Lillian Bayliss came along in the thirties and said, No, we don't want that.

Speaker 23:31

Yeah.

Paul Daniel3:42

elitist stuff that's not understood by half of well more than half the audience. We want to perform directly to these people, just like Verdi wanted us to perform or Mozart, you know, they all were completely happy, happily changed the the language of their opera so that the audience would be immediately in in contact with with what was being performed. She said that's what we're going to do.

Presenter4:04

Hm. But it doesn't stop you feeling

Presenter4:06

terrified, presumably, as you walk out there. Even though I mean, you you so want to make contact with that audience, you so want to bring this company onto the stage and give it all you've got.

Paul Daniel4:17

I am not terrified.

Presenter4:17

I am not terrified.

Paul Daniel4:20

I am never terrified of the audience. I am

Paul Daniel4:23

very, very nervous of the responsibility of doing the repertoire, the actually m bringing these pieces to life. But no, I love performing.

Presenter4:33

Music for your desert island. Tell me about it in the first one.

Paul Daniel4:38

I

Paul Daniel4:40

I thought very hard about what it would be like to be alone on a desert island.

Paul Daniel4:45

And

Paul Daniel4:47

I thought it would be unbearable to listen to opera.

Paul Daniel4:52

Opera is a very

Paul Daniel4:55

big communal social event. It needs a big, big audience to respond to a very big

Paul Daniel5:01

artistic statement. I think

Paul Daniel5:05

Stuck on your own, trying to join in with what you're hearing on a recording. I don't think I could possibly listen to any of that.

Paul Daniel5:14

There's no opera.

Presenter5:16

So, what have you got? What's the first one?

Paul Daniel5:17

My first piece.

Paul Daniel5:20

It takes me back to being a cathedral choir boy. It takes me back to a very special man called David Lepine who.

Paul Daniel5:27

Ran the choir in Coventry.

Paul Daniel5:29

I joined in only three or four years after the Cathedral had been opened again after the rebuilding, after the war.

Paul Daniel5:37

In nineteen sixty six I began.

Paul Daniel5:40

He had a mission he didn't like.

Paul Daniel5:43

traditional cathedral choirs. He didn't like quite a lot of traditional cathedral music. He wanted a sound which was modern.

Paul Daniel5:53

not hooty, quite focussed, and it was a it was a fantastic introduction to the musical world for me.

Speaker 46:02

We skip the second job, it's more of a week, slow down the shape, and here.

Speaker 46:19

Bless we all bless.

Speaker 26:21

We all bless

Speaker 46:25

Welcome God no more and less.

Speaker 46:32

Welcome to

Speaker 46:33

Welcome.

Speaker 46:35

Welcome me the better here, welcome y'all, welcome all and make good cheer, welcome.

Presenter6:58

Welcome, Yo, from Britain's Ceremony of Carols, sung by the Coventry Cathedral Boys Choir, directed by David Lepine, and that was recorded in Coventry Cathedral in nineteen seventy one, and somewhere on that album there's Paul Daniel the Boy Soloist, I think, isn't there?

Paul Daniel7:12

on one track that I wouldn't like to listen to too many times.

Presenter7:15

What is fascinating, I think, reading about you is that that you had this natural musical ability, but it it wasn't in the family at all. Nobody there's no no no known gene in the Daniel family for music. Is that right?

Paul Daniel7:28

It's fairly sketchy.

Paul Daniel7:30

My mother certainly would have done more music if she'd had the opportunity. And my father loves music, but he wasn't a practicing musician either. It wasn't part of what you could do.

Presenter7:42

But they report that that young Paul, aged seven or something, waved around this thing he called a magic stick and conducted the sound of music.

Paul Daniel7:43

They

Paul Daniel7:50

Poodo.

Presenter7:50

How did you know? I mean, what what was it that opened the door to music for you?

Paul Daniel7:55

Well, it's something that's gone now, and it was the fact that at a state infant school.

