Wayne Marshall

Speaker 20:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in two thousand and two, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:30

My Castaway this week is a musician. He specializes in keyboard instruments, organ and piano, but in fact he appears to be able to play and do almost anything musical. He conducts, composes, and improvises. His repertoire ranges from Bach to Gershwin.

Presenter0:46

He was born in Oldham, to where his parents had emigrated from Barbados. At the age of nine, he was asked to play a chord on the organ in his local church to give the school choir their note. It was a simple, life-changing moment, from which he was propelled forward to Cheatham School in Manchester, the Royal College of Music, Organ Scholar at St George's Chapel, Windsor, and the Vienna Hochschule. Out of all of that emerged a virtuoso who never ceases to bewilder and delight in his versatility. Currently organist in residence at Manchester's Bridgewater Hall, he spends the rest of his time working with the world's great orchestras, or giving recitals. Music is a language, he says. Music making is a mother tongue for me. He is Wayne Marshall. And it's a language which you learned entirely instinctively, Wayne. Nobody taught you, you just found you could communicate in it.

Wayne Marshall1:36

It seemed to happen that way. I mean, it was you know, I was very young, I was three.

Wayne Marshall1:41

My mother was having piano lessons.

Wayne Marshall1:44

I was fascinated by what she was doing and would always interrupt her practice sessions and would always somehow tell her that she was playing wrong notes, because I'd remembered.

Wayne Marshall1:54

Yeah, I could hear it.

Presenter1:54

You could just hear it. Yeah, I could hear it. You had perfect pitch, although nobody would have known.

Wayne Marshall1:57

Yeah, that was it. And I remembered how she played it the first time, and then she played it differently the second time. Oh, it was wrong.

Wayne Marshall2:02

I didn't start having piano lessons until I was seven, and that was hard because I imagined my piano lessons would be exactly like how I could play.

Wayne Marshall2:11

Right.

Wayne Marshall2:13

Because I had to learn about

Wayne Marshall2:16

Note values, rhythm, the theoretical side of music.

Wayne Marshall2:20

And it was confusing.

Presenter2:21

Because you'd been sitting down just playing, hadn't you? When had you first actually sat down and played a whole piece?

Wayne Marshall2:23

When had you

Presenter2:27

What what age and when?

Wayne Marshall2:28

Or I must have been about five, you know, four or five.

Wayne Marshall2:31

simple things like hymn tunes or, you know, that kind of thing. And or I could just listen to what my mother was doing and and and recreate what she was doing.

Presenter2:41

But she or her teacher must have been amazed you could do this at such a young age.

Wayne Marshall2:45

I think so. I think so. I remember one lesson which I attended with my mother. It wasn't a terribly good lesson for her because it was a final lesson before an exam and I'd been listening to these pieces.

Wayne Marshall2:55

And then the piano teacher took her out into the next room, and I just got up on the piano and played all these pieces.

Wayne Marshall3:01

From beginning to end. Perfectly, I think. And teacher rushed in and said, What's the what's what's going on here? I think I must have been about five or something.

Presenter3:09

And you were playing them with two hands, both hands.

Wayne Marshall3:10

Two hands, both hands.

Presenter3:12

And how d you just entirely by ear.

Wayne Marshall3:14

Just by ear. Totally by ear.

Presenter3:17

But then they got you playing at your school, didn't they? Didn't you play in school assemblies? Yeah. Really quite tiny.

Wayne Marshall3:20

Yeah.

Wayne Marshall3:22

Yes, I used to play for, you know, the morning assemblies and I enjoyed that. It's play playing a hib tune or a little playing a little beast to walk out to.

Wayne Marshall3:29

But then the difficulty was

Wayne Marshall3:31

Getting me away from the piano.

Presenter3:33

Pleasant.

Wayne Marshall3:33

Yes, because I just wanted to sit down and play the piano all day.

Presenter3:37

But what you really liked, as as I understand it about it, was not just the music, you liked performance, you liked being on the platform in the school assembly, didn't you?

Wayne Marshall3:45

Oh, very much so, very much so. We because we'd we had been performing a lot I mean, I say we, I mean I have a I have two sisters, but uh Melny was around then, of of course, she's older. And one of our first performing experiences was at the Oldham Music Festival, and we performed a couple of pieces, Melny sang one piece.

