Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber

Speaker 40:00

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. His music has entertained a generation, making him one of the most successful and almost certainly the richest British musician who's ever lived. He went to Westminster School and then up to Oxford, but chose to leave after only a term to pursue his musical career. Like some of the great composers in history, he decided to write almost exclusively for the theatre, where his work could be enjoyed by everyone. And so it's proved. Joseph and his amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Jesus Christ Superstar, Evita, Katz, Phantom of the Opera, they're just some of the shows which have transformed the world of musical theatre. Their creator, showman, art collector, food writer, is a man who wants to be judged above all by his work. I just love musicals and I love the theatre, he says, and I want to make sure they go on. He is Andrew Lloyd Webber, or indeed Lord Lloyd Webber. Why the musical theatre, Andrew? I mean, it might have been pop, it might have been classical, sacred chamber, but you chose the musical. Why?

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber1:31

Well, I was always fascinated by musical theatre from the very very word go. Um my aunt was an actress, uh not a particularly successful one, but uh I thought her world was unbelievably glamorous and she u used to take me to see some of the American musicals which were of course later in uh in Britain than they were of course in New York. And so I got to see an awful lot of things very early on. It just grabbed me and opera grabbed me. I I I just wanted to

Presenter1:51

Yeah.

Presenter1:54

But you say opera grabbed you, but I mean i it was very much more musical theatre as we're saying then it was opera, which it might have been, although Evita was classed as an opera, wasn't it?

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber2:02

Well, sort of. I mean, most of my musicals are through composed, or if they have got dialogue, there tends to be music underscoring it. In fact, I I find that very satisfying because if you do that right that way, you're controlling really the evening, and I think that the composer has to control the evening. It's construction in musical theatre that's so vitally important. You could have a great song in the wrong show in the wrong place, and it just wouldn't land.

Presenter2:24

And it just

Presenter2:25

But it's interesting, I think the ENO English National Opera did want to put on Evita. Lord Harward wanted to put it on, didn't he?

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber2:30

They did, yes. Then they asked me at round about that time if I would write something and I kept thinking that, um, well, w w what's the point if I can get what I can do in the commercial theater, it just is a whole layer of other things.

Presenter2:41

But is it also about reaching most of the people most of the time, or more of the people more of the time anyway, that you you actually take a pride, enjoy the fact that that your shows are are the favorites of the coach parties, young and old?

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber2:52

I do, yes, I do like the fact that people can you know that they're accessible. But of course if you were to write for an opera house, the thing the reason why one would do it would be because you'd get uh resources and things that you could not get in the commercial theatre. But everything is changing so fast now, you see. I mean the amazing electronic arsenal of instruments that one can have means that you can really recreate with a very small orchestra sounds that uh you absolutely would not be able to do even if you had a big one.

Presenter3:17

But what you've got to have underlying it all are good tunes. And I mean, you know, whether it was Richard Rogers or Puccini indeed, you've got to send them away humming.

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber3:24

Tunes and rhythm, I think, I think both are very important.

Presenter3:27

But how easy is it? I mean, so it's the impossible question. How do you write a good tune? Does it just pop into your head? Do you sit and work out?

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber3:33

Thank you.

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber3:34

I don't know. I mean, um I had a hit last year with a song called No Matter What and I remember when I wrote that tune. I mean I just wrote it and I I thought I just don't know where this comes from and of course you suddenly get into yourself into a flat panic and think well somebody must have done that before so you can then check and check and check and um with with that sort of one it's so instant and um I I can't explain where it comes from.

Presenter3:55

Because people do sometimes say that yours are derivative, you know, that it's an influence of Puccini or Ravel or Mendelsohn's violin concerto or whatever, but I suppose that's inevitable, isn't it?

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber4:04

Well, I think it is inevitable really when you're writing very, very primal melodies and they're very, very simple, because you know but yet that the extraordinary thing is is that they still seem to come. I mean, you you do hear tunes by people, you know, which uh you say, Well, like that has to have been done before, but it hasn't.

Presenter4:13

You

Presenter4:19

But where do you get I mean, take memory, for example. Where did memory come from? How quickly did it come is really what I want to know.