Paul Daniel8:02

You were given a proper musical start.

Paul Daniel8:07

It's got to come back.

Paul Daniel8:09

Orchestras report now that there are far fewer young musicians coming forward properly trained right from the beginning so that they they can play or think about music in the way that they speak English. And that happened to me.

Presenter8:22

In what way?

Paul Daniel8:25

Somebody put a recorder in my hand and said

Paul Daniel8:28

Play this.

Paul Daniel8:30

My daughters go to a private school. I

Paul Daniel8:33

very happy to say that they have a wonderful education, but it is

Paul Daniel8:37

an elitist education because an awful lot of children in London are not being given the the musical chances that my my daughters are being given. They may not become musicians, but at least they're being exposed just like you're being exposed to the language you speak or the the things that happen around you, scientifically, geographic, whatever, it's a normal part of

Paul Daniel8:57

most societies it it has ceased to become one of ours and

Paul Daniel9:01

Thanks to Simon Rattle, thanks to the people who've been making a big noise about it in the last few years, I think that the government is beginning to realize that it is...

Paul Daniel9:10

Just as important to develop your soul as it is to develop your ability to count.

Presenter9:16

Tell me about your second record.

Paul Daniel9:18

This is my wife, Joan.

Paul Daniel9:20

performing one of those wonderful

Paul Daniel9:23

Perfect Songs by Rachmaninoff

Paul Daniel9:27

I think I discovered that she sang this song in the first week that I'd met her, and it kinda helped to seal a rather special relationship.

Speaker 49:54

Oh look at that

Presenter10:35

Rachmaninoff's song How Peaceful, sung by my Castaway's wife, Joan Rogers, accompanied by Howard Shelley. So, Paul Daniel, you were simply soaked from dawn to dusk in Coventry in music, choir practice, rehearsals. You did at least two instruments, I think piano and oboe is that right.

Paul Daniel10:51

That's right.

Presenter10:52

Performances

Presenter10:53

rehearsing all of that. It it's a bit like training to be a musical athlete, really, isn't it?

Paul Daniel10:59

Yes, I s I suppose we were all little older Corbetts actually. We we started before school. We spent the whole weekend.

Paul Daniel11:08

I never played.

Paul Daniel11:10

mucked around because it was so much focus in my life, a you know, achieving what we had to achieve musically.

Presenter11:16

So you didn't mind not playing football or whatever it was? Because this was the sixties, wasn't it?

Paul Daniel11:20

I didn't mind at all. I mind very much now that I missed that out.

Paul Daniel11:25

Because I think

Paul Daniel11:27

the ability to play.

Paul Daniel11:29

It's something that is very important. And maybe that's why I like opera so much, because actually it's my long lost childhood coming through. I get to muck around and

Paul Daniel11:38

You know, we you turn up in rehearsals and you experiment with human emotions on a big scale, uh, you know, all day long.

Paul Daniel11:46

It's it's like making sure that you're still in touch with your childhood.

Speaker 411:50

Uh

Presenter11:50

But the training was superb for what you do now, because now you're rehearsing something while you're performing something else and so on. It it it it takes all of that juggling and all of that athletic ability, doesn't it, to keep at the job and the money?

Paul Daniel12:05

I'm a sucker for punishment. I think there's a purity of line that you can get from just devoting yourself to and doing less work to make sure you get the actual finished project so p polished that it's perfect. I'm not sure that I would get any closer to the things that I do if I isolated myself more. I think I do need the cut and thrust of being in a company and playing one aspect of the work off against another, one opera off against another, one part of the company's work off against another. It's that sense of a big community of people working, pushing together for is important.

Presenter12:43

But you're a perfectionist and you like to be in control.

Paul Daniel12:50

I think a lot of people are perfectionists where I work.

Paul Daniel12:52

And

Presenter12:53

This is a very diplomatic answer. But you do like to be in control, don't you? You like it to be done like you want it done.

Paul Daniel13:01

Yes.