Wayne Marshall4:04

And there must have been about, what, six, seven hundred people there?

Wayne Marshall4:09

But it was not a problem for us. We just sort of got up there and performed and that was it. That's what turns you on? That's what turns me on, yeah.

Wayne Marshall4:16

Tell me about your first record.

Wayne Marshall4:18

The first record is um is the

Wayne Marshall4:21

Gertrude Piano Concerto in F major, and it's a piece which I heard when I was about seven years old. I remember hearing it on a rather crackly medium wave radio at home.

Wayne Marshall4:31

And, you know, my first impressions of this music was something like

Wayne Marshall4:35

You know, this is actually great music, and it is something that I want to discover.

Presenter5:39

The opening of the final movement of Gershwin's piano concerto in F played by Andrei Previn, who also conducts there the London Symphony Orchestra. That sounded quite fast to me. You say it's pretty slow compared with the way you do it.

Wayne Marshall5:48

Yeah.

Wayne Marshall5:50

Well, you know, I mean it's it's a matter of opinion. Yeah, I do play it quite a bit faster, you know, of course. Orchestras tend to sort of struggle with me, but

Wayne Marshall5:58

It's such a great recording. I mean, we can't dispute that at all.

Presenter6:00

But w we should make the point that you've become one of the foremost performers and interpreters of Gershwin's work, so the way you do it these days is probably done.

Wayne Marshall6:08

Well it's a little different but I can't you know, I mean you know it's it's just

Presenter6:12

But it's interesting, isn't it, that Gershwin hit your spot really quite early on, as you described, because he sits at the kind of interface, doesn't he, between classical music and jazz, which is kind of where you are too, or like to be on occasions, anyway.

Wayne Marshall6:25

Yes, it's just it's just strange in a way. I mean, because I just knew what I heard.

Wayne Marshall6:31

Gershon's music at a very young age, that I just knew that this was music that I was going to be performing a lot of. And you've recorded. Well well not not all, but quite a lot of it. And the scores of Gertrude's music are really like jazz charts. So you've got to i to use a different way of interpreting this music in a way that is totally different from say a Beethoven symphony. Because i i it's the feel factor that's not written into the score. I mean you can't really notate jazz. And so it's really up to me to to try to

Wayne Marshall7:00

Get the feel factor over to the orchestra. And that's a that's a challenge which I really enjoy when I'm when when I'm working with

Presenter7:05

But if you're going to do that, and you've made this point, you've got to have a kind of natural internal compass, haven't you? You've got to know where you're going to have the confidence to

Presenter7:15

Well, improvise really is what you're saying, on on something that is written down and well known, like Rhapsody in Blue, for example.

Wayne Marshall7:21

Yeah, it's y yes, I mean uh don't get me wrong, I mean it's that uh of course all the notes are there, but I mean it's just that it's it's how you interpret the feel in the music. That's the hard thing. And of course, you know, with with classical musicians they're going to play exactly what's in the score. But sometimes in Gershon's music it's not really w how it should be interpreted. It's something beyond that.

Presenter7:42

Hmm.

Wayne Marshall7:42

And that's the thing I found I find very challenging.

Presenter7:45

Isn't it in fact the case that that with Rhapsody in Blue he improvised it himself, he didn't write it down, did he? The piano plot.

Wayne Marshall7:49

Did you hear that? The piano part, of course, with Rhapsody Blue was not written down at all. I mean, I can just imagine that first performance. I mean, it must have been quite frenetic and everybody on the edge of their seats. But in some ways, when I think about that, that's the kind of energy I like to bring to the piece when I perform it too, and especially if I'm conducting it, because it has that kind of air of improvisation and spontaneity.

Wayne Marshall8:11

And it has to it it there's nothing there's nothing set in stone about the piece.

Presenter8:15

Of course, um Gershwin has a very special place in in the story of your rise to fame, as it were, because it was in nineteen eighty six, wasn't it, that you went to audition at Blindbourne. You actually went to play for your sister in front of Simon Rattle for a part in Porgy and Bess, yeah.

Wayne Marshall8:27

Mm-hmm.

