Tasmin Little

Speaker 10:00

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. The programme was originally broadcast in two thousand and one, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:32

My Castaway this week is a violinist. She'd only been playing the instrument for a year when, at the age of seven, she won a place at the Yehudi Menouin School. From there, she went to the Guildhall School of Music, where she won the gold medal. And at the age of twenty five, she made her debut at the BBC Proms. She's a soloist who loves to serve her audience well. Her performances are always spontaneous and emotional, and it's this as well as her enjoyment of playing the works of less well known composers that's marked her rise to the top of her profession. Now an international star, she has a repertoire of nearly fifty concertos which she plays with the world's top orchestras. Of her performance of the William Walton concerto, his widow said that she hadn't been so moved since Heifitz had played it. I've always felt a duty to my audience as much as to the composer, says my Castaway. I don't ever want to walk out on stage and play on autopilot. She is Tasmin Little. But, um, Tasman, I gather you might as easily have been a singer.

Tasmin Little1:32

Yes, I certainly always loved the voice as a form of communication. And I guess that probably stems from my father, who is an actor, George Little, and I grew up with many records being played in the house of some of the shows that he was in. And of course, he would sing to my sister and I and

Presenter1:52

But I wonder if there's a link there between the voice and the violin?'Cause the violin, I suppose, is the nearest instrument to the human voice, isn't it?

Tasmin Little1:59

I think that the violin can almost recreate the same expression as the voice, and I think that's probably one of the reasons why I was so immediately drawn to it.

Presenter2:09

But did did you choose it or did it choose you? Is there something of that in it?

Tasmin Little2:12

There's something else in the

Tasmin Little2:13

I actually hadn't initially thought to play the violin because my sister Sharon had tried it. She's three years older than I am and she'd tried it and it hadn't really been a great success. What happened was that I was ill with chicken pox at the age of six and I was very bored at home in bed. And finally, after practically driving my mother to distraction, I asked her if I would please be able to play the recorder and perhaps she would buy me a recorder and a book and then I wouldn't bother her any longer. So she dutifully went out and bought the recorder and book and asked me to please now just be quiet and let her go and do the washing up or something or other and leave her alone for at least half an hour. So I was very contented but I did bother her again before the half an hour was up and she said, Well what's wrong with your book? I said nothing, it's just I've finished it. You taught yourself? I'd basically I'd taught myself to read the treble clef and play the recorder and wanted to continue to try other instruments.

Presenter3:12

But somehow along the line you knew that the violin was really the instrument for you.

Tasmin Little3:16

Yeah.

Presenter3:16

I did. How did you know?

Tasmin Little3:18

It was just an instinctive thing. I loved touching it. I loved trying to create the sound. How old would you have been at that point?

Presenter3:28

And how quickly did you You start to play really quite serious stuff.

Tasmin Little3:32

I think that I was playing a Mozart sonata after about three or four months, and I also gave a performance of the first movement of the Bach double violin concerto with my teacher in a school concert when I'd only been learning a few months.

Presenter3:44

But what is interesting, I I suppose, about that story is is that your talent could have been missed. Instruments were there, but your sister hadn't done too well with them. Your parents didn't necessarily think that you would and yet somehow there was this

Speaker 13:54

Uh

Presenter3:57

God-given talent.

Tasmin Little3:57

God given

Tasmin Little4:00

Well, I mean, it was quite by chance, and it is lucky that I caught chicken pox, really.

Tasmin Little4:06

How many people could say that?

Tasmin Little4:09

Tell me about your first record. My first record is Bach Er Bamer dich mein Gott from the Saint Matthew Passion. It takes me back to school when we used to sing a great deal. And what I would like to have is this absolutely sublime piece.

Presenter5:20

Christer Ludwig singing Er Barmer dicht mein Gott from Bach St. Matthew Passion with the Philharmonia Orchestra and chorus conducted by Otto Klemperer, and memories, Tasman Little, of the the Mennouin School. Whereabouts is it?

Tasmin Little5:33

The school is in the heart of Surrey, and what was so wonderful about being at the school was that I was instantly in a group of people who passionately adored music. How many? How many pupils? Only thirty five at the time that I went. Now I think there are about fifty pupils.

Presenter5:47

Uh

Presenter5:51

and a huge age range.