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber4:24

What about it? Memory is a a slightly oddball one because it wasn't written for cats at all. I had an idea some years ago about writing an opera, a funny opera, about rivalry, which was going to be about the story of Leon Cavallo and Puccini both racing each other to write La Bohem, because they both did. So I of course it's Pacini-S because it was meant to be. And I took it to my father, and my father was a great expert on Puccini, and I said, What does this sound like, Daddy? He said, It sounds like an awful lot of money to me.

Presenter4:52

And indeed it has been. Tell me about your first record.

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber4:55

Well, I am a great lover of Prokofiev because he is such a superb melodist apart from anything else, superb orchestrator, of course. And funnily enough, I wanted to choose the March from The Love for Three Oranges because it was the first L P that I was ever given. My father gave Julian and I this album and I think he wanted us to hear Cassmozette, which was on the other side, but Julian and I immediately flipped it and we found this kind of cacophonous Prokofiev because it's one of Prokofiev's more sort of outrageous pieces or the start of it. But of course The March for The Love for Three Oranges is just one of the great tunes of all time and unmistakably Prokofiev.

Presenter6:24

Part of the march from Prokofiev's The Love for Three Oranges, played by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra conducted by Eduardo Mata. Prokofiev made a huge impression on you as a small boy, Andrew, but so did Rock Around the Clock, didn't it? And that's the point that you were always straddling the two, the classical sympop.

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber6:37

To the classical symbol. My father was, although he was the director of the London College of Music, he really didn't mind what was going on in the house musically, providing it was, you know, really quite good. My father actually loved pop. I mean, I remember once he said to me that some record by the Shadows, I think it might have been Frightened City or something, proved that the Shadows were one of the great chamber groups. I mean, he did, he just, if it was a great tune, he loved it. I mean, you know, I used to like Roy Alberson a lot, the Ebley Brothers and everything. He got it completely.

Presenter7:04

And this all went on in the flat that you lived in in South Kent.

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber7:06

Yes.

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber7:07

Yeah, everything. I mean, it it really didn't matter whether it was John Lill moved in at one point, the pianist, and um I mean it could of course I learnt a lot of with John because of course I turned the pages for him. Um I remember when he was doing the seventh piano sonata, that incredible seven, eight time. Very nearly took that actually. But that you know, that da da da da da da da da da da da da fantastic piece of writing.

Presenter7:16

Yeah.

Speaker 47:16

Hmm.

Presenter7:26

And Julian was practising the cello and many other instruments as well. So, I mean, the huge cocoa and grandma lived in this flat as well, didn't she?

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber7:32

And grandma was deaf.

Presenter7:34

And grandma was deaf and had the piano the television turned up very loudly.

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber7:37

Well no she wasn't it wasn't that depth. I remember one of the funniest stories I remember once was Julian was practising and I was with Tim and we went uh out of the door and we went downstairs and this guy shot out of the flat and there was Julian playing his cello and he said, He said, I don't mind the pianists, I don't mind all this rot and roll, I don't mind that, it's it's it's this oboe player I can't stand.

Presenter7:56

But you all live together. Very creative, very creative noise. Um how old were you when you wrote your first piece of music? I mean, perhaps before all this noise began.

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber8:05

But it was quite early because um my father collected a few of my tunes and got them published when I was about eight years old. Um and it c came out under the name of the Toy Theatre because I'd built myself a toy theatre where I staged ghastly musicals written by me. In fact, one of the tunes uh appears in Joseph. Really? Yes.

Presenter8:23

But it survived.

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber8:23

Yes, it's vibes. Which one is it? It's Potty Far.

Presenter8:26

Good heavens And but your father as well wrote, didn't he? He wrote under various pseudonyms.

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber8:32

Well he he was a a a composer really completely out of his time. I mean he was like a kind of paraphylite painter, you know, trying to paint in the nineteen thirties and forties, you know, and there were people like that. Um in fact he was he was a wonderful, wonderful melodist. I I I very very nearly wanted to take one of his I mean he wrote a piece called Aurora which is just extraordinary. I mean it's it's erotic and and I mean I just think it's one of the most fantastic pieces of music. And he we discovered, Julian discovered, an awful lot of music that he'd never, never, never let on that he'd compose.