Wayne Marshall8:30

Yeah.

Presenter8:31

And

Wayne Marshall8:31

Yeah.

Presenter8:31

Uh

Wayne Marshall8:31

Melanie, my sister, asked me to go down in and and play for her. I said, Oh, yeah, I'm free, I'll I'll go down and they immediately liked Melanie, but they were very interested in in me as as a pianist because they needed an on stage pianist.

Presenter8:43

Jasper Brown

Wayne Marshall8:44

They're brown. And so I was given the music and just told to go off and look at it for an hour or so and then they they brought me back in the room and then I just played it to them. And then the rest is history.

Presenter8:55

And you've since conducted it yourself at the proms and played jazz bow brands. You get off the podium, put the hat on, sit at the piano.

Wayne Marshall9:02

Yeah, I started it, I started it and then uh I donned hat, you know, the bowler hat and then played the solo and then conducted the chorus and then orchestra, then the evening just took off.

Presenter9:11

Yeah.

Wayne Marshall9:12

It's my part it's my part, yes.

Presenter9:16

Record number two, tell me about this one.

Wayne Marshall9:17

Now we move to the organ and uh great American virtuoso Virgil Fox, who I remember hearing

Wayne Marshall9:24

At school.

Wayne Marshall9:26

Just the way he played.

Wayne Marshall9:28

It was so

Wayne Marshall9:30

different from anything I'd heard before. It was as if Virgil Fox was improvising this piece.

Wayne Marshall9:38

It just made such a a great impression on me and and of course it's it's the scherzo to Louis Vienne's second organ symphony, which was the the great piece.

Speaker 410:27

Yeah.

Presenter10:45

The opening of the third movement of Vienne's Organ Symphony No. Two, played by Virgil Fox and a champion organist and hero of my castaway, Wayne Marshall. Apparently he he used to tour, I think this was back in the fifties, and he would give a little talk before he played, which again is something you do, isn't it? You like to communicate with the audience first.

Wayne Marshall11:03

Yeah, I'm very much into that sort of thing because I think that

Wayne Marshall11:07

The music needs to be shared with people.

Wayne Marshall11:10

And I think that in a concert hall situation you always get this feeling of the performer.

Wayne Marshall11:15

and the audience, and there's nothing in between. So I think it's important to talk about the pieces. There's always one one person in the audience who's probably never been to an organ recital or an orchestral concert or a piano recital, and it's really to that person I'm speaking to. So I I never assume that people know what the music is about.

Presenter11:32

It's al also very important from an organist point of view because the sound is often disembodied, isn't it? Because you can't see the musician, you can't see you tucked up in the organ loft there.

Wayne Marshall11:42

Yeah, I mean this is a lot of the problems of course in cathedrals because the organ, the pipes are visible, but the actual console, that's that's a place where you play the instrument, is hidden. So it's important in a way to t for the audience to have some kind of visual contact of the player.

Presenter11:56

So you're an unashamed populariser, that's it.

Wayne Marshall11:58

Absolutely.

Presenter11:59

Absolutely.

Presenter12:00

But tell me about that moment when you first played the chord on the organ that I mentioned in the introduction, when you were nine years old. The scene is All Saints' Church, Oldham, it's Christmas in the late sixties, and the teacher says, Wayne, go play a chord.

Wayne Marshall12:14

Well, it was a an amazing experience to me. I mean, of course I was always attending church with my parents every Sunday, and hearing this instrument. But I mean, to be in the church with the school

Wayne Marshall12:24

And then I remember the moment when my music teacher said, Look, please go and give me a chord on the organ, and I sort of trotted up to the organ.

Wayne Marshall12:31

and uh didn't know what to do with this instrument, and just pulled one of these knobs, as I used to call them, and played this chord.

Wayne Marshall12:39

And then sat down on the bench, and then I thought, my goodness, this is a fascinating instrument, and saw immediately that the pedal board beneath me was a large keyboard. Could you feel

Presenter12:49

Could your feet reach the

Wayne Marshall12:49

Just about, just about. To get me away from it was very difficult, as you can as you can well imagine. Having been that close up to it, I mean, that was really the first time I'd been that close up to it.

