George Fenton

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.

Speaker 20:08

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

Presenter0:24

My castaway this week is a composer. You don't have to like music to have heard what he's written. It's all around us in movies such as Gandhi, Dangerous Liaisons and Groundhog Day, in television programmes such as The Blue Planet and Jewel in the Crown, and it's been in between them with a myriad of catchy compositions for news programmes and others. He never expected to end up where he did. He began writing music for the theatre and progressed fluently and conscientiously to where he is today. I never have inspiration, he confesses somewhat modestly. I don't feel pride about the things I've done. I just feel gratitude. He is George Fenton. What gratitude for the the gift of being able to write, George, or gratitude for what?

George Fenton1:06

No, I think gratitude for really the world of music, the people. The gift in a way for me is always when I write something.

George Fenton1:16

And then an orchestra or a band or a s instrumentalist plays it back, and they give it back to you.

George Fenton1:23

with their soul attached to it, and that's the that's the gift.

Presenter1:27

That's a bit you're grateful for.

George Fenton1:27

That's a bit you're grateful for. Yeah, that's why I'm grateful.

Presenter1:29

But the point about the sort of music you write, is it not, is that it it has to be a fit. It has to be what the director wanted. In a sense you're you know, you're writing to order, aren't you?

George Fenton1:39

Yes, you are you are. And in that sense there is an impure quality to film music. It isn't just a statement by me in music.

Presenter1:50

What's it there for then? What do you think its job is, film music?

George Fenton1:53

Well, I think its real role is to interpret for another sensibility, the sensibility of the ear and the emotional sensibility of music, to sort of interpret that and license the audience to respond emotionally to what they're seeing on the screen.

Presenter2:12

So to that extent it tells the audience what to think and what to feel.

George Fenton2:15

I think it enables them what to think and what to feel. I don't think it should manipulate them.

Presenter2:20

But it should tell him the truth.

George Fenton2:21

It should because it could mislead them. That is exactly right. And if you tell the truth.

Presenter2:22

Because it could mislead them, couldn't it?

George Fenton2:27

You're writing a score. If you don't tell the truth, you're just manipulating the moments. You have to understand the truth of the film. And in that sense, I think that's the importance of the role of a film composer, not whether they can write notes or not. It's more to do with whether they can read the film and understand what the filmmaker wants the audience to feel about his film or her film.

Presenter2:50

Exactly. I want to ask you about how you do that, because it's it's a fascinating process. Um but also one of course is fascinating because of you being a musician who d dips into all kinds of styles, whose whose musical choice is necessarily eclectic. You know, what eight pieces of music would you take to a desert island? That's the game. What's what's the first one?

George Fenton3:10

I learnt my music mainly by playing the organ and of course the greatest organ.

George Fenton3:17

Ist probably, and certainly the greatest writer of organ music was Bach, so this is the Fantasian fugue in G minor.

Presenter4:24

Part of Bach's Fugue in G minor, played by Tone Koopman. So, George Fenton, by the sound of it, you subjugate yourself to the film director, you know, whether it's um Richard Attenborough in Cry Freedom, Gandhi and Shadowlands, or Ken Loach in Bread n Roses and My Name is Joe and so on. How does it work? At what point do you get involved in these films?

George Fenton4:43

Normally speaking, the composer is the last person in to the film. And the important thing for the composer is to see what the film is, not to see what the book behind it was, not to hear what they thought they were going to do, but to actually see the film itself.

Presenter4:54

Um

Presenter4:56

Not

Presenter5:01

I see. So you could overdo the research. What you need is this and the director's view of the film.

George Fenton5:05

A fresh look.

George Fenton5:07

Of the film as it comes to you. Yeah, and the director's view is, in the end, what is on the screen. That's what it is.

Presenter5:12

Shuz.

Presenter5:13

So the Attenboroughs and the Loaches and the Freer's and so on send you the VHS of the cut film. No more cuttings to be done. You can't say widen that gap. I've got another four notes to put in there.

George Fenton5:16

This is

George Fenton5:20

Yeah more.

