John Barry

Speaker 20:00

Hello, I'm Kirstie Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen ninety nine, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:31

My Castaway this week is a composer. If you like films, you'll know his music. From James Bond to Dances with Wolves, his scores have accompanied hundreds of box office hits. He taught himself composition while he was in the army, and as a central figure of swinging London in the sixties, shared a flat with Michael Kane, went out with glamorous women, collaborated with Adam Faith, and wrote the signature tune for Duke Box Jewelry. Success, including five Oscars, has not clouded his sense of excitement. Quoting Sibelius, he says, What is romantic is imperishable, and adds, That's the key. He is John Barry. Is that for you, then, John, the essence of music? It's romanticism.

John Barry1:11

It's what attracts me, yes.

John Barry1:14

It's very fundamental and it's timeless and uh it's almost like your musical DNA, it just comes out that way, you know.

Presenter1:21

So when you're given a story like Out of Africa or Dances with Wolves.

Presenter1:26

You're looking you're looking into it for its essential romance in in the most profound sense.

John Barry1:31

Yes, I think when when you're given an opportunity to write music for a movie like that, I think there's a great danger and a lot of the composers of the thirties and forties did it. They played the scenery.

John Barry1:44

And it becomes just big music for the sake of big music. So what I like to do is try to get into the heart and soul of the main characters.

John Barry1:53

and try to react to the scenery, to the environment or whatever, there's hopefully they would react. I think that's the first job as a as a dramatist is to get inside the characters and then the music grows out of that that react.

Presenter2:06

Because otherwise you're just writing lush wallpaper.

John Barry2:08

That's right, exactly.

Presenter2:09

Because there was a school of thought that said if you didn't notice the music on a film, then it was okay, it was good, but obviously from subscribers.

John Barry2:15

No, that that was um an old piece of information that came out of the thirties and it's totally invalid today. I mean when I did Out of Africa, Sidney Pollack said the first thing he said to me, he said, If I don't have a great score in this movie, I'm dead. He said because it's there are certain sections of the movie just designed for music.

Presenter2:33

Because there was no real story, was there? No, it was just relationships. Absolutely.

John Barry2:35

No, no, it's a good idea.

John Barry2:36

Absolutely. There's no great narrative level in in the picture. And also the music helps with that level. W if if you get a theme that's memorable, it does help to bind all the pieces together rather than doing it what I call a kiwi score where every everything has a different nature.

Presenter2:53

But talking of of QE music, at the other end of the spectrum of what you do, of course, have been the the the James Bond themes. That's kiwi music.

John Barry3:00

That they are very cuey. And that's given by the design of the picture. Essentially an action drama, tensions, what have you. And you really have to go with the cutting of the movie, with the action and support that action.

Presenter3:14

You've done ten of them, so many. Russia with Love, Diamonds Are Forever, Goldfinger and so on.

John Barry3:19

Good.

Presenter3:19

Do they come quickly, that kind of thing? Can you just sit down and think, got it, hey.

John Barry3:24

Yes, I mean I first got involved with with Doctor Now.

John Barry3:28

I received a phone call on a

John Barry3:30

Saturday morning from the head of music at United Artists.

John Barry3:35

And he said we've got this movie called Doctor Now, somebody else has been doing the score.

John Barry3:39

But they're kind of dissatisfied with the opening title music.

Presenter3:43

Is this dang dang dang dang dang dang dang?

John Barry3:44

They said you can't have any credit and they wanted it yesterday, but i if it's a success and they are they are planning to do a series, then if it is a success you'll obviously be in line to do the rest. And from the Saturday morning

John Barry4:02

To the Wednesday. We were in the studio on the Wednesday morning and recorded it. So that's how quick that was.

Presenter4:07

Tell me about your first record for your Desert Island.

John Barry4:10

First thing I've chosen is um Stravinsky's Ride of Spring.

John Barry4:14

I remember hearing this on a BBC radio programme when I must have been.

John Barry4:21

maybe six or seven years old.

John Barry4:23

It just struck me as being like nothing else I'd ever heard. It was like going into a state of shock listening to it.

John Barry4:31

And it was like this whole new adventure. It was quite wonderful.

Presenter5:32

The City of Birmingham Orchestra conducted by Simon Rattle playing part of Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring.

Presenter5:38

Y you say, John, that you knew a lot about uh music when you were small, not least because your father owned a chain of cinemas or theatres.