Presenter9:01

And was that, as I understand it, because he had a kind of inferiority complex about it, because he didn't think perhaps his colleagues at the Royal College of Music would approve that it was really rather romantic, bit slushy.

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber9:10

Yeah, well not only that I think. I th you see he he was a working class boy, he got a scholarship to uh the the college, and I think in those days things were very much more conventional and I think he thought that the family and everybody around him would think it was a bit below him if he uh revealed a lot of this stuff. I mean he wrote a lot of church music which of course he was known for and was very proud of and that was ob obviously publicly known, but there was a huge other side to him and I I think myself I think he would have made one of the great great um you know film composers because he had that breadth and the tunes are there.

Presenter9:40

Yeah.

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber9:41

Next record. Well, this is Sum Enchanted Evening, which is arguably uh one of the greatest tunes ever, ever written. In fact, my father played this to me, and he said if ever you get near this melody, he said, I really will be proud of you. But this thing about Sum Enchanted Evening is it is the essence, absolute essence of melody.

Speaker 410:06

And chant the evening.

Speaker 410:11

Someone may be laughing

Speaker 410:15

You may hear her laughing across a cross.

Presenter10:25

Some enchanted evening from Roger and Hammerstein's South Pacific, sung or not, as the case may be, by Rosanna Bratzy, you say not.

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber10:32

But I don't think it was. I think it was somebody called Giorgio Tozzi who sang for him who actually sang for him, yes. I think it was in the days when uh you dubbed. I don't think our Mamrozzano was actually uh a bass baritone.

Presenter10:36

Who sang for him?

Presenter10:44

Just tell me, right from those early days when you were doing your toy theatre with a kind of revolving stage, which was a kind of gramophone turntable which was Sunday night at the London Pallasium and all those people.

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber10:50

There was a grandfather turntable which had been a little bit of a terrible.

Presenter10:56

Did you also perform?

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber10:58

Yes.

Presenter10:59

And

Presenter11:01

Is there is there in you I'm'cause, you know, you do do everything to do with your shows, but you don't perform. I mean, you obviously recognise that's not what you do, but you would like to, huh?

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber11:07

And that's that.

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber11:09

No, not really, you know.

Presenter11:11

There's a bit of a performer in you, isn't there?

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber11:12

I mean, only sort of at a certain time of the evening when um certain uh juices have flowed. Uh but uh not um I know, I I wouldn't like I I wouldn't want to, you know, do a show or be in a show really because it kind of would for me get very repetitive.

Presenter11:26

Hmm.

Presenter11:27

Nevertheless, when you're

Presenter11:28

When you're rehearsing and directing a show, or taking part in the production, as it were.

Presenter11:33

It seems to me that part of the showman in you knows what it wants, obviously, from the people on the stage, so that you can tell the Elaine Pages, you know, that David Essick

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber11:42

Although I I never pretend to be a director. I mean, I always think when you get into a musical that the director then has to be the king and that what you when you've actually appointed the director, at that point you've just got to stand behind what, you know, he or she wants to t to do.

Presenter11:54

I'll bet you don't always do that.

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber11:56

I well, I actually do, funnily enough, I I really keep my it's quite a strict rule for me because I don't think you can undermine somebody. For example, in Whistle Down the Wind, Gail Edwards directed it in London. I personally was not that happy with the design because it was on two levels and I I I'd always worry about designs on two levels. Uh but she was passionate to have that design and that set and she was right. And um you know, therefore it it was right to let her have her

Presenter12:16

And

Presenter12:20

So you don't always get your own way,'cause I mean, I know there's sort of famous quotes about you having a quick tantrum or just time for another tantrum before the curtain goes up.

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber12:28

Not quite, I don't think. It's not really quite like that.

Presenter12:32

Tell me about your next record. It's a Beatles. Now, why this one?

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber12:35

Well, I guess you know, anybody of my generation who's going to be affected by the Beatles, I mean, so hugely that it wasn't possible. I mean, it's an imp this is this is an impossible choice. I mean, uh, what could you take? I mean, you could take yes yesterday, you can take imagine, you can take anything. But in the end, I thought I'd choose I want to hold your hand because I haven't heard it for a bit.