Wayne Marshall13:00

So it was fascinating.

Presenter13:02

And you were hooked.

Presenter13:03

Next piece of music, number three.

Wayne Marshall13:06

When I was at Chet's I was always known as the the as the person who always hated p pop music. In fact, I really did hate it. I never used to atte attend parties or anything like that. So it was a th particular Thursday evening. I'd been out to a normal cashfield concert and returned back to school. It was quite late, about I think about quarter to ten or something. And there's a party going on up in the boarding area.

Wayne Marshall13:28

And I heard this music.

Wayne Marshall13:30

And of course I immediately rushed upstairs to know what on earth it was.

Wayne Marshall13:35

And you can imagine it when I walked upstairs, everybody says, Oh, look, it's Wayne Marshall, he's come to he's come to the party, what's he doing here? And of course I sort of was in there just listening and transfixed and

Wayne Marshall13:44

walked up to the record player and uh said, What was that piece of music?

Wayne Marshall13:48

Was it?

Wayne Marshall13:49

So it's uh yes Stevie Wonder, I Wish.

Speaker 413:53

Then you won't just fool while

Wayne Marshall13:53

Well

Speaker 413:59

Mama gives you money before Sunday school

Speaker 414:04

Trade just for Canada, have to turn the screw, smoking cigarettes, writing something nasty on the wall.

Speaker 414:14

You nasty boy!

Speaker 414:17

He just sent it to the principal's office down the hall.

Presenter14:23

So it was Stevie Wonder and I Wish that converted Ewane to popular music jazz funk in that

Wayne Marshall14:27

Jazz

Wayne Marshall14:28

Totally, yeah, absolutely. I mean, I remember, you know, saying to the guy

Presenter14:28

Top

Wayne Marshall14:32

I've got to boil that record. I took it, I listened to it till the early hours of the morning, you know.

Presenter14:37

But what was it? Uh

Wayne Marshall14:39

It was just

Wayne Marshall14:41

Just the whole piece is just amazing. This this ground bass, which is all based on, and that's that's a fascinating thing. It it runs all the way through the piece and it's

Wayne Marshall14:50

just took me by, you know, totally.

Presenter14:52

What comes through when when you you talk about this sort of your initiation to music in all these different ways is that that again your interest is is almost entirely oral, isn't it? It's all about sound. It's all about sound hitting your musical imagination. You don't have a kind of academic interest in music.

Wayne Marshall15:08

Oh, there's no academic nothing about there's nothing academic about music at all. I mean, in for me. It's all about the oral perception of it.

Presenter15:15

You've never wanted to you were never very academic at school. You didn't want to know about the history of music. You didn't want to know about Baroque, about early music.

Wayne Marshall15:18

No, no, no.

Wayne Marshall15:22

It's not really not it's not my thing at all. It's important to know about

Presenter15:26

Uh

Wayne Marshall15:26

The past, of course, but now we are living in the 21st century, and this is now.

Presenter15:31

You were actually pretty dismissive of Elgar at one point, but still am I. Oh, really? Tell me.

Wayne Marshall15:34

Uh very, yeah, and still am, yeah.

Wayne Marshall15:36

Well, it's not a composer who I really like very much.

Presenter15:39

But you were playing in Worcester Cathedral and you were rude about him.

Wayne Marshall15:42

Well, I wouldn't say I was rude. I just made a point to the Dina saying that yes, I don't play the Algara organ strata. Oh.

Wayne Marshall15:50

Well it's too

Presenter15:53

Well it's too green and pleasant for us.

Presenter15:58

How far is it?

Wayne Marshall15:58

Categorically.

Presenter15:59

How far back does the you can answer the letters when they come in, aren't they? How far back does this musical gene go? I mean, obviously it's very instinctive, everything you said, and we've talked about it. How far back does it go in the Marshall family? I mean, we've said your mother learned the piano, your your father

Wayne Marshall16:15

I don't know, you know, it's the current generation.

Presenter16:15

Let's

Wayne Marshall16:19

We as a current generation family.

Wayne Marshall16:21

I just see that this is where it it all is. I mean, uh my my grandmother, I don't see my grandparents, nothing, certainly.