Paul Daniel13:02

The people look to you from time to time, actually an awful lot of times, to actually decide how it will be.

Paul Daniel13:09

People are always asking about what happens when you conduct? How do you do it? You know, what happens? What do they do? Do they follow the Beatle?

Paul Daniel13:16

In any one bar of music.

Paul Daniel13:20

You're deciding.

Paul Daniel13:22

One thing. Within half a second you're playing the role of listener.

Paul Daniel13:27

working out what's coming back at you. Within the next half second, you're deciding to encourage something that people hadn't really thought about, but you're not actually pushing. It it's so subtle the way it works to that the way an orchestra and a chorus and a a group of people make music together.

Presenter13:42

But if somebody who knew a lot about music sat in the stalls with their eyes closed, would they know it was you conducting? Or could they identify different conductors? They could, couldn't they? You have a style that comes through no matter how spontaneous and creative you feel you're being in the moment.

Paul Daniel14:00

I think

Paul Daniel14:01

No matter how much I struggle to be one thing or another, you know, you keep reading or hearing the same kinds of descriptions.

Presenter14:09

What are the adjectives used about about you?

Paul Daniel14:14

The worst word probably is analytical.

Paul Daniel14:17

The best description that I like to read is that actually somehow s a lot of the detail in the music has been exposed or comes through, that there is a kind of cleaning up of of of of the music. The downside is that I'm not very good at being sentimental.

Presenter14:34

Record number three.

Paul Daniel14:38

This is me from the age of eight or even seven every Good Friday performing the St Matthew Passion in Coventry Cathedral. Every year, first year in awe of what's going on, extremely bored with the fact that you have to sit there for hours and hours. And by the sixth year or seventh year, I'm singing it from memory.

Paul Daniel15:05

The beginning of the piece, every time I hear it, with this throbbing bass and this very long phrase unfolding, takes me straight back to that moment when I know that I'm going to s perform the whole of this piece.

Presenter16:11

The opening of Bach's Saint Matthew Passion, performed by the Monteverdi Choir and the English Baroque Soloists, conducted by John Elliott Gardner.

Presenter16:19

You went up to Cambridge Paul, where you were very serious about your piano studies. Apparently your your performances of the Beethoven Concertos are remembered with awe, they tell me. Did you consider becoming a pianist?

Paul Daniel16:30

No.

Presenter16:31

So when did you decide you were going to be a conductor?

Paul Daniel16:34

I'd known I wanted to be a connutter, for some absurd

Paul Daniel16:38

del self-deluded reason for years and years. I think right back to when I first saw concerts actually in Coventry Cathedral because many great orchestras from the Berlin Philharmonic down or across came to came to

Presenter16:50

When you were, what, eight, nine, ten years old?

Paul Daniel16:52

Yeah, nine and ten.

Presenter16:53

But you thought I want to be that guy up the front with the stick.

Paul Daniel16:56

Yeah, and it wasn't to do with megalomania. I I promise you, I just felt I just thought that something about what he had to do

Paul Daniel17:04

The musicians that he got to work with was was worth its weight in gold.

Presenter17:09

So when did you get your big break? As everybody who makes it to the top in their chosen profession has one. Who was it? What was it? What happened?

Paul Daniel17:19

I got to work as a repetitor.

Paul Daniel17:22

It's not a big break particularly. It's a kind of traditional way in for a conductor in Europe to work in an opera company. You get to play the piano. You coach the singers.

Paul Daniel17:34

You get to conduct the trumpets off stage, you get to conduct the chorus, you get to conduct a rehearsal when the c the real conductor doesn't turn up, you get to finally maybe conduct a few tail end performances and then you get to one day conduct the big one. I I was conducting Fidelio on seven hours' notice one Saturday when the conductor was suddenly ill and the cover had been too busy doing something else. I'd been playing the piano for rehearsals rather badly and suddenly I was conducting the real thing.

Presenter18:07

Hm. How how was it?

