Sir Timothy Clifford

Speaker 30:00

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.

Presenter0:30

My Castaway this week is an arts administrator. His flair and exuberance attract many admirers, but his tendency to speak his mind is possibly the reason he failed to secure the top job at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. He didn't enjoy his private education. He preferred collecting porcelain to playing football. But he quickly found himself at home in his first job as assistant keeper of the Manchester City Art Gallery.

Presenter0:54

In his current position he's helped save Canava's famous sculpture The Three Graces for the nation and raised more than ten million pounds to prevent Botticelli's Madonna and Sleeping Child from going abroad. He confesses to a passion for his work that is quite un English. I like the spicy things of life, he says, mint with raspberries. He is the director of the National Galleries of Scotland, Timothy Clifford. What else appeals to this kind of un English palate of yours?

Sir Timothy Clifford1:22

Well, what I'm fascinated in is seeing works of art in their natural habitat. We are all thrilled by seeing birds and animals in their natural habitat. And we don't like to see things stuffed or things having their heads chopped off and displayed on walls. And it's the same way as with works of art. I want to see works of art in all their glory, in their proper context.

Presenter1:43

What does that mean?

Sir Timothy Clifford1:44

Well, what that really means is that if you're looking at a picture by, for example, Caravaggio, I don't want to see the Caravaggio sitting in a picture gallery on a white wall hung at belly button level. I actually want to see that doing its job properly in a church, sitting in a chapel properly lit with all the context round about it, so one actually necessarily goes down on one's knees in front of it and venerates it.

Presenter2:05

But how can you do that in a gallery?

Sir Timothy Clifford2:06

It's really difficult.

Presenter2:07

Because as you say, a lot of them would have been seen from way below. I mean, like the Sistine Chapel, actually.

Sir Timothy Clifford2:11

No, but you know you you you have awful problems about trying to do this, but you at least make some effort, some gesture in the direction of trying to provide something of the right environment for the things, actually making the things sing, really going for it.

Presenter2:25

But you can get into trouble, can't you? And you have. Certain of your critics, I think, have said that once you'd you did some rehanging in the National Gallery of Scotland and they they said you'd made it look like a Tarte's boudoir.

Sir Timothy Clifford2:27

Certain of your

Sir Timothy Clifford2:32

The

Sir Timothy Clifford2:35

Can't do anything wrong with that, can you?

Sir Timothy Clifford2:37

That depends whether tart had good taste, doesn't it?

Sir Timothy Clifford2:41

But no, getting back to I mean I was criticised like that.

Presenter2:44

But what had you done? You'd sort of covered the wall with the water.

Sir Timothy Clifford2:46

All I had done was done what I thought was a thoroughly respectable and honourable thing to do. I had actually gone back to the history of the building, found out how the hack the pictures were originally hung, and redecorated the building exactly the way it looked when it was opened in the eighteen fifties, and re hung it in a very similar manner.

Presenter3:02

But what that means is you had bright green carpet.

Sir Timothy Clifford3:04

To Yelp.

Presenter3:04

Geranium pink pedestals, lots of shiny furniture and baubles about the place, and pictures from the top of the ceiling down to the bottom floor.

Sir Timothy Clifford3:12

No, I'll tell you precisely. The reason for it was it was a man called David Ramsay Hay, who was known as the first intellectual house painter, and he applied an interest in optics to the hanging of pictures. And in fact, he came to a very similar result to um Bernardo Bontalenti, who did precise the same sort of thing in the Tribuna of the Uffizzi in Florence. He had a green floor and he had red walls in the late sixteenth century.

Presenter3:13

Bless you, but

Presenter3:38

I can hear the Italian coming through all the time. You really should have been born Italian, shouldn't you?

Sir Timothy Clifford3:40

Sorry.

Sir Timothy Clifford3:42

Chinese, I wish I had been, in some ways.

Presenter3:43

In some ways. Is it true that as a small boy you took your parents on a on a guided tour of Rome and you'd never been there before?

Sir Timothy Clifford3:49

Uh I've never been there before. No, but you see, the thing is, Rome is one of those cities that belongs to all of us, all sort of, dare I say, civilized human beings. They must know about Rome before they've been there.

Presenter3:59

Italian Music 2 coming up tell me about your first record.

Sir Timothy Clifford4:02

It's a celleste aida, which is a most moving and beautiful piece of of singing, sung by Placido Domingo, and I think this particular record is a a total delight.