Speaker 412:58

Oh yeah

Speaker 413:00

Tell you something.

Speaker 413:02

I think you'll understand.

Speaker 413:06

Can I say that something?

Speaker 413:10

I wanna hold a hand.

Speaker 413:14

So hold your hand.

Presenter13:20

The Beatles and I Wanna Hold Your Hand. Now there's a kind of simple, straightforward, good tune, huh?

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber13:25

It's about as simple and about as primal a melody as you can find. But I mean it there it is, you see. We were talking earlier about um you know the simplicity of melodies. I mean that is just it would it would be blindingly obvious to me if somebody said, Well, I I think I've heard that one before, but nobody had.

Presenter13:39

Hmm.

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber13:39

It it's it's just a fabulous thumping great simple tune.

Presenter13:43

The one thing that you've always freely admitted you can't do in all of these shows is the lyrics. I presume you've tried.

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber13:49

I have tried, but I don't think it's very wise for them to be exposed to a wider public. Um so uh no. I d I also funny enough, I d I don't really want to. I I find um one of the things that is most exciting about musical theatre is that in fact it is probably the most collaborative of all the mediums you could possibly think of.

Presenter14:08

Mm.

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber14:08

No, I find collaboration very exciting. I mean I'm I'm writing at the moment with Ben Elton who's a new one for me. Um and uh it is actually thrilling because it's completely different mind, completely fresh to musical theatre, and uh and actually an excellent lyricist and but it's the it's the fact that it's it's you know a new tone of voice, something I've never had before, and that I find very exciting.

Speaker 414:19

Get out of here.

Presenter14:28

It it's the cross fertilization. Each time is different, and therefore something different erupts. Let's go back to an earlier one, though. L let's Tim Rice enter into this Lloyd Webber story. Wonderful line here. He wrote to you in nineteen sixty five, shortly before he went up to university, and I quote, Dear Andrew,

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber14:31

For something different.

Presenter14:42

I have been told you're looking for a with it writer of lyrics for your songs. I wonder if you consider it worthwhile meeting me. Wonderful. Can you recall your first meeting?

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber14:51

I can indeed. I can recall the first time I met Tim. I mean, this very, very tall, very blonde, rather I mean, very skinny in those days. Um, guy arrived at the sort of the door looking like some kind of a donut. We we really got on more or less as as sort of friends and talking about pop. Um it wasn't for a few months before we actually decided to start work um on an actual musical together.

Presenter15:12

But you went off to university, I think, a few months later, and as I say, came down after a term. In a sense,

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber15:18

I realized that there was nobody there who had a candle to Tim's lyric writing ability.

Presenter15:23

Really?

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber15:24

That was the thing. I mean, I basically left Oxford for Tim.

Presenter15:27

So Tim, in fact, as you said earlier, moved into the South Ken flat and the partnership began. And within two years you'd written Joseph. Now how did that come about?

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber15:35

Well, there was a guy who actually taught my brother called Alan Doggett, who was a schoolmaster, and that he wanted a piece for an end-of-term concert. It was twenty minutes long, Joseph, in those days. It was done on a wet Friday afternoon to a bunch of rather bored parents. But it went well, and so we did it again. And the critic of the Sunday Times, it transpired, now this is where luck does come in, had a child at the school. And of course, the Sunday after that, we read this rave review for Joseph saying that Tim and Andrew were the new writers. And because of course we couldn't believe it. And so immediately we got an offer to write. And so that's how we got going.

Presenter16:15

And also uh music publishers, I think, in the meantime bought Joseph from you. How much did they give you for that?

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber16:20

Oh, they paid a hundred pounds for it.

Presenter16:21

And in nineteen ninety one you bought it back.

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber16:24

Vermillion

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber16:26

I tell you that was cheap.

Presenter16:29

Record number four.

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber16:31

Well, I think we have to have the king. I mean, Elvis has to be there. Now, this is a record, I think, rather than a song, but I really think without Elvis, I mean, uh a desert island would be a very, very barren place indeed. So here we go with Hum Dog.

Speaker 416:42

You ain't not

Speaker 416:46

Feel a motor time

Speaker 416:48

You ain't nothing but a hall and dogger Cracking all the time.