Paul Daniel18:10

Complete joy, I have to say. I was terrified. And I remember starting I never conducted the orchestra in the pit, in the Coliseum.

Paul Daniel18:19

Fidelia starts with a very brisk two bars and then a pause and

Paul Daniel18:25

conducted these first two bars I didn't know what was going to happen and it happened and they played and they're fantastic.

Paul Daniel18:31

And I got to the pause, and in those

Paul Daniel18:34

five seconds at the beginning I thought, ah

Paul Daniel18:37

I'm going to enjoy this.

Presenter18:39

And were you wearing tails?

Paul Daniel18:41

Yes, I was.

Presenter18:43

Make one number four.

Paul Daniel18:45

This is the Daniel family.

Paul Daniel18:49

in Yorkshire.

Paul Daniel18:52

Our daughters, Eleanor and Rose, growing up in the most wonderful house. We kind of landed in Paradise when we went to Oprah North. We were asked if we would like to live in this fantastic, beautiful

Paul Daniel19:05

Manor house comes stately home, sitting on the top of a hill looking out over Wharfdale, and we danced. I remember we we you sometimes to keep warm probably. So this is all of us bashing round the kitchen.

Speaker 419:18

Love is this, love is this, love is this, love that I'm feeling.

Speaker 419:26

Is this love, it's this love, it's this love, it's this love that I'm feeling?

Speaker 419:38

I wanna know, wanna know, wanna know now.

Presenter19:45

Bob Marley and the Wailers and Is This Love. You went, Paul, off to become music director at the Opera Factory next, an outfit noted for its avant garde productions. That's when you really let it rip, isn't it, with this kind of rock version of the Beggars' Opera and Harris and Birtwhistle's Punch and Judy. You were really at the kind of cutting edge, having fun.

Paul Daniel20:04

We knew we were doing something that was

Paul Daniel20:08

A bit shocking.

Paul Daniel20:09

And yes, we were challenging people, and we were deliberately doing it in an aggressive way.

Presenter20:15

And so when you were appointed um at Opera North, uh you already had this r reputation for for putting on pieces perhaps that other people wouldn't wouldn't dare. I mean, is that why you were booked, do you feel?

Paul Daniel20:28

Opera North was a very young company. David Lloyd Jones had set it up in nineteen seventy eight. It already had a reputation for being pioneering.

Paul Daniel20:37

To an area of the country.

Presenter20:37

But had they ever done anything as daring as to go to Munich and get on stage and say we won the war one nil and F off Hitler and whatever else you said in Munich.

Paul Daniel20:47

Yeah, that was a very special moment. That's a that's a tribute to a great company.

Paul Daniel20:52

The chorus of that company had to get on stage, as you say, and come on right at the beginning of this piece.

Paul Daniel20:59

in the hotbed of Nazi German, if you like, from the past, and and and deliver these lines. It was an opera about an English team playing Bayern München in the in the in a in a cup final. And it was a kind of Faustian piece, a brilliant piece of work, Howard Brenton and Ben Mason. They came on they must have been terrified.

Paul Daniel21:19

And the audience went wild when they heard this, and it was one of the great.

Presenter21:23

With horror or pleasure?

Paul Daniel21:25

Pleasure.

Paul Daniel21:27

Delight that someone actually dared to make fun, in the best sense of theatre, of of something that had been had become a taboo.

Presenter21:34

But so there we are again, breaking the rules. And in a sense, you could say that you've built your reputation o on that kind of contemporary twentieth century music, and you managed to pull the audience in at Opera North to see that kind of thing. How do you explain that? One almost feels perhaps they're broader minded than a metropolitan audience, though that they'd that they'd adopted you and so they came to see it.

Paul Daniel21:58

The audience for Opera North was a very precise audience and it and it owned that opera company. It knew that if the if it wasn't there, the company wouldn't be there.