Tasmin Little5:52

Big age range, yes. I was the baby of the school when I went because I was only just eight years old. But I settled into the school very quickly and and my my teacher was wonderful and sort of babied me a little bit.

Presenter6:02

And Nigel Kennedy was a big boy.

Tasmin Little6:04

He was the big boy of the school, yes, that's right. He was about sixteen or seventeen and about to go off to America.

Presenter6:09

Was he obviously a star?

Tasmin Little6:10

Oh, very much so. And in fact it was really inspiring for me to see somebody like Nigel at the top of the school, because I thought if I worked very, very, very hard, maybe one day I would be that good.

Presenter6:22

But tell me how you got in, because thirty-five pupils out of and I'm this is pupils from abroad as well, isn't it? So obviously tough audition.

Tasmin Little6:28

That was the same thing.

Tasmin Little6:32

Well, yes, but the really funny thing was that actually we had no idea what the competition was to get into the school. This was not our world. So we had no idea that in fact I think that year there were two hundred people who were auditioning for just eight places. I'd been learning less than a year. And I'd actually missed the preliminary auditions which had taken place in the September. So I went for the final auditions in March and the the school kindly let me do the preliminary one in the morning and they said that if I got through to the finals I could do the finals in front of Menu In. I think at that point in time nerves and performance were not related in any way. My father was not nervous about walking on stage so there was no reason why I should be nervous walking into a room and playing the instrument that I loved. And you in fact you used to take your violin around with you anyway. Oh yes, that's right. I'd be desperately upset if people didn't ask me to play. In fact I remember I remember going to one party and my violin was in the boot of the car and we'd been at the party all afternoon and finally somebody said Jasmine aren't you going to play anything? So of course I rushed up and my father took me out to the car and as I went out to the car I said to him I thought they'd never ask.

Presenter7:19

Yes, that's right.

Tasmin Little7:44

So, yes, I mean, I was really desperate to to play for for for anybody, really.

Presenter7:48

So back on the audition platform.

Tasmin Little7:50

Back on the I played a Kooler concerto in D, um, the sort of thing that you learn when you're seven years old, and a Mozart sonata in E minor, which I I loved very, very much. And how did it go?

Presenter8:02

And how did it go, do you know?

Tasmin Little8:03

Well, it must have gone all right because they they got me there for the afternoon. I I only really remember a line up of about ten people who all looked at me very kindly and spoke to me very sweetly, and so it was quite gentle really.

Presenter8:20

Okay, I

Tasmin Little8:21

And you then you went home. So how long before you then heard that you got in?

Tasmin Little8:26

I think it must have been about a couple of months. But I do remember the moment that my teacher came into the playground and it was it was lunch time and he called me up and I thought, Oh, what have I done wrong? Anyway, I went up to to him and he said, I've got some very good news for you. You've been accepted into the Hoodie Minium School.

Presenter8:46

Second record.

Tasmin Little8:47

My second record is quite different from the first.

Tasmin Little8:51

I want to have a Pink Floyd um Dark Side of the Moon, and I've got my sister, Sharon, to thank for this because I've been buried in my world of classical music, and if it hadn't have been for her, I think I would have been ignorant of a lot of other kinds of music. This track is just great, this guitar solo, I love it.

Presenter9:40

Pink Floyd and money from Dark Side of the Moon. Obviously, the academic side of your education wasn't at all neglected at the Menoun School. You did O-levels early and that kind of thing, and did well too.

Presenter9:51

Because you had such a rare talent, how how would you characterize how it was nurtured? Does it become very obvious? Or do you say, I'm going to take this solo route, or I'm going to play in an orchestra? How does it happen?

Tasmin Little10:04

When I first started, I was seven years old. Everything was possible in my life and the fact was I was going to be a great classical violinist.

Tasmin Little10:13

Then, of course, I got to the menu in school and I realised that there were lots of special people. So, of course, probably during my teenage years, I became quite aware of the fact that it was not very easy to carve out a solo career. And obviously, Nigel was one exception. He was doing very, very well, but there weren't too many others. So, I did have my doubts, but I always wanted to pursue it. I'd had that dream since I was seven.

Presenter10:41

But were people telling you you could and you should?

Tasmin Little10:44

Actually no, not really.

Tasmin Little10:48

But um actually people didn't really particularly push at the menu in school. It's quite a fallacy that the menu in school is a hothouse that rears only soloists. Actually the emphasis is much more on chamber music. So people weren't saying, you know, at a girl, go and be a soloist.