John Barry5:45

Yes, he had um eight cinemas and theatres.

John Barry5:49

The main theatre being the one in the Railto York.

John Barry5:52

which was a cinema he built at the beginning of the thirties.

Presenter5:56

So how young were you when you would have been taken into these places?

John Barry5:59

Um

John Barry6:00

My father lifted me up and carried me through into the back of the stalls. I must have been maybe two and a half, three, I guess.

John Barry6:08

I just remember seeing this big black and white mouse on the screen,'cause all the early Mickey Mouses were of course in black and white in those days.

John Barry6:15

And

John Barry6:17

I was just stricken by. I mean it's just

John Barry6:19

My father has a place that shows black and white mice and screens, you know, it's kind of what a thing to do. And uh and it was a family business. I had an ex elder brother and an elder sister who were also in it. By the time I was fourteen I could run the whole projection box. I used to sell program anything that had to be done.

Presenter6:37

Siliciora.

John Barry6:38

I'm salute to the Kiora orange.

Presenter6:39

Orange juice.

John Barry6:42

Yeah, uh it it it was wonderful.

Presenter6:45

Did it teach you anything about audiences, about cinema audiences, or are they kind of

John Barry6:48

Absolutely, absolutely. I think that was probably one of the the greatest lessons one learned was I mean in a theater you have a you have a performance that changes every evening.

John Barry6:59

But with the cinema, it's the same piece of celluloid.

John Barry7:02

And

John Barry7:04

You'd run the movie on Monday evening.

John Barry7:06

and you get a certain reaction and you go back on a Tuesday because you wanted to be a part of that reaction. If it was a comedy, it was the laugh, or if it was a a thrilling scene, you you sense that from the audience. And then I go to my father, I said,

John Barry7:19

They didn't laugh tonight. They laughed last night. It's a bad audience. And then as the as the week progressed, Wednesday would be okay, Thursday was a bit dull, then Friday when everybody got paid.

John Barry7:31

It was back up again, and then Saturday was wild, and Sunday was terrific. And.

John Barry7:36

It was strange when I did Midnight Cowboy in New York with John Schlesinger, there was one scene in the movie.

John Barry7:41

And it was in the movie, it was out of the movie for previews and it was a rather violent scene.

John Barry7:49

And I finally told John the story. I said, you know,

John Barry7:53

It's your decision. And he's a very powerful director. He didn't need my advice, I'm sure. But I just told him that at the end of the day, f some some people are going to react on a Monday night differently to the they're going to react on a Tuesday. So just do what you what you have to do. And it and it remained in the movie. And it was one of those scenes where it had such an impact on you, the violence of it.

John Barry8:14

But it was necessary. It was it was necessary. It was like it.

John Barry8:17

You just had to crack that moment. It had to exist. And and it was funny seeing the movie without that moment. It weakened everything else.

Presenter8:25

And you get that involved, do you, with this? That's what you love, yeah.

John Barry8:27

Oh, absolutely.

John Barry8:29

Yes, absolutely.

John Barry8:30

You know, the music is the last thing that happens to a movie, apart from dubbing, but all the actors have gone home. And it's the moment of truth. It's the director with the editor putting together what what they're left with and and choosing where the music goes and all that kind of thing, you know. So it's the best place to be if you want to learn anything about the about the filmmaking process.

Presenter8:50

Second piece of music.

John Barry8:51

I think it's probably the most famous symphony ever written and that's Beethoven's Fifth.

John Barry8:56

I remember hearing that when I was very, very young, I doubt maybe four or five years old.

John Barry9:01

And it's pretty obvious why one is struck by it. I mean, today we refer to that kind of an opening. In popular music, we refer to it as a hook. It's that thing that just grabs you straight off the beginning and then then hopefully the development of that hook.

John Barry9:15

Hold you.

Presenter10:08

The opening of Beethoven's fifth, played by the Berlin Philharmonica, conducted by Herbert von Carrion. You were saying, John Barry, that that Beethoven has great narrative drive.

John Barry10:17

All good music has that whether it's

John Barry10:20

The Broadway period of the thirties, the Coporters and Hammersteins and people like that, r uh Hart, th they they all have that that quality, Gershwin.

Presenter10:30

Was there one film that you saw that made you think, Yes, that's what I want to do, that's I want to write music for films in that way?