Speaker 44:14

Achieve that your sword.

Speaker 44:34

Have each other soul for trust.

Speaker 44:56

Peace the Lord of your life.

Presenter5:13

Placido Domingo singing Celeste Aida from Act One of Verde's Aida with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra conducted by James Levine. Marvellous piece of music, marvellous piece of theatre. Doesn't that touch you much more directly and immediately than a piece of visual art can? Music. Music kind of hits you really

Sir Timothy Clifford5:28

Nezel

Sir Timothy Clifford5:30

It's easier. It gets the emotions quicker. It's it's ecstatic in the way that paintings take a bit of time. And what I want the picture of. Can paintings make you cry? Paintings oh they certainly can make me cry. And I'm always going to a picture hoping to be in that state of ecstatic bliss where actually cold water trickles down my spine.

Presenter5:37

The camp paintings make you cry.

Presenter5:48

But do you think people can get that coming to a gallery? Because after all, you've got all these other people moving around and it's the middle of the day. It's not like being in a darkened opera house or whatever, is it?

Sir Timothy Clifford5:57

And people in Britain are terrified of showing their emotions. I remember one years ago when I used to be at the Victorian Abbey Museum, it was so enchanting because there was a big Buddha which was um out in the garden, and I saw it I mean, an Oriental gentleman actually kneeling in front of us and praying in front of the Buddha, and I thought, How wonderful to see that happening And

Presenter6:12

Oh.

Sir Timothy Clifford6:14

That's what I want people to do. I want people to react.

Sir Timothy Clifford6:18

with all their heart and mind and souls to these objects. It's so sad. We're such a constipated race, aren't we, don't you think, in a funn in a funny sort of way? And you know, we really must let ourselves go as far as works of art goes.

Presenter6:29

Because the other thing that turns you on, I think I'm right, is saying and you're well known for your acquisitions. You you spot something and you want it. Is that an excitement as well? Do you suddenly spot did you see that botticelli and think, I've got to have it?

Sir Timothy Clifford6:30

The tenth.

Sir Timothy Clifford6:34

Yeah.

Sir Timothy Clifford6:42

Yeah, sheer greed. It's it's it's uh appalling greed. But on the other hand, you see, I believe passionately that that works of art are all very well in photographs, but you've really got to have the real thing. And

Sir Timothy Clifford6:54

A work of art is rather like a battery. It has a huge amount of power.

Presenter6:58

But can you personally be as turned on by something very simple, like a kind of paste buckle?'Cause you it's not just great works of art, is it, that you like?

Sir Timothy Clifford7:07

Oh no, I love little things as well. No, anything that that that stimulates the eye.

Presenter7:08

Well no.

Presenter7:11

What would you say then is the cleverest find that you've ever made? Have you ever snatched a treasure from underneath the noses of the experts because you recognized it and they didn't?

Sir Timothy Clifford7:20

Got it, I mean I'm afraid there'd been quite a lot of those sort of things. Yes, I mean, not very long ago we bought a very beautiful Bernini drawing, which was um wrongly attributed, and we bought it for, relatively speaking, a song.

Presenter7:29

But what happened? You went in and spotted it, did you?

Sir Timothy Clifford7:29

What happened?

Sir Timothy Clifford7:31

Well, yes. I mean, dare I say, it was an obvious thing. I couldn't understand why why nobody spotted what it was, and everybody now has agreed that it is. But that's fun doing that sort of thing.

Presenter7:39

Next week. Next record.

Sir Timothy Clifford7:41

Well the next record is um The Rolling Stones singing Get Off of My Cloud, which is throbbing with life and vitality, and I think so wonderful with it.

Speaker 47:55

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 48:06

In Cookie Alpha My

Speaker 48:10

Easy out of the mouth.

Presenter8:19

The Rolling Stones and Get Off of My Cloud. Um you were apparently a bit of a misfit at school. I suppose because you hadn't had many friends in your childhood, hadn't you? No, I wasn't.

Sir Timothy Clifford8:27

No, I was brought up in the country. I was brought up in the country with absolutely no friends to play with whatsoever.

Presenter8:32

Why not?

Sir Timothy Clifford8:32

Ah well, we lived in the dare I say, we lived at the end of a drive, if you understand what I mean, and there weren't many around. And I was terribly interested in natural history, and I bird watched, and I butterfly collected, and I was in my own private little world, incredibly happy.