Presenter11:04

But it does mean, therefore, you've got to have that drive yourself. You've got to decide exactly where it is you're aiming.

Tasmin Little11:11

Yeah.

Presenter11:11

And you've got to set out and go there by yourself.

Tasmin Little11:14

Yeah.

Presenter11:14

But what you didn't do was go what you might call the competition route. There isn't any great history of you going into competitions and making your name in that way. Why not?

Tasmin Little11:14

Yeah.

Tasmin Little11:23

I don't think that I'm the kind of player that wins competitions because I think that competition winners are often the players who haven't offended any of the judges. Judges have all got their own separate opinions and they're quite notorious at not managing to agree on anything. And I rapidly realised that my playing was the kind of playing that people would either like very, very much or not like at all.

Presenter11:49

So you're not saying that competition winners are always inoffensive.

Tasmin Little11:52

No, but nearly always. No, not always. There are some very, very notable exceptions. But there are lots of competition winners who haven't gone on to make great careers.

Presenter11:53

Anyway, now

Presenter11:55

Hey.

Presenter12:03

And yet you set out to be that person. How did you know that you were different? How did you know you had it?

Tasmin Little12:10

I didn't know that I was different and I didn't know that I had it, but I knew that I wanted it. And that was the driving force. You've got to really love walking on stage. When you walk on stage, people have got to want to look at you and listen to what you're playing. And actually, that's something that you're born with. Of course, I've worked very hard over the years, but I think that it's just by chance that I walk on stage, and people do sit up and hopefully want to listen to what I've got to say to them. I certainly want to communicate to them.

Presenter12:46

Next record

Tasmin Little12:49

My next record is Ravel, Daphnis and Chloe, and it has to be this performance. It's Charles Dutrois and the Montreal Symphony Orchestra and Choir.

Tasmin Little12:58

I love it. I love Ravel's orchestration. Whenever the rumble starts at the beginning, I feel an excitement inside me and I know that I've got fifty minutes of pure bliss ahead.

Presenter14:11

The end of Ravel's Daphnis and Chloe, played by the Montreal Symphony Orchestra and Choir, conducted by Charles Dutroy. Did you then move seamlessly, Tasman, from being a student to earning your living on the concert platform? How easy was it?

Tasmin Little14:25

Oh, it was not easy at all. The first couple of years were really very lean indeed. How lean? Extremely lean. Probably about maybe fifteen concerts a year. So I definitely was not earning a a decent living.

Presenter14:40

I don't anymore.

Tasmin Little14:42

Oh, I I don't remember what I was earning, but I wasn't be wasn't paying any tax at that point in time, so it was that bad.

Presenter14:46

Two times.

Tasmin Little14:49

So what was the big break? What happened? The big break was really in the form of two things that happened. In nineteen eighty nine, I was invited by EMI to make my first recording.

Tasmin Little15:02

Yeah.

Presenter15:02

But but how would they know to ask you to do that? You must have made your mark in some

Tasmin Little15:06

Oh, when I say I was only doing 15 concerts, you know, some of them were were with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and I did have an agent at that point in time. So people were beginning to.

Presenter15:15

He was taking a cut of your non-taxable income.

Tasmin Little15:16

Taxable income.

Tasmin Little15:19

Yes, that's right. Yes, I I was doing some good concerts, making some good contacts.

Presenter15:25

But EMI would be taking a punt with you, would they?

Tasmin Little15:28

They were taking a chance for sure, yes. And this was a very exciting prospect. And I chose to record the Bruch.

Presenter15:29

Yeah, sure.

Tasmin Little15:35

First violin concerto.

Presenter15:37

Possibly the most popular violin concerto in the land, the Brugh.

Tasmin Little15:41

It is, unquestionably. The Brook and the Mendelssohn are the two most popular, but the Brook just about.

Presenter15:41

Uh unclear

Tasmin Little15:46

gets to the top.

Presenter15:47

And you were saying there were two things that happened.

Tasmin Little15:49

Yes, the second thing that happened was that I was invited to make my debut at the B B C Promenade concerts at the Royal Albert Hall. In fact, it was very amusing um the way that my agent told me, because he rang me up, and he said, Tasman, do you know the Janacek concerto? and I said, No, I don't even know that he'd written one.