John Barry10:37

Um

John Barry10:39

Well, I wanted to write it very early on, but w the movie that really got to me on all kinds of levels

John Barry10:45

was the An American Paris.

John Barry10:47

I went in on the Monday evening and saw it, fell madly in love with Leslie Cowan.

John Barry10:52

And the music, it it just transported you like nothing else, which which good musicals can do.

John Barry10:59

And I remember going for the rest of the week, Monday to Friday, and it still stands up. I mean, I still see it, I still get the same joy out of it, it's just wonderful.

Presenter11:07

But you thought, then, that's what I want to be part of.

John Barry11:09

Absolutely. That that was like th I mean the whole thing, the romance, the Paris, music, beautiful women, I mean, God, you know, everything.

Presenter11:18

Well, they were coming, they were coming. But w you'd have been how old then?

John Barry11:18

Come here.

John Barry11:21

I was uh about uh fifteen or sixteen.

Presenter11:26

But you wanted to be a concert pianist, or had wanted to be, hadn't you?

John Barry11:29

Yes. I studied piano when I was nine years old.

John Barry11:32

Not encouraged other than by my parents, but at school I went to St Peter's School in York and it's a very, very strict public school. They thought you should be a doctor or a lawyer or whatever and and the fact that you wanted to be a musician and that your father owned cinemas, it was all a little not quite the thing in Yorkshire at that time.

Presenter11:55

But at some point you you were taught by the Master of Music at Yorkminster.

John Barry11:58

Yes, well that's why I left school because I wanted to study composition. There was no facility at school. I knew Francis Jackson, Dr. Francis Jackson, who's a master of music. And I went to him and said, would you teach me composition, harmony, and counterpoint? He said, well, I don't teach that. He said, I teach organ. I said, but you've written three symphonies. So you obviously know how to do it. So why not? So he said, let me think about it. Then he called me and said, yes, let's try. Let's have a go. He said, it's going to be new for me, too.

Presenter12:26

But at some point you dumped the idea of being a concept penis.

John Barry12:28

I did because I realized I I I had a very good very good technique, very good touch, what have you, but um I had absolutely no memory. And you can't you know, you can't do that unless you have uh an extraordinary mem I mean you d you have to be able to commit a whole a whole piano concerto to you.

Presenter12:45

Is that all is that linked though with nerves, perhaps?

John Barry12:48

Probably, probably. And I mean when you see wood I mean we've just listened to Von Karrion. I saw him conduct on many occasions both in London and New York. And you see him conducting a Bruckner symphony without a score.

John Barry13:00

you know, which would last for maybe an hour, an hour, fifteen.

Speaker 413:04

Hmm.

John Barry13:04

And every bar is committed to his memory. I mean, that's I mean, God gives you that. I d I don't think you you don't learn that kind of a memory.

Presenter13:04

Yeah.

Presenter13:11

But you used to perform in the John Barrett Settlement.

John Barry13:13

I hated it. I hated it.

John Barry13:15

I hated it. It was a means to an end.

John Barry13:17

I I never wanted to work for anybody else. I always wanted to be my own boss. And so The Seven was it was a means to get started, but I I hated performing, really hated it.

Presenter13:27

Record number three.

John Barry13:29

I love this piece of music, this is the Serenade for Strings, by Dvorjakin. I think he must have been.

John Barry13:35

in some state of euphoria when he wrote this. It's one of the uh most delightfully joyful pieces of music, I think, ever written. It's it's so simple, evocative. Um it's just it's it's just wonderful. And again, Von Carrien's uh interpretation, you know that gather that I'm he's my favorite conductor.

Presenter13:54

Lufonkarian Groupi.

John Barry13:56

Yes, absolutely.

Presenter14:57

The opening of Dvorak's Serenade for String Orchestra in E major played by the Berlin Philharmonic, conducted by Herbert von Karian.

Presenter15:04

So, John Barry, you arrived in Soho from Yorkshire in nineteen fifty eight. I think you'd have been twenty four-ish at the time, and London was starting to swing.

Speaker 415:09

Yes.

John Barry15:11

Uh

Speaker 415:11

Time.

Presenter15:14

I quote you, the life I was living was fifty times more fun than anything in the Knack, for which you wrote the music, of course, and The Knack was all about youth culture. What were you up to? How I mean to describe it to me.