Presenter8:48

Okay.

Sir Timothy Clifford8:48

You look as though you don't believe me.

Presenter8:50

No, no, I'm I'm listening. I'm trying to get a picture of you because

Sir Timothy Clifford8:52

This source is self-sufficient.

Presenter8:53

It just sounds a bit lonely, that's all. But then I gather you had a book called A Hundred Things for a Boy to Make and Do and you made and did them all.

Sir Timothy Clifford9:00

Well brother, you know, yeah, that was the sort of thing, yeah, fossil collecting. But, you know, the world

Presenter9:01

Yeah.

Presenter9:04

That

Sir Timothy Clifford9:04

Yes. Yeah.

Presenter9:05

The

Sir Timothy Clifford9:05

So exhilarating, it's so fascinating.

Presenter9:07

But you knew about Paul?

Sir Timothy Clifford9:08

Very early on, yes. Well, I moved into Porsten very early on because I moved from naturally beautiful objects, whether one was collecting shells or what it happened to be, to m moving into porcelain, and then trying to identify the different varieties of Porsten. And it was all to do with handling the objects. And I remember, you know, my f my my my parents were interested in the visual arts as well, and I used to be, you know, given a mice and cup or whatever it happened to be, and you'd lie up in bed at night with your eyes shut, feeling sounds immensely odd, feeling saucers and cups, and feeling the foot rims, and feeling the handles, and getting a feeling between the soft paste porcetin and the hard paste porcelain, and one is warmer and one is colder. One I mean, soft paste porcelain is immensely sensuous stuff, hard-paste porcelain is very frigid.

Presenter9:08

Mm

Presenter9:50

And your your father encouraged all of this, did he? This is what he felt.

Sir Timothy Clifford9:52

Yes, did he? This is what he thought.

Sir Timothy Clifford9:56

Absolutely. The essence of working in museums, and what saddens me nowadays is that there's so little of it goes on.

Presenter10:01

But was he a connoisseur, your father? What were his interests?

Sir Timothy Clifford10:03

I had to compete with my papa because my father was a writer and I was brought up with him living at home and writing books.

Speaker 310:12

About what?

Sir Timothy Clifford10:13

about anything that came along. I mean, I remember remember on one occasion my mother was asked what is Derek writing about now? And I think she said, Oh, I think it might be wind instruments of the Eskimos.

Sir Timothy Clifford10:23

But he was, you know, have pen, will write. I quote number three.

Sir Timothy Clifford10:27

I love military music. When we were living in London we couldn't miss the Trooping of the Colour, and I think one of the most staring things of all is the band of the Coast Dream Guards playing their regimental slow march. One wants to feel the crunch of the gravel under their feet and see their bearskins and their scarlet tunics. It's magic.

Presenter11:37

The band of the Coldstream Guards playing their regimental slow march, better known to some as Nonpien Drive, from Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro. Um you'd like to have been a soldier, I suspect, Timothy Clifford, yes?

Sir Timothy Clifford11:49

Might be the

Presenter11:49

Believe senior officer.

Sir Timothy Clifford11:53

I'd have loved to have been involved in actually fighting a battle and trying to work out how to it was like an elaborate game of chess. I wouldn't have liked to have been a mem member of the other ranks, I don't think.

Presenter12:02

Let's go back to you at school. You apparently took up boxing at school. Which seems very odd for a chap who liked collecting butterflies and touching mice and porcelain.

Sir Timothy Clifford12:11

I had to do something violent. Partly I had to do something violently because I couldn't stand my housemaster.

Sir Timothy Clifford12:17

Maybe he's not listening.

Sir Timothy Clifford12:19

And so, therefore, I had to get it out of my system, the aggression. And that's why I bought it.

Presenter12:25

Well, you had to prove you could be aggressive, is that?

Sir Timothy Clifford12:27

Oh yes, because basically I was interested in what you might think were very effeminate things. I mean I got into I in the most amusing situation now we had to do open boxing competitions and I found myself f fighting the captain at boxing and I beat him. And that appalled everybody because I was very unconventional, as you can well imagine. But I was very determined and the poor chap didn't know what hit him.

Presenter12:49

How else were you naughty other than knocking out the captain of Boxing?

Sir Timothy Clifford12:52

There are all kinds of crazy situations like on one occasion I remember there was a found on what's known as the open space, which is the area where we used to read our newspapers, there was found a dried sea horse.