Presenter15:49

Uh

Tasmin Little16:08

He said, Well, would you like to play it? and I said, Yeah, that sounds very interesting and I said Oh, so who's this going to be with? and he said, It's going to be with Sir Charles Macaris and the Welsh National Opera Orchestra. And then, just as an afterthought, I said, Oh, by the way, where will this be? and he said, Oh, he said, It's at something called The Proms.

Tasmin Little16:26

So I said, Ah, I'll do it.

Presenter16:29

Oh wonderful And it really was the making of you, wasn't it?

Tasmin Little16:32

Yes, I think that that, and also the release of the recording, which coincided with that concert. And the Yanacek.

Presenter16:38

and the Yanicek being so much less known.

Tasmin Little16:40

Exactly. It had never been done at the Proms before. I was a new young British violinist and so suddenly I had a lot of publicity and that was that was that. It was sort of a a bit more of a dramatic rise and time to pay my tax.

Presenter16:57

So you were twenty five and you've done the proms practically every year since. Have you ever done A Last Night?

Tasmin Little17:03

Yes, I did The Last Night in 1995 and then I also did The Proms in the Park in 1998. I must say that was a magical experience. When I walked out on stage, I saw 40,000 faces. And of course, in a concert hall, you never have 40,000 people. And also by the time I I went out the second time, because I did two different pieces, it was dark and everybody had lit candles and it was a candlelit park. It was so, so beautiful and the most wonderful atmosphere there as well. A really special night.

Presenter17:35

Next piece of music.

Tasmin Little17:37

My next piece of music is um Schubert's Quintet in C major. I love this performance of it. I think that the violin playing on it is exquisite, and I'm rather fussy about my violinists. So it it's got to be this this performance, which is just magical.

Presenter18:53

The opening of the second movement of Schubert's Quintet in C major, played by the Aeolian string quartet and Bruno Schrecker.

Presenter19:00

You describe, Tasman Little, how you came to public attention. What you haven't done is put on the wet T-shirt or put the earring in your nose or affect the accent or whatever it is.

Tasmin Little19:11

Pick the accent of

Presenter19:12

Why not? Do you disapprove of that? Or?

Tasmin Little19:15

I don't disapprove of it as such, uh, providing the musicianship deserves it. So I've never done it because I don't I don't feel that it's me at all. And if people can't enjoy my music the way it is, then then that's fair enough. But I I've just never wanted to

Tasmin Little19:37

take attention away from the music in such a way

Presenter19:39

What you have done, of course, is is um go on crusades of one kind or another for so-called neglected composers from Delius Bax, Ligotty Finzi and

Speaker 419:49

Yeah.

Presenter19:50

Again, i why? Is that a the duty to your audience, or is that'cause you genuinely like them above the the the big popular, as you say, the Mendelssohn or the Brook or the Beethoven concert? I suppose you've got to expand the repertoire.

Tasmin Little20:01

Well, I I love all areas of the repertoire and that's the wonderful thing about the violin. We have over 300 years of fantastic music to choose from. We're very, very lucky as violinists. But there are a lot of people out there already who are playing the standard repertoire concertos. And I really do feel that it's important to bring neglected composers to people's attention. And if we as performers are not going to do it, then nobody's going to do it.

Presenter20:28

And also it gets you noticed in a sense perhaps that is your publicity stunt. To demean it for a while. Heifits and Jochen did that kind of thing, didn't they? In their time, they championed unknown people. Exactly.

Tasmin Little20:33

Well

Tasmin Little20:37

Didn't they play jump?

Tasmin Little20:40

Exactly. Lesser known people. That's right. And also commissioned new concertos. And that's really the performer's job. To encourage composers of today or of their time to write great music so that in a hundred, two hundred, three hundred years' time people are going to be looking back and saying, Wow, that that was a wonderful piece that was commissioned by Menuin or Heifitz or even I've commissioned things myself. And I just do feel that it's very important that we don't let classical music stagnate.

Presenter21:11

What you also do, which is unusual, is you talk about your music. For for a soloist to sort of put down the instrument and move to the microphone is very unusual, and it's what you do and what you like doing, isn't it?

Tasmin Little21:21

I love doing it. It all started a few years ago when I began to play some unusual sonatas and pieces in my recitals. And I thought that rather than simply let the audience fend for themselves and make of it what they could, I might actually just introduce the piece and perhaps say a few words about it. So I began to do this, and the response was enormous. People would come up to me and say, We're so glad that you spoke about it. And so I thought, well, if they're glad that I spoke about that piece, maybe I ought to just chat to them in general. And that's one way of immediately breaking down any potential barrier between artist and audience.