Presenter16:29

So the trail goes completely cold when you link it back to Barbados. There's nothing.

Wayne Marshall16:32

Yeah, I can't see it at all. Uh my parents said they're they're they're amateur musicians but they perform locally at Oldham and and that's and that's it.

Wayne Marshall16:42

Strange, isn't it?

Presenter16:43

Tell me about number four. Oh, we're back to Virgil Fox again.

Wayne Marshall16:46

We're back to Virgil. It's a it's a work that's not that well known, but in a way it ought to be much better known because works for organ and orchestra are few and far between. But this is a piece by the Belgian composer Josef Jongen. It's the the Samphoni concertanti, and I still think that this is probably the finest piece of music.

Wayne Marshall17:05

for organ and orchestra.

Presenter18:06

Virgil Fox and the opening of the first movement of Jungen's Samphonie Concertante with the Orquestre du Téatre Nationale de l'Opera, conducted by Georges Pretre. You were organ scholar at both Manchester Cathedral and at St George's Chapel, Windsor, later on, Wayne. Do you, when you're doing that, get very much involved in cathedral and chapel life?

Wayne Marshall18:26

Well, I I certainly was then. I mean, it was a it was a I mean, both the both the organ scholarships were interesting and and very educational for me. I enjoyed the professionalism of it in many respects because in fact that was I was more into that kind of lifestyle.

Presenter18:40

'Cause you lived down there, didn't you? You lived in one of th those little cloisters opposite the Great West Door.

Wayne Marshall18:43

Just opposite the Great West Door.

Presenter18:45

Like a little monk popping in and out and going up the big big steps to work.

Wayne Marshall18:47

That's why I'm going up the big steps.

Wayne Marshall18:50

Yes, I had the pleasure. It was wonderful. It was wonderful. But how many

Presenter18:53

But how many days a week?

Wayne Marshall18:55

Well, it was it was every day of the week basically. Uh evensong was every other day apart from Wednesday and then of course three services on Sunday.

Presenter19:01

Cool.

Wayne Marshall19:02

So I really got involved in that in a big way.

Presenter19:04

So did did you mind?'Cause you were missing out, obviously, on on what you might call normal student life in London at the at the Royal College, weren't you?

Wayne Marshall19:12

Well, I was never really a normal student in that in that respect. Never have been. I was never really interested in that aspect of being a normal student.

Presenter19:18

I I hear tales of you walking out of classes when you didn't think they were good enough.

Wayne Marshall19:22

Well, I walked out of one class at the Royal College of Music when being in a situation in a in a oral class when a certain student could not tell the difference between major and minor. And I said, Well, I just couldn't be in that class

Presenter19:34

And you weren't always happy, were you, out in Vienna, in in the the Hochschule there? You didn't always approve of their methods of teaching, either.

Wayne Marshall19:41

Well, it was different. I mean, don't forget that the the schooling in in Vienna is is very different from here, but certainly in Germany and and Austria, because the schooling is much longer. And when I went to Vienna, I mean, I'd had a lot of experience as a musician and as a performing musician, and yet there were students there who were both younger and older who had never had that experience, and I found it rather daunting.

Presenter20:00

Who's that?

Wayne Marshall20:00

But what comes

Presenter20:01

But what comes through all the time is is that you are a non-conformist. You like to do it your way, don't you?

Wayne Marshall20:06

Well, in a way, in a way, yeah. Because I always wanted to feel that I I'm not saying I'm anything special, but it's just that that's the way I felt it. I was never really wanted to conform in in certain

Presenter20:16

But again, it's the conviction of your feel, isn't it? That's what it is, that actually to do it another way was offensive to you because you had perhaps an inherent knowledge of how you wanted to do it.

Wayne Marshall20:19

That's what it is.

Wayne Marshall20:25

say offensive. Maybe it's just because I had my own way of doing it and I was sort of quite determined that, you know, this is how it how I wanted it to be. But um we meet people, we learn from people and they tell us things and and everything else. But but we like to learn quickly. Yeah, we like to learn quickly and get on with the job and that's it.

Presenter20:39

But we like to learn quickly.

Presenter20:44

Okay. Now, this next piece is an example of Wayne Marshall as a team player, which is, you know, not something he's done that often, is it? Tell me about this one.