Sir Timothy Clifford13:04

And we were asked, did anybody leave a dried seahorse in the open space? Well, of course, I owned up.

Sir Timothy Clifford13:10

Well, that's the sort of thing one does carry round in one's pocket, isn't it? And I was summoned to the bootroom and told that that's your third house punishment, till you're going to be beaten.

Presenter13:19

Good

Sir Timothy Clifford13:19

Yeah.

Presenter13:19

So you so you got out before you were chucked out, basically?

Sir Timothy Clifford13:19

I mean

Sir Timothy Clifford13:22

Probably.

Presenter13:24

So from Sherburn School in Dorset you went to Perugia University for a while in in your beloved Italy, and then you went to study at the Courtauld Institute in London. How easily did you get in there?

Sir Timothy Clifford13:34

Oh, that was no problem. I was interviewed by Anthony Blunt, the famous spy, who was utterly enchanting, as you can well imagine. And there was Dr. Janetki as well, the two of us interviewed me, and we just never stopped talking about art. And as I was going downstairs, Anthony turned to him and said, Shall we put it Timothy out of his agony? So I I said I wasn't in any agony. He said, Well, you're you've got a place there if you want it. Which is very nice. And I loved it. I mean, it was it was such fun because I was for the first time in my life a square peg in a square hole.

Presenter13:57

And I loved it.

Presenter14:02

Yes. And there you met your wife. There I met my wife. And then you got your first job i in in Manchester, as I said at the beginning. Of course the stereotype of Manchester always raining and so on, terribly unfair. But nevertheless, for a chap who

Sir Timothy Clifford14:04

There I met my wife

Sir Timothy Clifford14:08

Yes.

Presenter14:14

probably, I suspect, not really been north of Oxford, and who liked you know had a permanent love affair with Italy, liked seventeenth and eighteenth century. It was not a fit, was it? Must have been a bit of a face, I think.

Sir Timothy Clifford14:24

It was a face, I can tell you. It was a real facer. And I said to Jane, I mean, you know, this is going to be a very short term. We're going to be here. We didn't even buy a house or buy a flat or do anything like that. We stayed in a hotel. And we moved from one hotel to another because I knew perfectly well it was in just a matter of moments before I moved. And in fact, that shows the arrogance of the young Clifford. I was there for about four and a half years, and I fell in love with it. Intellectually, it's the most thrilling place. There was a lot of theatre, there was an enormous amount of music. The Mancunians themselves were such fun as well. They loved to call a spade a bloody shovel, and I love them for that.

Presenter15:00

And in fact you went back as the boss later.

Sir Timothy Clifford15:02

I went back. I said I was going to come back as well. The last thing I said when I left was, I shall be back. Uh Uh

Presenter15:07

Next record.

Sir Timothy Clifford15:08

Well, the next one is the Kyrie from Palestrina's Missa Papale Marcelli. Palestrina.

Sir Timothy Clifford15:14

The great musician of the Counter Reformation and this particular piece of music an entirely appropriate background ready for the sublime works of art that were being produced in mid sixteenth century Rome.

Presenter16:21

The opening of the Kyrie from Palestrina's Missa Pape Marcelli, sung by the choir of King's College, Cambridge, conducted by David Wilcox, written What about the time that Michelangelo was painting?

Sir Timothy Clifford16:31

About the time yes, it's slightly ye no, it's it's within the three or four years of his death.

Presenter16:35

But you have no Michelangelo, and indeed you fail to get the one you are after.

Sir Timothy Clifford16:40

It is the saddest thing in the world. Now, as far as the National Galleries of Scotland is concerned, it has a very distinguished and substantial collection of old master drawings, and particularly good Italian drawings.

Sir Timothy Clifford16:51

When I arrived it needed the stars. It's like opera where you need to have, you know, the great singers as well. You have to pay for them as well. We all know that. And I managed with my staff to acquire two great Raphael drawings and a lovely double sided sheet by Leonardo. We had nothing by any of those artists, not just the National Gathering of Scotland, but nothing in the whole of Scotland. In fact, nothing in North Britain really by them. And then this wonderful Michelangelo sheet turned up. It's so moving and so wonderful.