John Barry15:18

Uh

John Barry15:19

Yeah.

John Barry15:22

Describe it to me.

John Barry15:24

Um, I don't think we really knew what was happening. All we knew that was that something was happening both in the music business, in the cinema industry and with fashion. And we worked very hard. I mean

John Barry15:36

I remember sitting down in Los Angeles with Ian Lafrenay and Dick Clements.

John Barry15:41

And Ian said, you know, I can't figure out how we did all the work we did.

John Barry15:45

Because we were we seemed to be in restaurants and drinking Italian wine and

John Barry15:51

bird spotting and all that kind of thing. And but I remember

John Barry15:56

One year I did eight movies in a year, which is a lot.

Presenter15:59

But it's just called being young, isn't it?

John Barry16:00

But it's just

John Barry16:01

Yes, to do with you. That's what it comes down to. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Presenter16:05

BAAP

Presenter16:06

But you had a smart flat in Caduggas with just a flat.

John Barry16:08

And I was doing very well.

Presenter16:13

Guy called Michael Caine sleeping on the floor.

John Barry16:14

Michael Cain um

John Barry16:16

I was having dinner one evening in a a Chinese restaurant on a

John Barry16:21

Edgeware Road called the Lotus House, where we used to hang out quite a lot. And he came in and he said, I've been thrown out of my apartment. He he shared an apartment with Terry Stamp. And um.

John Barry16:32

If I can't find any place to stay, can I come over to the other place? I said fine So I went home with this charming lady that I was with at the time.

John Barry16:41

About two in the morning the doorbell goes. I said, What the hell is that?

John Barry16:46

She said, Don't you remember Michael in the restaurant? I said, Oh, no So Hello Hello, it's Michael. I could find any place to live I said, So you've been here before, you know what the bedroom is. See you in the morning.

John Barry16:59

So he came in supposedly for the for the evening. I think he stayed about six months.

Presenter17:04

And of course you worked with Adam Faith. You did Beep Girl, which was his favorite.

John Barry17:06

So that was the that was the first movie I did.

Presenter17:08

And so many other names are too numerous. Marty Wilde, Marian Ryan, Nina and Frederick. And you read the of course the the the the Jukebox jury hit or miss it was called the season. That's right, wasn't it?

John Barry17:17

That's right.

Presenter17:18

It just it feels as if the music just poured out of you, in a sense, because you were where it was at, you just knew how it should be.

John Barry17:25

Absolutely. I mean, w we were in the studios two or three times a week. I mean, nowadays they spend three years doing one album.

Presenter17:33

Hmm.

John Barry17:34

I mean, we just used to go and just do it, you know.

Presenter17:37

Record number four.

John Barry17:39

This is the uh the Adagio from uh

John Barry17:42

Marla's Ninth Symphony.

John Barry17:44

and a most wonderful recording that was done, I think, late fifties, early sixties, by Sir John Barbaroli in the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. And I had the good fortune to know

John Barry17:56

John Barbaroli very well. He used to play my father's theatre every May.

John Barry18:01

for maybe three nights with a hale orchestra and he used to come up afterwards to the house. My mother used to cook him um Yorkshire ham and eggs, home cured ham and eggs and shadowy chem. I mean quite a mix. So um I only have the fondest memories of of of times with him. He was just the most extraordinary man.

Presenter19:07

Part of the Adagio for Mahler's Symphony No. Nine, played by the Berlin Philharmonic, conducted by Sir John Barbaroli.

Presenter19:14

Tell me, John Barry, about the the process of of doing what you've called this kiwi music, uh uh music for a Bond movie, which has got to hit the action.

John Barry19:23

I also work with a music editor. He he's the person that when I spot

John Barry19:27

The film choose where the music's going to go with the director, he sits by my side and he makes notes.

John Barry19:34

And then he goes away and measures each scene down to a third of a second. So I get a I get a timing sheet from zero, zero to one minute, three seconds, or whatever it is, and every single frame and there's twenty four frames a second, you know.

John Barry19:49

And everything is put down on the sheet.

John Barry19:52

So I then go through that sheet and pick out the highlights of the action.

John Barry19:57

And then I get a manuscript piece of a piece of manuscript paper and

John Barry20:01

I'll do a a time graph right across the top of the paper of these places where I want to hit or relax and come back and whatever.

Presenter20:09

So it's quite mathematical.