Wayne Marshall20:51

What about this one? A little bit, yeah, you see, of course, yes.

Presenter20:52

Little bit, yeah, you see, of course.

Wayne Marshall20:54

But when I was when I was at Chatham School of Music, I was drafted into the school orchestra and I'd never played

Wayne Marshall21:02

Timpany before, so it was quite a an interesting aspect here. Timpany was something new, and one of the most memorable concerts was a performance of the Planet Suite by Holst in the Free Trade Hall.

Wayne Marshall21:16

And I was playing First Symphony along with Michael Lindup, you know, who used to be in level forty two, but he was at school with me. And this was part of the the Holes Planet Suite, which I certainly remember. It's the movement Uranus.

Presenter22:29

The opening of Uranus the Magician from Holst's The Planets, played by the London Symphony Orchestra, again conducted by Andre Previn. Your big Gleinborn break happened when you were twenty-five, Wayne Marshall, and you haven't really looked back and you've you've played piano and organ with some of the world's top orchestras since then, and you've conducted a lot of them as well. Tell me about your technique of conducting, because

Presenter22:51

Again, from everything you said, you know in your head the sound I suppose most conductors do, but perhaps you more than many know exactly the sound you want to hear. How do you convey that to the orchestra members in front of you?

Wayne Marshall23:04

Well, I mean if we're talking about conducting music of of Gershwin or jazz, I mean there's obviously you know the certain way that I want it to be and I sing a lot to the orchestra, I play a lot to the orchestra. You sing to them. Yeah, you gotta sing how you want it to sound. But conducting technique, I mean is is hard. I mean there's no question about it. I was very fortunate to work as assistant music director for Carmen Jones, that great production that took place at the Ovic.

Wayne Marshall23:31

In the early nineties, and I worked then with Henry Lewis.

Wayne Marshall23:35

He taught me in about fifteen minutes a lot about the technique of conducting that I will be eternally grateful for. Because the one thing that that um is very important about conducting, of course, is everything needs a preparation.

Wayne Marshall23:49

When you start a piece you have to prepare with an upbeat, and the speed of that upbeat determines the tempo.

Wayne Marshall23:55

You just don't give a beat in any old sort of fashion at which the piece is gonna start.

Presenter23:59

Can you give me an example of that?

Wayne Marshall24:00

For instance the the piece that we worked on was the first restative that Carmen sings just before she sings the Habaniera. I mean that is full of stops and starts. Da da da da da dum then da one da dee da da da one mm pause ta dee da da dum pause ta dee da da dum then into m billi dum ba yum da dee da da m pa pa pa pa pum dee da one chung.

Wayne Marshall24:27

That's basically it. It's strange, but I mean, it.

Speaker 224:28

Oh, simple.

Wayne Marshall24:32

It's because it's all in two, if you take away all the little stops, all the little things where the tempo is not absolutely straight, then it all sort of makes sense.

Presenter24:40

And these days you conduct from the piano as well. How difficult is that?

Wayne Marshall24:44

It can be difficult, particularly if an orchestra has never really worked without a conductor standing in front of them before. I mean, it's it's a totally different thing, but I I enjoy the challenge of that. You like the control of that. Yeah, I like the control, yes. But it's always different. Every orchestra is different. They some will really buy into it and others will be a little bit tentative about it.

Presenter25:02

Next record, number six.

Wayne Marshall25:04

This is um again when I really was back at school. I remember the discovery of course of Steven Wonder, which then led to the discovery of all this kind of stuff, you know, of all the seventies disco hits and things. And I became very fascinated with Earth, Wind and Fire, and uh this is their classic track, September.

Presenter25:51

Earth, Wind and Fire and September and another part of your journey into jazz. You're smiling'cause I said it, John.

Wayne Marshall25:56

Because I said it right.

Presenter26:00

Fire. Who's wrong with my fire?

Wayne Marshall26:00

No, nothing. It's great. It's great. It's great.

Presenter26:02

Yeah.

Presenter26:03

You currently have a wonderful title, which is a total misnomer, it seems to me, organist in residence at the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester. I mean, you are not in residence in Manchester, but it does mean that you do a lot there, obviously.