Presenter17:17

Good condition too, because it's

Sir Timothy Clifford17:18

Fabulous. It's been sitting in an album for a long time. But it's so beautiful, this great shrouded figure of the Madonna, and I want to buy it so badly. Now, the National Art Collections Fund have given me the largest sum of money they've ever given for a drawing, but the Heritage Lottery Fund have decided not to give me any money at all.

Presenter17:35

But but all of that raising of money, and we know about getting it from heritage funds, lottery funds and so on and so on, but you get quite a bit as well from private people. I mean, you're

Sir Timothy Clifford17:44

Cool.

Presenter17:45

Dare I say good at the schmoozing, hm?

Sir Timothy Clifford17:48

Well, I tell you, the amount of times I'm disappointed, the amount of disasters I have, it's terribly, terribly hard work getting money. You need to be a professional mendicant rushing around with your bow begging like mad. And people are very generous to us, but gosh, one needs more money. I mean, the point is, we're we're coming out up on the outside flank fast, but we've got a long way to go.

Presenter18:02

I mean the

Presenter18:09

But it can be a very controversial business, this this making acquisitions. You've had a lot of stick for the the the botticelli you saved from being shipped to Texas a few years ago. Um some doubt was cast on the authenticity of it, wasn't it?

Sir Timothy Clifford18:22

It was only doubted by one person. Nobody else has ever doubted it, as far as I'm aware.

Presenter18:27

Can't you test it? Can't you prove it? Can't you analyse it?

Sir Timothy Clifford18:29

We don't have to prove it because everybody in the world who's interested in body jelly knows it's perfectly well by body jelly.

Presenter18:34

But of course the other criticism about that was how much money it cost what did it cost?

Sir Timothy Clifford18:37

It was equivalent to twenty three million dollars, and we had it eighteen days to do it in.

Presenter18:43

Uh

Sir Timothy Clifford18:43

But quite often

Presenter18:45

But quite often people say, Should you be spending that amount of money on these great treasures? Shouldn't you be spreading the load a little more?

Sir Timothy Clifford18:52

Well, in the first place, I couldn't find that amount of money for i for other things. And the second thing is, I mean

Sir Timothy Clifford18:58

It is an object of indescribable beauty, and we are all rejoicing in the fact that it's there. So, what do you say?

Presenter19:04

So what are you saying that the sort of people you you get money out of wouldn't put forward bits and bobs, they want to do one big one, do they?

Sir Timothy Clifford19:11

Well, sometimes, yes. I mean, everybody realized that this was something quite exceptional, and therefore they were prepared to find exceptional sums of money to to acquire this object.

Presenter19:19

And by golly, these great treasures bring in the visitors.

Sir Timothy Clifford19:22

And by golly they do, I tell you. You mean people come into the warding staff, the National Gallery, and they say, Where's the Botticelli? and you say, Well, it's in the third room on the right hand side, madam, you know, and away they go. They go in, they see it, and they come out again. They love it.

Sir Timothy Clifford19:35

Next piece of music. The next piece of music I I suppose might be dedicated to my daughter Pandora, who's getting married quite shortly. And it's Vare's Wedding, and it's played by Jimmy Shand and his band. It's a delightful reel, and it will remind me of endless jolly parties in Scotland reeling.

Presenter20:20

Bar is Wedding, played by Jimmy Shand and his band. You've got a portrait of Jimmy Shand, haven't you, in the portrait of the book?

Sir Timothy Clifford20:25

Yes, we were recently given it. It's a nice thing to have an image of uh such a distinguished musician.

Presenter20:30

Well, now I hate to put you through this bit again, Tim, but it would be wrong not to ask you about the Getty Gaff. Do you do you want to tell the story at all? Well, let me set the scene. It's nineteen ninety four, and you were part of a campaign to save the Three Graces, the cannabis sculpture, for the nation, and then you made a terrible blunder.

Sir Timothy Clifford20:46

Yup, you know, the what one's got to bear in mind I'm quite prepared to admit to it what one's got to bear in mind is that we all make slips from time to time, and politicians do it as well, so I'm told. And I've directed galleries now. I mean, this is, I think, seventeen years directing the National Gallery of Scotland, six and a half years directing Match City Art Gallery. If one makes the odd blunder in that period, most Prime Ministers have never been as long en post as that. And in this particular instance, what happened was

Presenter21:09

Shit.

Presenter21:12

It was a biggie.