Paul Daniel22:08

Metropolitan audi audiences have many, many choices to make every night of the week in London, for example. They've got any number of things they could go to, similar kinds of things.

Speaker 422:11

Uh

Paul Daniel22:20

They're not jaded, but they are

Presenter22:23

Spoilt. Yeah.

Presenter22:26

Record number five.

Paul Daniel22:28

This is part of an opera that Harry Birtwistle wrote for Covent Garden.

Paul Daniel22:33

One of the great projects that Covent Garden pulled off, Gowain.

Paul Daniel22:38

He, together with Gary Howarth, invented a suite from the opera for the Orchestra of Opera North to play in Huddersfield. And I was very lucky to conduct it. It's a very, very special piece. It's taken from the opera, and we gave the first performance in the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival.

Presenter23:55

The Philharmonia Orchestra playing the opening of The Journey from Harrison Birtwhistle's suite Garwain's Journey conducted by Elgar Howarth. To use your own analogy, Paul Daniel, Opera North is a frigate to ENO's oil tanker. You're said to have ref refused the job, turned it down as music director of the ENO at least twice, if not more often. Why were you frightened of it?

Paul Daniel24:15

That sounds a very grand thing to do. No, I was very committed to what I was doing at Opera North, and I had been there, I think, about five years when English National Opera needed a music director.

Paul Daniel24:29

It seemed inconceivable to me that I should just pack up and leave. We were doing some great things at Opera North. They they that company has such energy.

Presenter24:38

Yes, but to be offered one of the busiest, if not the busiest, opera house in the world to come and run.

Presenter24:45

Come in.

Presenter24:46

Not enjoying huge critical acclaim at the time, in a bit of a parlus financial state, but uh nevertheless a an an enormous challenge. Why weren't you tempted?

Paul Daniel24:55

Well, I'm only a conductor, and I suppose I'm only an artist. I just I just knew that that what we were doing at Opera North was worth doing, and I just wanted to do more of it.

Presenter25:04

But finally you did. Not that the relationship was over, but the time seemed better, yes.

Paul Daniel25:10

Lord Harwood broke the knot. He said to me, Look, you're absolutely right But think ahead another year Let them wait an extra year.

Paul Daniel25:20

Um and then

Paul Daniel25:22

Consider it again.

Presenter25:24

And then, as I mentioned, within weeks of your arrival, Dennis Marks, the general director, had resigned, which left you effectively, I think, in day to day, charge of the place, and Chris Smith, the Secretary of State, was suggesting that the ENO could move in with the the Royal Opera at Covent Garden. You must have felt as if the world had gone mad. It had just shifted underneath you completely.

Paul Daniel25:44

Yes, but it made everybody feel very good.

Presenter25:47

Siege mentality moved in, did it?

Paul Daniel25:49

Yeah.

Paul Daniel25:52

Other companies might have gone mute or silent or run for cover.

Paul Daniel25:58

That's not the spirit of English national opera, and what I did came completely naturally to me.

Paul Daniel26:06

On the night of Chris Smith's proposal I I'd been conducting From the House of the Dead a new production of the Yanacek opera, and I just decided on the spur of the moment at the end of the performance to say something and

Paul Daniel26:18

It's kind of become famous or infamous that we did

Paul Daniel26:22

This, you know, that we I I made a lot of speeches to our audience.

Presenter26:25

Ask them to write to the Secretary of State.

Paul Daniel26:27

Yeah, it just seemed natural to me. They were the people who had the most to say about it, actually, the audience, and that

Paul Daniel26:35

It was one of the best times for the company.

Presenter26:39

And as I said, you won that war in the end. The threat of merger has gone away. And more than that, I mean, one doesn't want to encourage you to indulge in Schadenfreude, but the Royal Opera House is going to be dark all next year. Perhaps you should put on a well-known opera like Traviata in the original language, just to prove that you can do it too.

Paul Daniel27:02

Yes, I think that would

Paul Daniel27:03

kill any sense of what

Paul Daniel27:06

Our audience expected of us.