Wayne Marshall26:14

Yeah, I'm not sure.

Presenter26:14

And you gave the inaugural recital, didn't you, and so?

Wayne Marshall26:16

Yes.

Presenter26:17

But the instrument itself is vast. It's kind of wood and burnished metal. And it's got two consoles. One is mobile, I understand. This is where you sit.

Wayne Marshall26:26

Once the Ballmark concerts on the stage.

Presenter26:31

So people can see you.

Wayne Marshall26:32

So people can see yeah, I mean both consoles you could the the player can be seen. But the the the stage console, the electric console is is in a way better because it's you can actually hear the organ much better, because you're actually right in front of it.

Presenter26:45

And how does it compare? Does it make the best sound of any organ you've ever played on?

Wayne Marshall26:49

It's a f it's a fabulous organ in many ways. It's a very it has a very beautiful sound. Um

Presenter26:54

That means no, does it?

Wayne Marshall26:55

I can't say it's the best organ in the world.

Presenter26:57

What is?

Wayne Marshall26:58

Maybe Notre Dame and Paris is the best organ in the world.

Presenter27:00

Westminster Cathedral?

Wayne Marshall27:01

It's a fascinating instrument as well. I think that's probably the best organ in the country.

Presenter27:05

Hmm.

Wayne Marshall27:05

For me

Presenter27:06

It is, as we've said, a huge and complex instrument, the organ. All sorts of bits and pieces can go wrong, and more than with an ordinary instrument, like a string snapping or whatever. Have there been occasions in your your live performing career when you ever had a crisis with one?

Wayne Marshall27:19

Well, there was one actually, one very famous incident, which took place in Dublin a few years ago. I came out on stage to start the first piece. I pressed one of the generals which control the all the various sounds which you have to pre programme.

Wayne Marshall27:33

And nothing happened.

Wayne Marshall27:34

Absolutely blank. Press the next one and so on. Nothing.

Wayne Marshall27:39

So we had a situation.

Wayne Marshall27:42

We had a situation, big time, all my accommodations for the entire concert had been wiped.

Presenter27:47

But this is out of a computer. I mean, Virgil Fox would never have had a computer in his organ.

Wayne Marshall27:51

The console has um devices where where you can set up

Wayne Marshall27:55

The different sounds.

Wayne Marshall27:57

on buttons, pistons. It they're always beneath the the the the keyboards.

Wayne Marshall28:02

So of course it makes registration much easier.

Wayne Marshall28:06

In Dublin, of course, we had a situation b because it was a a recital with another artist, I mean, we'd we'd programmed I'd programmed everything on the organ. And of course the battery, which which then supplies the power for the computer, had failed. So as soon as you switch so when I switched the organ off in the afternoon,

Wayne Marshall28:22

Everything had gone. So I had then had to sit and set there as much as I could for memory.

Wayne Marshall28:28

In twenty-five minutes whilst the audience sat there, it was very embarrassing as you can well imagine.

Presenter28:31

But how do you feel about that?

Presenter28:34

Now having computers operating the organ, as I say, you know, organists in time gone by would never have had such a thing. Isn't it impure, really? Shouldn't you be doing all of the work, pulling all the computers?

Wayne Marshall28:44

Well, yes, of course. I mean, one has to learn to do that. I mean, I can do that. But, I mean, it makes life a lot easier. It makes life a lot easier if you can have.

Presenter28:51

Well, it's easier to play a piano if it's a pianola.

Wayne Marshall28:54

Oh, well, yes, but that's that's that's another device playing the piano. But I mean I'm talking about the the various how you set up the sounds on the organ, how you get those different sounds quickly rather than

Wayne Marshall29:04

Pushing and pulling and and everything else. I mean it it it does make

Presenter29:06

So you enjoyed all that pushing and pulling and pulling.

Wayne Marshall29:08

Of course. If you've got an instrument that is if it's small enough. But I mean, to have an organ of some two hundred stops or something, it's a nightmare, I tell you, to try and register you can't register it. It's impo it's impossible.

Presenter29:20

Meggo number seven. What would mister Messian have thought?

Wayne Marshall29:22

What would you say?