John Barry20:10

It's very mathematical, absolutely, totally mathematical. And then I sit down and write to that graph that I have on the top.

Presenter20:18

What happens when you've done all that and whoever you're then presenting it to, the director or the head of studio?

John Barry20:23

Mm-hmm.

Presenter20:23

Doesn't like it.

John Barry20:24

Uh yes. Well, if you are not getting on with the director.

John Barry20:29

You're best to get out of it. I did a movie, I was asked by Barbara Streisand, who's d directing Prince of Tides and starring in it. And I wrote this this main theme which she initially loved and which the people at Columbia loved. And then after a couple of weeks she decided, can we do something different? And it's very difficult when you spend a lot of time getting something right. And it was working with picture, believe me, I knew it was working with picture. And but she that's the way she is. And it's not with just with music, she's like that, with costume designer and uh set designer, the script. And um it's just it's just her way, I suppose, of getting the best she she thinks she needs. But I work with a lot of people who are just as ruthlessly professional, but they have a different attitude. I mean

John Barry21:19

Like Sidney Pollack, you can't get a more professional director than he or Francis Ford Coppola or John Schlesinger. But there's a a nice exchange, there's an exchange of how do we arrive at what we want.

John Barry21:32

And and not that well, I've changed my mind. Is that what she said? She just came on. She just had said it, I think we need something different. And so I said, you know, this is this is getting joyless. You best find someone else. So I I left.

Presenter21:34

Is that what she said? She just came on.

Presenter21:47

Next piece of music.

John Barry21:49

There are certain recordings where you just know there was some some kind of magic that day in the studio, uh whether it's the conductor, the orchestra, the weather, I don't know.

John Barry21:57

They all arrive feeling right about it and the engineering is right. I mean, it's just just every every conceivable thing that should fall into place falls into place. And I think this is a perfect example.

Presenter23:02

The opening of Shostakovich's Symphony No. Five, played by the New York Philharmonic, conducted by Leonard Bernstein.

Presenter23:08

How then, John, do you then actually record uh the music soundtrack for a film like Dances with Wolves, which has got a hu I mean, I think about one and a half hours of music.

John Barry23:17

Yes, that was the longest ride I've been one and a half hours, yes.

Presenter23:21

How do you do when do you get the orchestra together to

John Barry23:23

Yeah.

Presenter23:23

Damned on.

John Barry23:24

That was recorded in Los Angeles and I have an orchestral manager who books the orchestra. I select certain key musicians who I know I want and then he fills the orchestra up because we had a like over a ninety piece orchestra on dancers.

John Barry23:37

And uh it's bi it's it's structured with three hour sessions. We do a morning session, usually starting at ten, and then an afternoon session starting at two. And uh I work out that I can record

John Barry23:50

To picture eight minutes of music a session, that's how we work it out.

Presenter23:53

Eight minutes in three takes three hours.

John Barry23:54

In in three hours, yes.

Presenter23:56

So they've never seen the picture.

John Barry23:57

And they have the backs to the screen'cause th th th th I'm I'm facing the screen.

Presenter24:03

So it's all down to you.

John Barry24:04

He stepped down to me.

John Barry24:05

If if it's an action scene.

John Barry24:08

and it's a long scene. You have what they call a click track, and that goes into your ear and the order the whole orchestra have earphones. And so there's a a very light click that goes throughout the whole scene. So we can keep the precision

Speaker 424:19

Let's go.

John Barry24:22

Because you might be doing a fast tempo, say one bar per two seconds or something like that.

Speaker 424:27

Yeah.

John Barry24:27

And when you're trying to keep ninety-two piece of peop uh orchestra together at that kind of a tempo over say a three minute period, you need that help.

Presenter24:36

Quite. And there are those crucial moments and and I think of of dances it with wolves when Kevin Cosner lifts the gun to to shoot the wolf. That's right. And then he doesn't shoot the wolf and all of a sudden it's not a threatening thing. It's actually a beautiful piece of

John Barry24:43

And then

John Barry24:45

Right.

John Barry24:48

But it's

Presenter24:51

But it's critical, isn't it?

John Barry24:52

It's absolutely. Yes, it's it's it's the pulse. It's the it's the pulse of the picture.

Presenter24:57

Next piece of music.

John Barry24:59

This is Bruckner's Eighth Symphony.