Paul Daniel27:09

You might get in the other

Presenter27:09

But you might get in the other audience who does like it, the audience that goes to the opera house.

Paul Daniel27:14

Yeah, they can listen to their C D's.

Presenter27:16

Record number six.

Paul Daniel27:19

This is our family deciding at about a few hours' notice to dash off to the Loire for a weekend, or just a while ago, very recently. And I bought this tape in a duty free in New Haven.

Paul Daniel27:33

And

Paul Daniel27:34

The children well, we we all became children. It is the most absurd piece of comedy and s most surreal alternative thing that I've ever heard.

Speaker 427:44

A little red riding hood Met a naughty old wolf in a wood. I'm going to see Grandmamma, she said, For poor old Granny's ill in bed. But when she reached the house, It was as quiet as a mouse.

Speaker 428:01

It was quail tall. But the wolf sat there in grandma's place, With a nightcap round his horrible face.

Presenter28:11

Hermione Gingold and Gilbert Harding with O Grandma.

Presenter28:16

We were talking earlier on about your desperate desire not to be elitist, which is what's come through in everything you you've said. But how do you do it?

Presenter28:24

How? You know, tell me simply and straightforwardly, how do you get people over the doorstep of of an opera house who wouldn't normally walk over it?

Paul Daniel28:33

We perform a lot and work a lot to people with people who never come anywhere near the Coliseum.

Paul Daniel28:40

And we do more and more of that as the years go by.

Presenter28:41

But in schools and in workshops and

Paul Daniel28:42

Yeah.

Paul Daniel28:43

People who don't need to be queuing up in St. Martin's Lane. They need it in their own communities. We are a very large company and we have a lot of talent.

Presenter28:51

So what happens when you go out to a school of of young lads in the East End and and an opera singer stands up and, you know, sings a wonderful aria?

Paul Daniel28:59

Well, that's the point. That's not how we do it any more. It used to be the case that we say, Here we are, and this is very grand and it's very beautiful and it's very good for you, and listen to this. Here is a very famous singer.

Paul Daniel29:09

Yes, it's very loud, and there's a wobbly voice, and they don't quite know what it's about. Actually, now you go there, you say, This is an issue, here's a subject, here's an idea.

Paul Daniel29:18

What would you do?

Paul Daniel29:21

If you were creating this piece.

Presenter29:22

But that requires them to be active and I think that you require your audience in in the stalls in the Coliseum to be active. You don't want a passive audience. You are saying to them, come here, listen to this, see if you like it, try this on for size, come with me, go honestly, put up with it because I think if you can come through you'll like it in the end. Audiences don't want to pay to have to work that hard.

Paul Daniel29:47

I don't think they have to work that hard in the in in a negative sense. I think they have to work very hard in a positive sense. We as a nation are very bad at

Paul Daniel29:57

opening our emotions up. And that's why opera exists. It it exists to deal with all the taboos in society. That's true of a passionate nation like the Italians or a kind of locked in nation like the British. In a way,

Paul Daniel30:15

That's why opera is even more important for one of these kind of cold, frozen nor northern nations like Britain.

Presenter30:22

Seventh record

Paul Daniel30:24

This is a very great orchestra, I can say that because

Paul Daniel30:28

I don't conduct it any more as its music director, but it is the Orchestra of Opera North, the English Northern Philharmonia, which has a very separate career also as a symphony orchestra, doing a lot of work. It had the great good fortune to be set up

Paul Daniel30:41

In Leeds, where there was no local symphony orchestra. Most other opera companies exist in cities where there are very, very good symphony orchestras.

Paul Daniel30:49

Yeah, it's me conducting, I'm afraid, but it is a tribute to their fantastic virtuosity.

Presenter31:56

The English Northern Philemonia performing part of the last movement of Walton's Symphony No. One in B flat minor, conducted by my castaway, Paul Daniel. So it's off to a a desert island with you, Paul. All that creative energy and know where to direct it. What will happen to you?