Speaker 416:53

Where are you here?

Presenter17:13

Elvis Bresley and Hound Dog. What was the state of the British musical then, then, Andrew, when you and Tim began writing second half of the 60s? We got Oliver.

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber17:21

Oliver was a big hit, and there were an awful lot of sort of sub-Olivers going on, you know, the sort of musicals that were about Cockneys in East London. It was it was not exactly um you know a cauldron of exciting new things.

Presenter17:28

Okay.

Presenter17:33

New things. All those sort of fifties leftovers. I mean, they're sort of gentle, rather small-scale stuff like Salad Days and the boyfriend and son.

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber17:37

Um

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber17:40

Yes. Yes. I suppose really, uh I mean the the biggest musical in London at that time was the sound of music.

Presenter17:48

Hmm.

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber17:48

That was massive, but that was of course American.

Presenter17:50

And then Hare came in from off Broadway, this kind of rock protest staff age of Aquarius.

Presenter17:56

You knew I mean, perhaps that gave you the inkling, did it, that you had to write something big and noisy, a rock opera.

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber18:02

Well, I suppose so. I mean, Hare actually, funnily enough, was uh less of a rock and roll show than you might think. I mean, it was the songs were actually great, but they but it was just the whole way that that it just happened to hit a nerve at the time. Um but I I I mean I think Tim and I had really decided the direction that we wanted to go before that, really, in in many ways. And what was that? Well, we were writing a lot of pop songs together anyway, and then none of them really saw the light of day much, but it didn't really interest us to sort of emulate anything that was going on in uh in British musical theatre at the time.

Presenter18:14

Hmm.

Speaker 418:21

And what was that?

Presenter18:22

Yeah.

Speaker 418:22

Yeah.

Presenter18:22

Uh

Presenter18:33

But when you finally came to write Jesus Christ Superstar, I mean, it it was it was so big. It was your first big full orchestra and rock band mega mix, wasn't it? It was

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber18:43

Well the actual song itself, which which was the first thing which we recorded, um and was a hell of a gamble really. Um I'm amazed the record company put up the money'cause it was a big orchestra, it was a it was basically Joe Cocker's Grease Band playing on it, and of course Murray Head, who wasn't known. And the funny thing about it was it it wasn't a hit in Britain, it wasn't a hit in America, but it was a hit in enough funny countries like Holland and Brazil and things for the record company to say, Well, look, we have made our money back on this and then they took the gamble that they would record the whole thing.

Presenter19:11

As I understand it, you you you know, you were about to write this piece that was going to kind of redefine the British musical, and you wrote it in five days in a little hotel in Herefordshire.

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber19:20

went to the Stoke Edith House Hotel in Herefordshire and uh I d I did Five Days is a bit of an exaggeration. We wrote the the bare bones of it in in that time. Um but in fact it was it

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber19:32

Over the whole of the next year, up till October when it came out, we were writing and recording and working on it.

Presenter19:37

I see that your your next record is is Shostakovich. Didn't he go to see Superstar at one point?

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber19:43

Do you know, I mean it's an amazing thing, he was a huge fan of superstars. He came over for the World Cup in 1966, and I got this note from him. But Julian, my brother, of course, was learning the Shostakovich cello concerto. Now this, you see, is, in my opinion, it's the essence of rock and roll in serious music. Because in fact, all the stuff what you're going to hear is when he gets into some check-a-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-cha-da-da-da-d you could transpose that onto a onto a rock band and it would sound so contemporary particularly today with all the new instruments and things one can use and so it for me this is um i just think it's a marvellous piece of work this is an absolute masterpiece

Speaker 420:55

Uh

Presenter21:18

Rostropovich playing the opening of Shostakovich's Cello Concerto No. 1 with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Seiji Ozawa.

Presenter21:26

Tim Rice has always said, Andrew, that you were more ambitious than him, that you were always determined to make more of a business of it than he felt he wanted to. Is that right? I don't.

