Nina & Frederick

Nina0:00

This download is the only extract the BBC has of this edition of Desert Island Discs. The presenter was Roy Plumley.

Nina0:08

Frederick, you are Dutch, are you not?

Nina0:10

Yes, I'm Dutch. My wife, Nina, is the Danish one. Mm. And I believe you first met when you were both very young.

Nina0:18

Oh, yes, and perhaps before that because our parents knew each other.

Nina0:22

Before that.

Speaker 20:24

Yeah.

Nina0:24

Yeah.

Speaker 30:25

Yeah.

Nina0:25

Yeah.

Speaker 20:25

Uh Nina, did you have uh a musical education as a youngster?

Speaker 30:29

Not very much. I was seeing one winter after I came back from America, and I only had one thing in my head, and that was to go back again.

Speaker 30:37

My mother didn't want me to go back to America, and I sort of rather buried myself in music.

Speaker 30:42

Also I had a very marvellous music teacher.

Speaker 30:45

Cool.

Speaker 30:46

was just as much a teacher of life really as a teacher of music.

Speaker 30:51

But I only did it for the one winter and then I went to Paris instead and went on with my studies of languages.

Speaker 20:56

Yes.

Speaker 20:58

Frederick, what about you?

Nina1:00

Well, I have uh no musical training. I I never studied. I had once the opportunity to.

Nina1:06

learn the guitar from a wonderful teacher, but I didn't take full advantage of it. I did take a few lessons.

Nina1:13

But I was a boy and I was interested in other things, girls I suppose. And um after that I

Nina1:22

I became a scholastic tramp, more or less. I went from university to university.

Nina1:27

Trying to find my way in.

Nina1:29

Really not.

Nina1:31

thinking for one moment that I would wind up on the stage. Yes. What were you studying for?

Nina1:36

Oh, in the beginning it was architecture and then agriculture and then literature and I'm afraid that

Nina1:43

I'm not very good at any of these subjects.

Nina1:46

Yeah.

Speaker 21:46

Through the years had you and Nina seen each other very often?

Speaker 31:50

Oh, on and off, when Frederick came back to Denmark to see his family.

Speaker 31:55

Uh but not that often.

Speaker 21:57

Mm-hmm.

Nina1:58

And it was more or less by chance that you started singing together? Yes, it was. It was, you know, like some uh young people, I mean, either either someone knows how to play the piano or someone sings a guitar or something and

Speaker 32:00

Is it

Speaker 32:08

We worked out harmonies together for certain folk songs that we'd heard in America, so we'd both been there.

Nina2:08

Yeah.

Nina2:09

Yeah.

Nina2:13

Yeah.

Speaker 32:13

And um

Speaker 32:15

Somebody dared us to go and do an audition, and we did.

Speaker 32:19

It was all very ridiculous because we did get the engagement.

Nina2:19

It was all very

Nina2:23

That is where the fairy tale stopped though, because when we then decided to do it seriously, it's since then it's been a memory of

Nina2:30

Well, it's a good memory, but it's hard work, sure.

Nina2:33

This first engagement of yours

Speaker 22:34

was where was it, Nina?

Speaker 32:36

It is in Copenhagen in Tivoli.

Speaker 32:39

Actually we were engaged for two weeks, and then there was prolonged two months.

Speaker 32:43

And then from then on we had lots of offers to go to Sweden and other places and

Speaker 32:48

And then we had to start getting serious about it and decide what we wanted to do.

Nina2:51

In other words, it was an immediate success.

Nina2:54

Well, it was and it was out of proportion in fact to what we knew how to do. We didn't have a very large repertoire and uh

Nina3:02

Our stage craft was non-existent. We had no idea really what we were getting into if I think if we had known we wouldn't have had the audacity.

Nina3:12

Loir a truly international act. In how many languages do you see?

Speaker 33:17

But nothing.

Nina3:18

We've

Speaker 33:18

Seems more

Nina3:22

I've seen about eight or nine, yes.

Nina3:25

You have lived in many countries, have you not, Rederic? Because your father was a diplomat. I believe you used to travel round with him. Yes, well I had an opportunity to see the world as a as a child and

Nina3:37

It's funny that way, because I've never thought of the world as compartments, but very much as a as a unit.

Nina3:43

Before I was uh sixteen years old, I think I'd been to about twenty-five countries.

Nina3:48

and never lived in one country for more than about a year and a half, two years.

Speaker 23:53

Uh

Nina3:53

Now your repertoire consists mainly of folk songs, does it not?

Nina3:56

It does folk songs.

Nina3:58

lend themselves very well to what we do. They are a very good medium between ourselves and our audience.

Nina4:05

Though we've never really approached folk music as as folk songs, it's not really through a love of folk songs that we sing them. We've taken them because they are good for singing in...

Nina4:16

uh two-part harmony

Nina4:18

They usually tell a story.

Nina4:20

You can't sing a normal standard song when you're two people because you sing in abstract I form and it doesn't make sense.

Nina4:29

And um

Nina4:30

they have a a a musical directness that

Nina4:34

appeals to both of us.

Nina4:36

And from the beginning really, we've tried to

Nina4:40

Uh bring folk music into a m a modern musical idiom by having a jazz group.

Nina4:46

Backing. Mm-hmm.

Nina4:48

You write some songs for yourselves.

Nina4:50

Some of them we do, and some of them are written for us, and some of them we find here and there. That's the hardest part, is really finding material.

Speaker 24:57

Yeah.

Nina4:58

Yeah.

Speaker 24:58

Now your artistic partnership became a domestic one. You were married in 1960, I believe. That's right.

Speaker 25:04

How many children do you have, Nina?

Speaker 35:06

We have three.

Speaker 25:07

When travelling abroad most of the time, do you ever take the children?

Speaker 35:11

Oh, oh, we always have them along.

Speaker 25:12

Everywhere.

Speaker 35:12

Very well. Yes, they've been to the Far East with us. We've left them twice over a long period of time, but it was really because it would have it was much better for them.

Speaker 25:22

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 35:23

That was when they were newly born.

Speaker 35:25

But otherwise they go.

Speaker 35:27

And we have our chaotic household anywhere.

Speaker 25:30

How much of the year are you traveling?

Speaker 35:33

I should stay about eight or nine months.

Speaker 35:35

Depends upon whether I'm expecting another baby or something.

Speaker 25:37

It's awesome.

Speaker 35:38

Which sort of puts Freddie out of work for six months.

Nina5:42

Frederick, where is is your permanent home?

Nina5:45

No. Well, our permanent home is really split between Geneva, where we have our

Nina5:50

Total f

Nina5:51

working base and um and then our farm in Spain.