Presenter22:01

It's a piece of music.

Tasmin Little22:03

I decided I'd love to have an opera. Again, something to keep me entertained for hours and hours. And my perfect opera is Putini la Bohemme. I do love this aria that Musetta sings, where she's telling everybody how completely gorgeous she is, and how really all the men look at her and admire her. And isn't she marvellous?

Speaker 422:46

Cuelcam, doskurmi.

Speaker 423:01

Have a glory full day again.

Presenter23:27

Lucina Amara, Robert Merrill, Fernando Corena, and Victoria de Los Angeles singing Cuando Men Vosoletta from Act Two of Puccini's Laboem, with the R C A Victor Orchestra conducted by Sir Thomas Beecham.

Presenter23:38

You've performed some hugely difficult concertos in your time, Tasman, um not least the Liggety Violin Concerto uh with Simon Rattle, which you did to great acclaim in in Vienna and in London. How do you prepare for something like that? How do you how do you Begin.

Tasmin Little23:53

Yes, very slowly.

Tasmin Little23:56

It's quite daunting when you look at a piece like The Ligerty and think, right, where am I going to start with this? Because every movement is so difficult. Every movement contains a different technical impossibility. And so I was very, very daunted. But what happened was that I went to give a series of concerts in Israel at the beginning of last year. And I took the Ligarte music out with me. And once I'd done the initial rehearsal for the concerts, it was just a question of walking on stage each night and playing. And I was very disciplined. I got up in the morning, I went down to get some breakfast, brought up a big cup of coffee.

Tasmin Little24:41

and got out my violin and proceeded to do three hours of work, and then I would have my lunch, and then I'd do another two or three hours of work in the afternoon with another very large cup of coffee.

Tasmin Little24:52

And then I'd walk on that night and play the barber on stage. And um,

Presenter24:56

But is it like swatting for exams? Do you sort of tick it off and you think, right, I know that bit now?

Tasmin Little25:00

Yes, very, very much so. In fact, every time I was able to tick a page, I felt very, very pleased and you know was sort of counting them down and thinking, right, only another sixty seven to go.

Presenter25:11

But do you therefore have the exam dream, you know, where you walk on stage and you haven't prepared and you forgot to swap that bit?

Tasmin Little25:16

Yeah.

Tasmin Little25:19

Actually, I I've had very few performer nightmares, but I've ha I've had a couple and it's a a little bit um a bit worrying. You know, I don't wake up in a cold sweat, but I do wake up thinking, Thank goodness that was only a dream.

Presenter25:32

Next piece of music.

Tasmin Little25:33

Okay, well, um I had a dilemma in in so far as choosing a violin concerto because my two favourite concertos are the Brahms and the Spalius.

Tasmin Little25:44

And I thought, if I take my own recording of the Sebalius, then I can have the Brahms as well, because it's on the same disc, you see. Is that a terrible cheat?

Speaker 425:53

I didn't hear that.

Tasmin Little25:57

So this is a recording that I like very much. I don't listen to my recordings very often because of course I'm busy playing the pieces all the time, but I still like this recording even though I made it a few years ago now and of course I could consider it that it's out of date. And here's the first moment of the Sebelius Violin Concerto, a piece that I've loved for very many, many years when I was influenced by Ida Hendel's superb recording of it with Pavel Berglund and I used to listen to it when I was eight years old and just over and over and over again.

Presenter27:31

My castaway Tasman Little playing the opening of Sibelius Violin Concerto in D minor with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Vernon Handley.

Presenter27:39

So your baby Chloe is five months old. Yes, that's right. Does she like the violin? Do we know this?

Tasmin Little27:46

Actually, she's fantastic. She watches me when I'm practising, which is quite useful sometimes because uh there are times when I do need to get some practice done in the day, and of course she's awake and needs entertaining. Um but she does seem to find it quite entertaining to watch uh watch me play.

Presenter28:03

Presumably she listened to quite a lot of it when she was still in the womb.