Sir Timothy Clifford21:13

Well, it was a sort of a biggie. Yes, it was a sort of a biggie. Yes, you're quite right. Basically, what happened was that it was alleged by the press with alarming regularity all day when we acquired this work of art that the reason why Mr. Getty in those days, now Sir Paul Getty, had given this money to acquire the great sculpture, was because of some relationship to his father and wanted to stop the Getty Museum getting it. Well, either you ran the Getty Museum, who actually owned the Getty Museum, and all I did was every time somebody said, but surely the reason really why Sir Paul Getty or Mr. Getty is giving you this money is because of his relationship to his father, I repeatedly denied it and repeatedly denied it. And I think I had something like 26 interviews that day. And on about the 26th interview, I said, well, I suppose there might be an element of truth there. Wallop!

Presenter21:39

Who would actually own the get-mm-hmm?

Sir Timothy Clifford22:03

And I jumped straight into the elephant trap, you know, the heifer lung trap. And they were thrilled, it was on Reuters, on everything else like that. But then the awful thing was that Mr Getty then got in touch with me and sent me a fax. But you know, modern things. And said he wasn't gonna have

Presenter22:15

And said he wasn't going to hand over his million pounds.

Sir Timothy Clifford22:16

And every million pounds. No, nobody didn't say that. You see, I had it was a two-page fax, and I only got the first pa part of the page, you see. So I never knew what he was talking about, because I was meant to be having tea with him the following day. So I read this thing, and I thought everybody else was flapping and worrying, and I couldn't understand why they were flapping and worrying. And it was only when I was in London, just about to see Mr. Getty, that I was shown the second page. And I.

Sir Timothy Clifford22:38

and I almost fainted on the spot.

Presenter22:40

'Cause he said you're not having the million.

Sir Timothy Clifford22:41

Yeah, so then I went off and apologised profusely. And he was so total contrition.

Presenter22:45

Add a check.

Presenter22:47

Total contrition. No, you're very good at it. A lot of people

Sir Timothy Clifford22:49

I can't say that. I enormously admire him. He'd been terribly kind to me, and the last thing I wanted to do was to offend him or offend anybody in these circumstances. So therefore, okay, it goes down in history as Timothy Clifford's the man who creates regular gaffes.

Presenter22:49

I can't say sorry.

Presenter23:02

Yeah. Do you think it did actually stop you getting the V and A job the first time around, six years ago?

Sir Timothy Clifford23:08

I think probably they would have preferred to appoint a cleaner rather than me for that job. I've no idea. But no, I mean I hope it wasn't for that reason, but it wouldn't be very foolish if it was something other as small as that.

Presenter23:19

But you did say the three graces. We did.

Sir Timothy Clifford23:21

Did.

Presenter23:21

You got the dosh in the end, but

Sir Timothy Clifford23:23

Very quickly.

Presenter23:24

That

Sir Timothy Clifford23:25

Very, very quickly. It taken years and years and years, dare I say, for other people to try and raise the money, and we got it in weeks.

Presenter23:30

And now those three marble bottoms are currently in the V and A.

Sir Timothy Clifford23:34

Best bottoms in the business.

Presenter23:35

I gather they send you postcards from time to time.

Sir Timothy Clifford23:37

They adore me. And they're very sorry to be in London, because there's been a cold spot down here in London, and up in Scotland it's been nice and warm, and they much prefer living in Scotland, I tell you.

Presenter23:47

More music

Sir Timothy Clifford23:48

Um we're back to Italy again. It was entirely appropriate because, after all, the three graces were carved in Rome.

Sir Timothy Clifford23:53

Not very far away from here. They this is uh Maria Callas as Tosca uh and uh Giuseppe Di Stefano as Carradosi, singing their first duet in Puccini's opera, and uh this is uh again an incredibly tense and moving piece of uh uh of music.

Speaker 424:13

Uh

Speaker 424:33

Peculiar sadness.

Speaker 424:41

Ati Parlovi, Altre Parlovi, Spilovi. Of it.

Sir Timothy Clifford24:53

Yeah.

Presenter25:11

Maria Callis as Tosca, and Giuseppe di Stefano as Cavaradossi, singing their first duet from Puccini's opera with the orchestra and chorus of La Scala Milan, conducted by Victor de Sabata.

Presenter25:22

Um

Presenter25:23

I'm sorry, I'm going to make you feel awkward yet again, Tim, because you just recently lost out again on this V and A job to Mark Jones in the race for it. Your wife is reported to as having said that you were gutted. I suppose that's true, really. You really wanted that job.