John Barry25:03

He never came to composing until late in his life, you know. I think he wrote his first symphony when he was forty years old, which is very unusual. And considering he then went on to write

John Barry25:12

and nine of the most extraordinary symphonies imaginable.

John Barry25:16

and didn't start until he was forty. He was a very um very humble man.

John Barry25:20

He was a school teacher, music teacher. He was also a numbers freak. He used to go into graveyards and and make numbers work out. I I'm I'm a slightly

John Barry25:31

If you're in film and you're dealing with numbers, you you do become that. And I'm I get freaky about the the date, uh the time and try to make things work out numerologically that that that satisfies me. I try to put things in order. And if I can't get them in order, I think the day's short. Um there was a documentary that uh Ken Russell did on him and it showed these reenactments of him walking through the graveyard of friends that had died and adding up their date of birth and date of death and trying to make some sense out of it and and he used to get in his b horse and buggy and used to watch the wheels spinning and the sun throwing count the r the rotations. Totally obsessed.

Presenter26:12

And you do this too?

John Barry26:13

It in in a different way.

Presenter27:08

The Vienna Philharmonic playing the opening of Bruckner's Symphony No. eight, conducted by Mike Castaway's favourite conductor, Herbert von Karrion. You you recently uh composed an album of music, The Beyondness of Things, John, which is not a film soundtrack, but a musical biography. It's your childhood in the north of England, New York, and Oyster Bay, where you live now.

John Barry27:22

The musical

John Barry27:26

Really?

Presenter27:27

How difficult was it for you composing without a picture?

John Barry27:31

It was wonderful. I think it was Scott Fitzgerald said, I was right about what you know.

John Barry27:36

So I thought I have certain memories that are very strong about certain things that have happened in my childhood or in London or in New York or wherever I've been and um

John Barry27:47

Some of them are more profound than others and some of them are just mood pieces that you remember certain atmospheres and certain places.

Presenter27:54

So you had your own pictures. Absolutely. But your B D Eye is always on the lookout for a good lyrical film to write the song. Oh, absolutely.

John Barry27:55

Absolutely.

John Barry28:00

Oh, absolutely, yes.

Presenter28:02

They're fewer than they used to be then today.

John Barry28:03

I mean I I love I love the the the the looseness of films like Somewhere in Time and Out of Africa and Dances with Wolves where you're really writing away for the mood of a a picture. You're not you're not supporting so directly the scenes, but you're supporting the emotion and it's a much freer form.

Speaker 228:20

Yeah.

Presenter28:20

And it's

John Barry28:22

Both when I conduct it and when I write it, it's it's it's a much looser form. It it's a joy to work on a movie of that nature.

Presenter28:28

But a lot of films these days have have soundtracks covered with old pop songs.

John Barry28:32

Rina.

Presenter28:32

Um, reservoir dogs, train spotting for weddings actually.

John Barry28:33

Trains passing for

John Barry28:36

I know it's

Presenter28:37

You don't approve?

John Barry28:38

If it's done well, I approve. If if it but it's it's so rarely done well. At U C L A in California they still show Midnight Cowboy to film school as the movie that used song the most effective way.

Presenter28:54

You had everybody's talking.

John Barry28:55

Yes, yes, well I record it and and and and produced all the all the music for it with j with with John Schlesinger and the producer Jerry Hellman. John loved everybody's talking, but we re-recorded it. We didn't put in the the original Harry Nielsen. We took Harry into the studio and we recorded it to picture, each each segment to picture. And all the other songs were written for the movie and they were written if we needed forty-five seconds. We we we wrote forty-five seconds of a song.

Presenter29:21

So do you think it's it's wrong or sloppy or what to cut picture to an existing pop song?

John Barry29:27

They they they just lay them in, they fade them in, they fade them out. Often they're not terribly dramatically accurate to the scene.

John Barry29:36

Seventy five percent of the time it's done in a sloppy way. And there's a twenty five percent when it's done well, and when it's done well it's it can be very effective, but when it's when it's not, it it's it's it's death to a movie.

Presenter29:49

Record number seven.

John Barry29:50

Sebelius is one of my favourite composers. I remember when I was a child watching uh Victor di Sabata conduct the um rehearse the first uh symphony at my father's theatre. I love Sebelius' work. And uh the last movement of the um symphony number five it's it's very uplifting. It's uh almost uh

John Barry30:14

transcends this life. It's got a s such a spirit to it. And I think this series of um recordings that Colin Davis has done of all the all the uh all the Sabellius work is just brilliant.