Tasmin Little28:07

Absolutely. In fact, I had some extraordinary experiences when I was pregnant and I was giving concerts because in fact I worked right up until three or four weeks before she was born. And towards the end of these concerts I was playing the Beethoven Kreutzer sonata rather a lot and she just loved it. I would have so many kicks and all sorts of things inside when I was playing the Beethoven Kreutzer and she still loves Beethoven now she's a little person in her own write-out.

Presenter28:36

How do you know she loves you?

Tasmin Little28:38

Because of her response, she she listens to it very, very closely. And if she's been distracted playing with a toy, if I play Beethoven to her, she stops and she listens.

Presenter28:49

Next piece of music.

Tasmin Little28:51

I would like to have Strauss ein Helden Leibn, because it makes me laugh so much. And I just think it's such a hilarious piece of music. He's so clever with the way that he, for instance, portrays his critics, you know, the

Tasmin Little29:08

And then the the two rather stodgy w critics are going d d d d d d It just cracks me up and and I really love that and then that marvellous time at the end of of the piece where he's um thinking back on his life and this beautiful theme in the violins occurs.

Presenter30:26

Part of the final movement of Richard Strauss's A Hero's Life, played by Malcolm Stewart with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Libor Peschek.

Presenter30:34

Tell me about you on a on a desert island, Tasman. Have you given any thought to how it might be?

Tasmin Little30:39

I think it's going to be disastrous.

Presenter30:41

Why?

Tasmin Little30:41

I'm not very practical at all. I'm going to be freezing cold because I can't possibly build a fire'cause I have no idea how to make fire out of nothing. I think I'm going to detest not being able to have a shower. I I was watching the Channel 4 programme recently about the people who lived in the nineteen hundreds house and the thing that they couldn't live without was shampoo. But you can cook, can't you? I can cook and I love cooking, but if I've got no fire...

Tasmin Little31:08

I'm going to be a bit, um limited as to what I can prepare. I won't be able to make a knife. So I I you know, I'm going to be living off bananas that I can peel. And the worst thing of all, I'm going to be missing all my friends and family like mad.

Presenter31:23

What about missing performers? Do you think you would miss that? N not having people to appreciate your music making?

Tasmin Little31:30

I think that that would be something I would miss, but um it's slightly lower down the list than the friends and family. I'm a sociable person. I like talking to people, friends, family, anybody who'll listen really. And um I'm just going to be incredibly lonely on this island.

Presenter31:49

And very bored, I think.

Tasmin Little31:50

I'll be desperately bored.

Presenter31:52

Low boredom threshold, very low boredom threshold.

Tasmin Little31:53

Very low warden. It won't be a recorder or my mother to throw a book at me. You know, I mean, this is going to be bad news for me. But I have found a way of bringing my friends and family with me to this island, you see, which is another little cheat. But I hope you're going to allow me to do this. My final recording is going to be a C D that I actually have of my wedding service. My husband is a recording engineer, and when we got married, we asked all our friends if they would come

Tasmin Little32:25

and play for us at the wedding. And best of all, I've got Wayne Marshall, his inimitable organ playing, and this fantastic piece of Dupray that always makes me smile. And this is the piece that we walked out of the church to.

Presenter33:38

Wayne Marshall playing part of Dupre's Prelude and Fugue in B major, recorded at My Castaway's Wedding in what, nineteen ninety three?

Tasmin Little33:45

Yes, that's right.

Presenter33:46

Now if you could only take one of those records is it the wedding?

Tasmin Little33:50

No, it's got to be Daphnis and Chloe, Ravel.

Presenter33:54

And what about your book? You've got the Bible, you've got Shakespeare?

Tasmin Little33:57

Yes, well I've been thinking about this and I'm not allowed my practical raft building, I don't think. Um at the moment I'm in the middle of Harry Potter, so if I'm going to be stranded tomorrow I'll take Harry Potter. But if it's sort of a little bit in the future then it's going to be Little Dorrit Dickens. That'll really keep me going and keep me smiling as well.

Presenter34:19

What about your luxury?

Tasmin Little34:20

Oh, endless supply of good coffee.

Presenter34:22

What no violin?

Tasmin Little34:23

No violin, no, no coffee. You see, the thing is that I've got all this marvellous music in my head, so if I want to have a particular piece of music for violin, I'll play it in my head.

Tasmin Little34:34

But I just I'm I'm going to need something to rem you know, remind me of creature home comforts and so it's the coffee.

Presenter34:42

Tasman Little, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs. Thank you.

Speaker 134:54

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