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber21:37

I don't really know. I mean, I think Tim is in his own way. He's really quite driven too. But I I just as I s said earlier, I just so love musical theatre and everything to do with it that uh in one sense it's it sort of is my life. I mean there have been moments, you know, that like with everybody and and anything like that where you sort of get a bit down and you get depressed or you think something has not really worked out or you've been misunderstood or whatever. But um I've had really such a great time in it that um I I guess having one's own production company is very valuable to me. I you know I I Tim doesn't like that side of things. I don't think I can't see Tim ever getting involved with the producing. But I I get involved with the creative side of producing. I have a now I've got myself back into my own company again, which I was sort of more or less excluded from for about five years. But now I've got it all back again. I've got a fantastic team who do all the business things for me.

Presenter22:25

Why did you buy your company back? I mean, you've done it kind of twice, just to sort of sum it up. You you mean it did you floated part of it on the stock exchange?

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber22:32

I made a terrible, terrible, terrible mistake and it but partly it was to do with circumstances at that time, um because the tax rates were so high that the real way if you could do anything was by uh floating it and you know maybe on the or having a company that you could uh float on the stock market. And it was a dreadful mistake for me to do because in the end I only end ended up with thirty percent of the company, you know, and we had to buy it back'cause it it just wasn't working.

Presenter22:55

But I mean fascinating because of course you are the major asset of your company so it's difficult to see how you could be forced. I mean if you stop creating a

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber23:03

Well, I mean, there was a moment when I thought, well, there are only two alternatives here. Either I stop and we go we just don't go on. And I mean when my contract was coming to an end with the company anyway and I just start up anew. And I thought to myself, well, morally I can't do that. So if this is the way I feel, I better try and get the company back. And so that's what we set about doing. But in doing so, we had to have somebody who could bankroll us, frankly. And so we ended up with thirty percent of the company owned by Polygram. And it became quite came difficult after a while. And anyway, this summer I was able to get it back. So

Presenter23:38

You brought you brought yourself back out of polygram as well. So now you own yourself again.

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber23:39

So now you

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber23:41

Yes, I'm heavily mortgaged but happy.

Presenter23:44

But you're your your own master. You like being your own master. And you like being master of your material, because the other thing you do, as I understand it, is you control your material worldwide. You know, if if there's a production of any of your shows anywhere in the world, it is with the same costumes, the same choreography, the same set.

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber23:59

Well not necessarily, but I mean if you've got a production like The Phantom, for example, um yes, that would be the that would be the case. Um I'm some shows um you know you different productions you you do sometimes want, but on the whole um we it's true that we tend to control it pretty well pretty carefully.

Presenter24:10

One.

Presenter24:15

Why can't you give people a free hand? Why can't you let something new happen?

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber24:17

Well you can you can. Uh but I mean if you went to see The Phantom of the Opera in London um and uh you then wanted to go and see it in New York, I think you'd be displeased if it wasn't the same it wasn't the same show, basically.

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber24:29

Tell me about your next record.

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber24:31

Well, this is a little bit of an oddball one, but I think it's one of the cleverest food and wine sketches ever written. It's John Cleese and David Frost doing something called Matters of Taste. Well, of course my column in The Telegraph when I wrote I wrote for three years did their food reviews. And I I mean I love restaurants, I love food and I love wine. And I think when you know that you'll know why I think this is one of the cleverest sketches ever written.

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber24:56

Well, sir you've tasted it. Now

Speaker 324:57

Can you tell us what it is?

Speaker 425:01

Yes, certainly. It's a Chambol Mussigny, uh, Chateau bottled, uh, nineteen.

Speaker 425:09

No, it isn't.

Speaker 425:15

Isn't it?

Speaker 425:17

Oh, well, in that case, unless I'm very much mistaken, it's a shabley.

Speaker 325:23

You are very much mistaken.

Presenter25:26

Very good. John Cleese and David Frost in their sketch Matter of Taste and that was recorded in 1966. You mention your food writing, Andrew, you know, and you obviously put an awful lot into the researching of it, eating in two or three restaurants every week or whatever. But your wife Madeline has said, you know, he keeps the pressure up on himself and we live and breathe whatever he's up to. That's the bottom line, isn't it? You're not a man who does anything by halves.

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber25:51

I think she's quite glad that I've given up food writing now. But I did love it. I absolutely loved it. And I still on things like the Carlton Food Awards and all of that. I mean, I I love food, I love cooking.