Presenter31:23

Part of Sebelius's Symphony No. 5, played by the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sir Colin Davis. I'm told, John Barry, that you already live on an island, Oyster Bay.

John Barry31:31

Yes, I live in an island called Centre Island.

John Barry31:35

which up until the turn of the century was an island. It was originally called Hog Island, and it was an an Indian community that that bred pigs. And then at the turn of the century they built a causeway across to it. And it's a beautiful island with about fifty houses on it.

Presenter31:54

What's the house?

John Barry31:54

Oh, it's beautiful. It was built in nineteen sixteen. It's like um a a American colonial house. We've got four acres of land, a private beach, totally private beach. And I have a boat and uh

Presenter32:05

And this is where you write.

John Barry32:06

And this is why I have I have a studio where I write there and have dogs and cats and birds and fish and

Presenter32:11

And a new son?

John Barry32:12

and a new son, John Patrick, who's uh four and a half now, and he was born on my birthday, on the third of November.

Presenter32:18

And is he like his dad?

John Barry32:19

He's um is terrifying. I I showed him photographs of me when I was his age and I said, Who's that? He said, John Patrick, no, it's daddy. It's unbelievable. We both had blonde, curly hair, blue eyes and my wife, um I think she wants a little girl now because she's she's kind of teed off with the sea. He's he he's like a clone, you know. You've had little girls before, I've had a lot of fun. I've had little girls. I've got three l big girls, yes.

Presenter32:41

You've had little girls before, of course.

Presenter32:45

But this is first son.

John Barry32:47

This is the first son, which was kind of fantastic.

Presenter32:49

Does he like music?

John Barry32:50

He loves music, he hasn't he's been taking piano lessons since he was three and a half.

Presenter32:54

Last record.

John Barry32:56

Well, this is obviously my favorite piano concerto. I I mean uh there's many, many, many piano concertos that I do love, but this is the piano concerto, which is obviously Rachmananoff's second piano concerto, and uh this performance by Richter in the um the Warsaw National Philharmonic Orchestra.

John Barry33:12

Again, conducted by Herbert Von Carrie and is the, I think, the definitive recording of this disconcerto.

Presenter34:19

Sviatoslav Richter playing the opening of Ragmaninoff's piano concerto, number two, with the Warsaw National Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Herbert von Karrion. Not one voice there. It's all orchestral, this music, and it's all classical. That's really what you'd want, is it?

John Barry34:33

Well, absolutely. I mean, if you're going to be on an island.

John Barry34:36

No matter how good a popular song is, it's a three minute duration or whatever, and I think you're gonna tire of it. You're gonna it's it's it's probably the one record you'd wind up throwing in the sea, b'cause it's driving you mad.

Presenter34:47

And what about if you could only take one of them?

John Barry34:50

Oh, that's the most difficult question.

John Barry34:52

I think maybe emotionally because of the connection, I'd probably take the adagio and and drive myself totally insane with the marlot, yes, the marlot, yes.

Presenter35:00

The marl barbaralian

Presenter35:03

What about your book?

John Barry35:04

Well, a relatively new author.

John Barry35:07

that I'm working with actually at the moment uh uh on on his first book which was called Anam Cara which is about the um the spirituality of the Celtic people. And he's written a new book called um Eternal Echoes, which he explores the

John Barry35:25

The longing to belong.

John Barry35:27

in people.

Presenter35:28

What's his name?

John Barry35:29

A John Adonahue.

John Barry35:31

He's helping me with this the structure of this new album which I'm recording in uh

John Barry35:35

September here.

John Barry35:37

It's fascinating. I mean, th it's not a Celtic album. You know, when you see you think Celtic, you think of all this this fiddle playing and this dancing. It's not it's it's I'm dealing with the m the mythological aspect of and the dream aspect of of what that must have been like.

Presenter35:53

And what about your luxury?

John Barry35:55

Piano obviously. Yes, a nice

Presenter35:57

Couldn't do without it.

John Barry35:58

No, a nice lovely grand piano.

Presenter36:01

John Barry, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your Desert Island disc.

John Barry36:04

Thank you very much. It's been a pleasure.

Speaker 236:13

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