Wayne Marshall29:23

Mr. Messian, well, this is a discovery again when I was at Chatham's, and there was a Friday night when about four of us we.

Wayne Marshall29:32

Sat up late, it's a beautiful night, and a friend of mine then put on this recording.

Wayne Marshall29:39

of Messian's Truangelilla symphony, and I had never heard it before.

Wayne Marshall29:42

But we made a point of lying on our backs on the floor.

Wayne Marshall29:46

And we put this piece on very, very loudly.

Wayne Marshall29:49

And I must say it was one of the most amazing experiences, hearing this music in total darkness.

Wayne Marshall29:54

Just this recording makes the piece sound like as if the orchestra's playing it like a film score.

Presenter30:58

Part of the sixth movement Garden of Love's Sleep from Messian's Tour and Galila Symphony, played by the Toronto Symphony conducted by Seiji Ozawa. You'll be fine on a desert island, won't you, Wayne?'Cause you've got your music. It's all you need, really.

Wayne Marshall31:10

Got my music. I'll be very very happy there, I think. Except for one

Presenter31:13

Except for one thing. You've decided it's time to get married. Age of forty-one, this is the moment you're going to get married, young.

Wayne Marshall31:18

This is the moment I've decided, yes. And my fiance lives in Leamington's Bar, and her name is Anne.

Wayne Marshall31:24

We met.

Wayne Marshall31:25

one night in November last year where and I was actually on my way to Manchester with a friend of mine from Bermuda and we had to go and visit a friend of mine who was the organist at the parish church in Leamington. Anyway, after that my friend decided that we had to go and eat something, rather reluctantly for me, because I was you know really wants to get to Manchester.

Wayne Marshall31:44

So, not knowing Leamington, you know, I drove around and found this restaurant first one and then there was another restaurant and I stopped outside that restaurant and thought, okay, let's go and eat at this restaurant. But something suddenly happened and I was it was as if somebody said to me, No, we'll go to the other restaurant, the first restaurant.

Wayne Marshall32:01

So we went upstairs and there had to be a piano in the restaurant, so I sat down and played, and then we had dinner, and then about an hour and a half later then in walked three ladies, and I noticed the first one, which was Anne.

Wayne Marshall32:16

And, um, the rest is history, so to speak.

Wayne Marshall32:19

Purely by chance. Purely by chance. I mean, you know, we could have gone to the other restaurant.

Presenter32:24

Ha ha ha.

Presenter32:25

And this is the reason for this last record, which I it has to be said is not not like any of your others at all.

Wayne Marshall32:31

The night that that I met uh Anne was significant because she asked me to play something from the sound of music, and this is the piece that she asked me to play.

Wayne Marshall32:39

But I'm not going to play the the version from the soundtrack. I'm going to play you a version by Harry Connick, Junior, and this is his version of The Lonely Goatherd.

Speaker 432:50

High on the hill was the lonely goat herd

Speaker 432:56

Loud was the voice of the lonely goat herd.

Speaker 433:03

Folks in a town that was quite remote heard Lusty and clear from the goatherd's throat heard Now oh

Presenter33:16

Yeah.

Presenter33:17

Please.

Presenter33:19

The Lonely Goat Herd, sung by Harry Connick Junior. Now if you could only take one of those eight records, Wayne, which one would you take?

Wayne Marshall33:25

I think it would be

Wayne Marshall33:28

I think I should be in a concert too.

Presenter33:30

Pretty central to your life.

Wayne Marshall33:31

I think so, yeah.

Presenter33:32

What about your book? You get the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare already there.

Wayne Marshall33:37

It would have to be the complete grove.

Wayne Marshall33:39

It's the musical encyclopedia.

Wayne Marshall33:41

Because that then has everything that one would possibly want to know about

Wayne Marshall33:47

Every aspect of music.

Presenter33:48

Anna, what about your luxury?

Wayne Marshall33:48

Uh

Wayne Marshall33:50

My luxury would be a Steinway Model D piano, which would be tropicalized to make it withstand the climactic uh

Wayne Marshall34:00

Improprieties of a desert island.

Presenter34:03

Wayne Marshall, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your Desert Island discs.

Wayne Marshall34:06

Thank you very much.

Speaker 234:14

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