Presenter25:55

I've sent

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber26:01

And um and of course I love my wine.

Presenter26:04

Exactly. And you had a collection of that and just and you love your art. You've got a collection of pre Raphaelite art. You know, if you're going to do anything, it seems to me, you do it big. You go the whole hog. That's what you're like. I mean, people say perfectionist. It's it's not exactly that, is it? It's

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber26:16

I must say it's it's dreadful at the moment. I I was going through my wine list, and when I did have the sale three years ago, and everybody keeps saying, Oh, poor Andrew's parted with his wine cellar. I've got more than I had when I sold it.

Presenter26:27

But what is it all about? Is it are you just acquisitive, or it just every time you do something, whether it's music, wine or art, you've got to do it all?

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber26:34

Well, yeah, I mean, the art collection, of course, is something quite different. I mean, I mean, I've been terribly, terribly lucky in that I love musical theatre and it's made me, you know, enough money to be able to indulge in my other real passion, which is art and architecture. And I happened to love the Pre-Raphaelites from the time when I was at school because I saw a lot of Victorian churches which I was very keen on. And a lot of the glass and the fixtures and fittings are, of course, by Burne-Jones or Rossetti. And of course it wasn't a very much um wasn't much of a step to really go and s get down to the Tate Gallery, which was after all around the corner from the school, and suddenly I was hooked. And of course in those days Victorian art was considered to be absolute rubbish. You know, if you ever wrote or dared to say that you thought the Burne-Jones Brow Rose collection was one of the greatest works of art in you know British history, I mean you would be laughed at. But mind you, in respectable circles, so was Rogers and Hauntstein.

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber27:30

I meant so I was laughed at on all fronts.

Presenter27:33

Well, you talk about being laughed at. You're not laughed at, but despite the fact that you have done so much, as we've said, championed the musical theatre, redefined it, brought it this great international success.

Presenter27:44

There is an element of British society, the chattering classes, isn't it isn't there, who find it impossible to be generous to you in that success.

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber27:52

Yeah, I d I don't know really quite why, um, because um I think I think possibly it is, you know, that I'm not actually that public a person and I don't do masses and masses of PR and what one of the thing, you know, so I don't sort of really worry about my image. I mean, this is the first programme I've done for ye ye years, actually.

Presenter28:09

But it there's it it seems to me to be a kind of distaste for your populism as far as your music is concerned. They are s very sort of snotty about coach partism.

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber28:15

And they are

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber28:17

Well, it's it's probably exactly the same way that I think you'll find that the serious art critics don't like and will never get the piraphalytes. The fact of the matter is that even in the dark days, um, you know, when Victorian art was considered to be worthless, if you went into the Tate Gallery, guess where the public were?

Presenter28:23

And

Speaker 428:23

Uh

Presenter28:23

Yeah.

Speaker 428:23

Yeah.

Presenter28:31

Hmm.

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber28:31

In the you know, always in the piraphalite gallery.

Presenter28:33

Absolutely.

Presenter28:35

Record number seven.

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber28:37

Well now this one is something very very dear to my heart. I'm incredibly impressed by what's going on with the writing in Bollywood. I think some really great pop songs coming out there and Hindi pop I think is really happening. I mean we've got on the one level you've got Talbin Singh and people like that who I think is superb. And I discovered one Saturday morning, I thought this is a really fantastic tune in one of those obscure programmes. And all roads led to one man whose name I'm going to get wrong in pronunciation because every time I meet anybody from India they always pronounce it differently. But this is a guy called A. R. Rahman. I think this guy is a genius. He produces and writes the songs himself. He's the most fantastic record producer, apart from anything else. But the melodies, I mean, they just pour out of this guy. And he writes four Bollywood movies a year. And I mean, I could put together a programme on him, which would, I think, kind of surprise practically everybody. It's just great tunes. And there's a twist, they are Indian, and it's different. Mark my words, something will happen. It's becoming mainstream.

Speaker 429:50

Beyond Beyond Beyond Gee Ya Lucille

Presenter30:10

A. R. Brahman and Dilce Ray from the Heart. Are you going to commission him, Andrew?

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber30:15

Well, I just think he's a great writer. I mean, it's very, very hard to know which one of his to play, actually, because there's some other ones which are m you know, perhaps more melodic than that. But he's just such a fantastic writer. I'd like to commission him to do a musical because he as it's saying, he does four or so Bollywood movies a year. Um and I don't think he's ever really been given a chance to to write something for himself.