Paul Daniel32:10

I used to think it would be rather wonderful to get up get away, and actually when I do get away.

Paul Daniel32:17

Guest conduct elsewhere.

Paul Daniel32:19

It can be a very fulfilling experience, but then it's only for a finite period. I think it would be terrifying. I am very frightened of the idea of being alone with nobody to communicate with.

Presenter32:29

Frightened of what though? Frightened of losing touch with reality, perhaps.

Paul Daniel32:35

Well, I'm a performer and

Paul Daniel32:38

The idea of not being able to share performances or or be performed to would be very frightening, I think.

Presenter32:45

Tell me about your last record.

Paul Daniel32:48

Well, this connects back with something that it's a piece that I know from

Paul Daniel32:53

My childhood, actually, I studied it when I was at school for some O levels or A levels or something, but it's when you learn music that at that age it's

Paul Daniel33:04

It's so much part of you, I could perform it all for you from memory. It's um De Vinteriser, and it's particularly apt, I think, for f for this situation. I'm it's about a great composer.

Paul Daniel33:20

Very gregarious composer, Schubert, who was madly socializing at the end of his life, the last two years of his life, but at the same time grappling with being very alone and knowing that he was dying of syphilis and very confused, trying to put it down in music. This is Fischer Diskow, who I grew up with as as uh singing this piece to me. And

Paul Daniel33:45

I don't think anybody can sing it as well as this.

Speaker 433:48

Indy Jees and Fairs and Grand Loctum is shiny her leafy

Paul Daniel33:54

Miss I Harley

Speaker 433:59

Each island of Skung Fiend.

Speaker 434:06

In the sea.

Speaker 434:21

Inger vold dasirgir Spur jagir vigtun ti.

Paul Daniel34:23

You're laggy.

Paul Daniel34:27

She dived on

Speaker 434:29

Yeah.

Speaker 434:31

Humzre Freider, Humsre Ver.

Paul Daniel34:31

Right.

Speaker 434:37

All the sinus irrespire Allah sinus irlich

Paul Daniel34:38

Let's hear Lisphi.

Paul Daniel34:42

This is

Presenter34:49

Dietrich Fischer Diskau singing Ehrlicht from Schubert's Winderiser, accompanied by Alfred Brendel.

Presenter34:55

Which one of those eight records, Paul, if you could only take one of them, which one would it be?

Paul Daniel35:02

Vinterizer.

Presenter35:04

What about your book? You've got the Bible, and you've got the complete works of Shakespeare.

Paul Daniel35:10

I think I want a very large book.

Paul Daniel35:13

Beautifully bound.

Paul Daniel35:15

With nothing in it.

Paul Daniel35:18

And I don't know whether I'd be able to write anything on them, but

Paul Daniel35:21

I couldn't possibly choose one way of thinking.

Paul Daniel35:25

And if I chose it now

Paul Daniel35:27

It wouldn't be anything to do with what I felt like when I got there.

Presenter35:31

And what about your luxury?

Paul Daniel35:36

This is probably two lectures, but I would like

Paul Daniel35:40

One of those things in my mi life that's been on hold, like lots of things are, you things you don't get back to.

Paul Daniel35:47

Um and one of them is a desire to learn to play the cello.

Paul Daniel35:51

But I also need

Paul Daniel35:52

A facsimile of Bach's cello suites, to learn.

Presenter35:56

Oh, that's connected. I think you can take all of that.

Paul Daniel35:59

Tortellier used to come and play them in Coventry Cathedral every year.

Paul Daniel36:04

We used to sit in a darkened cathedral looking at this one man sitting in a spotlight playing.

Paul Daniel36:10

It's an extraordinary, pure, wonderful music, but it's something that I've never got closer to than listening to. I want to learn how to do it.

Presenter36:19

Paul Daniel, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Paul Daniel36:22

Thank you.

Speaker 236:31

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