Sir Timothy Clifford25:39

I did really want it because I felt I was born for it in a funny sort of way. You know, all my life, you know, you prepare yourself for things, and I have worked my way round the Museum world with Merchants

Sir Timothy Clifford25:50

British Museum, uh V and A.

Sir Timothy Clifford25:54

Edinburgh, National Garries of Scotland.

Sir Timothy Clifford25:56

passionately interested in the fine arts, but equally really, really thrilled by dec you know, the decorative arts. I'm really interested. I've written about textiles, I've written about metalwork, I've written about sculpture, I've bought all these things over the years and I really felt I knew what I was doing and I, you know, I love that museum with a passion. So therefore yeah, I suppose it would have been a lovely last five years of my life, you know,'cause I we have to retire at the age of sixty, as we know.

Sir Timothy Clifford26:21

But on the other hand, you know, you can't achieve more of a lot in five years. I've got a marvelous time.

Presenter26:25

But what would you have done with it? That's what I'd like to know. Brian Sewell, for example, has described it as a rudderless leviathan.

Sir Timothy Clifford26:32

Well, I would have doubled the attendance figures in probably eighteen months.

Presenter26:35

How?

Sir Timothy Clifford26:35

By girding my staff together and enthusing them about what was going on and making people realize the applied arts are worth looking at. The mistake they have made repeatedly is trying to sell themselves as a South Kensington institution next door to the what was the Geological Museum and the Science Museum and the Electricity Museum. They're the wrong clients. The right client base is the National Gallery and the British Museum and the Tate Gallery, because the Applied Arts are, to me, one and the same as the fine arts. And those museums are

Sir Timothy Clifford27:06

have huge attendance figures. I mean, the British Museum and the National Gallery have very large attendance figures. The V and A has a disgracefully low attendance figures. But, I tell you, they've got the most delightful person in Mark Jones, and I can't think of a better person. He'd probably be a far better director than I am.

Sir Timothy Clifford27:23

And I'm hoping he'll be a great success, and I'm sure he will, because the important thing is that the VA is a success story.

Presenter27:29

So what are you going to do with the last five years of your professional career?

Sir Timothy Clifford27:32

I want the National Galleries of Scotland to have

Sir Timothy Clifford27:35

A great reputation for buying works of art, a great reputation for showing works of art, a great reputation for education.

Sir Timothy Clifford27:42

I want it to be bigger and bigger and bigger and better and better and better, and, for its size, I want it to be the greatest art gallery in the world.

Presenter27:51

Seventh record.

Sir Timothy Clifford27:52

really how one can actually have eight records without having all eight by Mozart, God alone knows, because I adore him so much. And I've chosen here this Thomas Allen as the Don and Marie McLaughlin as Zelina, singing their duet from Act One of Mozart's Don Giovanni. It's so moving and so beautiful.

Speaker 428:26

Or next one song

Speaker 428:30

I need to run

Speaker 428:45

Media

Speaker 429:05

Your talent was

Presenter29:09

Thomas Allen as the Don, and Marie McLaughlin as Zelina, singing their duet L'Achi d'Arim Lamano from Act One of Mozart's Don Giovanni, with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, conducted by Sir Neville Mariner. You seem to me, Tim Clifford, to be both suited and unsuited to life alone on a desert island. Suited because

Presenter29:26

You don't mind being unhappy, do you, in the sense that you like less than happy things?

Sir Timothy Clifford29:32

I love less than happy things. You know, for example, Pietouse are the most moving and wonderful things. The thing that really annoys me is is happy pictures, like, for example, that ghastly picture by Franz House of the Laughing Cavalier, who I'd love to sort of throw a potato at or something. He's so frightful. Um but you know, I there's something austere and grand about art, which I think that smiling is the is the wrong thing for it, absolutely wrong.

Presenter29:54

But you'd be very good in the wild, all that training as a boy, you know, not frightened of

Sir Timothy Clifford29:57

Yeah.

Presenter29:58

knocking something on the head and cutting it up and eating it or something.