Presenter30:36

And what about your work? Is there more to come?

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber30:38

I mean I guess I hope so.

Presenter30:39

Hmm.

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber30:40

I mean, it's so funny how these things happen. Um, when I finished Whistledown the Wind, I sort of sat down to myself and I th I thought, Well, hang on a moment, I've done now, um, two more musicals than Rogers and Hammerstein ever wrote. And am I really um

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber30:55

Banging on only because you know, I feel I have to. But then you see, this is where things suddenly can never predict. I met Ben Elton.

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber31:02

And Ben said to me, he said, Would you ever consider writing an original musical? And I said, Well, yeah, you bet. Um and I'd happened to have seen a television programme on BBC about what happened to a bunch of kids in Northern Ireland who were playing football in the late sixties in Belfast. And I said to Ben, have a look at this. And Ben said, Well, I don't want to do their story, but it's a hell of an idea to take the idea of something, you know, really which is very much part of our time and really write about how the troubles in Ireland affected these kids and in ways that they couldn't control. And and I I thought it was a fantastic idea because it's new.

Presenter31:37

What about all the things you've ever written? Uh I wonder if you have a favorite. It's it's difficult. A lot of people say that when you wrote Evita and you wrote Variations for Julian, which is used on the on the South Bank Show, of course, you know that was your most creative

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber31:47

That's actually on the same.

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber31:48

That was your most creative period. That's the Paganini variations, yeah. But I don't know, it's very it this is a it was a deeply personal thing when one's thinking about one's own music. There's I mean, I'm very, very fond of The Phantom. Um, and there are lots of associations with The Phantom. I was married to Sarah Brightman at the time, and it was written really for her.

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber32:07

But also I suppose my Requiem Mass, which is a piece which I think I kind of got I think I kinda got half right. I think when where I got it right I'm really quite pleased but I think when I got it wrong I really sometimes say I must rewrite this thing.

Presenter32:17

You wrote this when your father died.

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber32:19

But I read I wrote that really uh about the death of my father. And so I think if anything it prob perhaps Piyezu would be the peace of mind that I'm b most fond of for that reason and and also for the fact that it was the first real thing I did with Sarah.

Speaker 433:01

Good once for me.

Speaker 433:06

Oh my mistakes.

Presenter33:26

Sarah Brightman and Paul Miles Kingston singing the PA Yezoo from my castaway Andrew Lloyd Webber's Requiem with the English Chamber Orchestra conducted by Lauren Marzell.

Presenter33:37

This is the really difficult one, Andrew, if you could only take one of those eight.

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber33:42

Well, you know, I think it would actually be some chanted evening, because I really do think that's probably one of the greatest tunes of all time.

Presenter33:47

And your book, as well as the Bible and Shakespeare?

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber33:50

Well, now again, you see, because of my love of art and architecture and all things connected with English architecture in particular, what I think I would like to do is to cut out the front of Bechaman's Collins' Guide to Parish Churches, because it's this most fantastic essay, and paste it into Simon Jenkins' newly published book of the Thousand Best British Churches, because it's so beautifully illustrated, and he's done a wonderful job on the description of the churches. It's fabulous.

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber34:17

Ideally, of course, uh it would be great to combine it with a good food guide.

Presenter34:21

Oh no.

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber34:22

So that because nothing is better than, for example, going to, say, Ludlow, where you can go to the wonderful Church of St. Lawrence's, and there are seven great restaurants in the town.

Presenter34:22

Yeah.

Presenter34:32

What about your luxury, finally?

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber34:33

Well, I think, you know, we might have to have a little bit of a herb garden, so it might have to be some cuttings, if I'm allowed to take that, of various herbs and garlic and things, so that if ever I was able to cook or flavour things, I could do it properly.

Presenter34:47

Andrew Lloyd Webber, Lord Lloyd Webber, as uh we begin the new millennium, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your Desert Island disc.

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber34:54

Thank you very much.

Speaker 435:02

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