Sir Timothy Clifford30:02

None at all. Absolutely no way. And actually, I've been trying to work out how I'd handle this situation. I'm hoping that this desert nobody's actually perhaps they have, but they haven't asked about the desert island. Is it assumed that this desert island has never been inhabited before? Because I think one would do a little bit of digging and one might find some wonderful things on this desert island as well. So, therefore, a bit of archaeology would be involved. And of course, but I'm interested in falconry. And so I would probably try and capture a bird of prey and then actually teach it to behave itself properly. And then it would go off and do all my catching other things for me. There's a wonderful book by T. H. White called The Goshawk, which tells you about how he had a goshawk and trained it very badly. And in fact, he was thrown out of the British Falcony Club because of that book, because all the ways he was doing it were entirely wrong. But no, falconry would be wonderful for me. Butterflies, birds. I would have to write the classic flora and fauna of the island. I'd have to compile that.

Presenter30:54

But on the other hand, all those things would make it perfectly good for you on a desert island. But on the other hand, you would do.

Sir Timothy Clifford30:54

Yeah.

Sir Timothy Clifford30:57

If you want to desert

Presenter30:59

The fine things of life.

Sir Timothy Clifford31:01

I had

Sir Timothy Clifford31:05

Uh

Presenter31:06

It will never be.

Sir Timothy Clifford31:06

You're quite right. I love drinking out of mugs. I think they're revoting. But they're.

Presenter31:10

So how are you going to cope in life in the raw on this island?

Sir Timothy Clifford31:13

With a little bit of difficulty, I suppose. I'm not very practical in some respects, I must admit. I'm particularly not very practical as far as things like, for example, whether I shall ever be able to put my C D's or my records on, God alone knows, but I normally expect somebody else to do things like that. But as far as trapping things and eating things are concerned, yes, I suppose I'll be right. And I mean, I was a Boy Scout once upon a time. I'd rub two sticks together and get flames and things like that. And I can do all that sort of thing. So I'm just.

Presenter31:36

So opt optimism to the fore, really. You you'd be okay. It seems to me you always get a good gloss on whatever happens. I mean, as we say, you've had some bumpy times, been in some tight spots, but

Sir Timothy Clifford31:40

I don't know.

Presenter31:47

Somehow you come out smiling still.

Sir Timothy Clifford31:49

Gosh, yes, one has some lows as well as highs, I tell you.

Sir Timothy Clifford31:53

The

Presenter31:53

That's very cool.

Sir Timothy Clifford31:54

Well, the last record is um again rather sad, I suppose, and couldn't be more sad. It's Siegfried's funeral march from Act Three of Wagner's Gottadamerum. You have the feeling of the ravens and Valhalla and there's grandeur here and there's

Sir Timothy Clifford32:10

Tremendous spirituality. It's a moving piece of music.

Presenter33:12

Siegfried's funeral march from Act Three of Wagner's Goethe Demerung, played by the Vienna Philharmonic conducted by Sir George Schulte. Now, if you could only take one of those eight records, Tim, which one would you take?

Sir Timothy Clifford33:23

It'd be very, very difficult, but I think I'd take uh the

Sir Timothy Clifford33:27

Mozart, Don Giovanni, the whole of the opera.

Presenter33:29

Why?

Sir Timothy Clifford33:30

Well, I just think that Mozart is sensational. There's such tremendous variety within Don Giovanni of music and voices and ideas and spirit that I think it would be like a man for all seasons, and so many different things would be entirely appropriate for the days as one was living on that desert island.

Presenter33:46

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

Sir Timothy Clifford33:49

I want again something now that's going to be a long read,'cause I'm expecting not to be discovered on this desertine for quite a long time,'cause I'm going to have fun out there. I wonder what I might have something like, for example, Pruthes la Recherche de Temperdieu, or yeah, that'd be all right, that'd be very satisfactory.

Presenter34:04

And your luxury

Sir Timothy Clifford34:05

True.

Sir Timothy Clifford34:06

I don't think it's a luxury, I think it is an essential thing, but there's a very beautiful casket, I don't know if you know, by Giovanni Bernardi, and it was made for Paul the Third's grandson. It's the most beautiful casket you've ever seen in your life, and it's a sort of useful box to keep things in, and I would keep things in it, so I want not only the box, which will be a delight, because it's a magnificent example of Renaissance craftsmanship, but inside it I think I will have a ravishing small group of sixteenth century and fifteenth century Italian drawings, which I can leaf through from time to time in the shade.

Presenter34:43

Timothy Clifford, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your Desert Island Discs.

Sir Timothy Clifford34:46

Thank you very much.

Speaker 334:54

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