Presenter5:24

Rarely.

George Fenton5:25

Very rarely here.

Presenter5:25

So you get this kind of naked videotape, as it were, with only the voices on it. That must be a terrifying moment.

George Fenton5:29

Yeah.

George Fenton5:33

Uh it i y yes, it is it is. Of course these days in Hollywood when you sit down and watch a film you're going to do equally terrifying in a way it's normally covered with the great themes from every other movie.

George Fenton5:46

Third, well, because they're trying to make the film look as good as possible.

Presenter5:49

But that must be annoying'cause it becomes a bit prescriptive, doesn't it?

George Fenton5:52

Well, it it it it can be prescriptive and it takes a bit of training to take what's good of out of it and then put

Presenter6:00

Hmm.

George Fenton6:00

The rest of it out of your mind. I've I've got a very poor musical memory actually, which has always been very helpful as a writer. Uh

Presenter6:06

But just give me an example, just to put some flesh on on what you've described. I mean, say you get Dangerous Liaison sent to you by Stephen Frears, and you look at it, it's naked, it's got no music on that, nobody's sort of been creative on your behalf.

George Fenton6:13

Tube button

George Fenton6:15

You

George Fenton6:16

It's got new

George Fenton6:18

Increase.

Presenter6:20

How do you begin? What do you say? What do you look at? What do you feel?

George Fenton6:24

Well, we go through this period which is partly how you find out what the director's th thoughts and feelings are, which we call spotting the film, which is where you physically decide where the music goes. So almost by a sort of geographical route, you get a sense of the emphasis of music in terms of where the long bits are, where the short bits are, where there's a lot of music in the film, where there isn't, etc. etc.

George Fenton6:51

Yeah.

Presenter6:51

And then you can

George Fenton6:52

And then you then you're sort of on your own. But in the case of Dangerous Liaisons, of course, I originally thought this is going to be a film which is going to be absolutely full of music that was contemporary with the story. It'll all be in that mode, you know. Sort of Baroque. Yes, and we h Stephen and I sat down together and I just played records against the film. And it became quite obvious within ten minutes that it wouldn't work, Baroque music, because it's so complete.

Presenter7:06

Sort of Baroque.

Presenter7:21

And something like Dangerous Liaisons moves around quickly in that way.

George Fenton7:23

And also it's a dirty bloody story, really. And so I wrote it for an orchestra that was consistent in its sound with the Baroque music or the early classical music, so that's a good idea.

Presenter7:26

Yeah. But you know,

Presenter7:42

It was quite a small classical orchestra.

George Fenton7:43

Yes, it's it and they use the harpsichord and bony.

Presenter7:46

As opposed to the big kind of Hollywood Nelson Riddle.

George Fenton7:47

Kind of Hollywood Nelson Riddle.

Presenter7:53

And you wrote most, did you not, for the Michel Pfeiffer character, the Madame de Tourvel, who was being seduced by, you know, the scheming John Malkovich, Aiden abetted by Glen Close?

George Fenton7:53

And you

George Fenton8:04

Yes, I think that there are certain actors.

George Fenton8:08

That can take music and certain scenes of dialogue where the kind of dialogue that's written for those characters.

George Fenton8:17

Takes music much better than other characters. So, Glenn.

George Fenton8:23

in a way she's so complete, she's so firing, you know, all guns are blazing all the time, that in a way the score didn't have to inform you too much about Glenclose, whereas

George Fenton8:35

The Michel Pfeiffer character needed the emotional information attached to her, because in the end that would be what would deliver.

George Fenton8:46

the sort of sense of what the score was saying in the film.

Presenter8:50

Hers is the heart and hers is the pain. Yeah.

George Fenton8:51

Yeah.

Presenter8:53

Record number two.

George Fenton8:55

Record number two. Uh um I grew up in Bromley, which is just south of London, and one of the earliest heroes of South London was Tommy Steele, and I used to sing as a child all his songs, and this one

George Fenton9:11

I learnt all the lyrics too and um

George Fenton9:14

When my children were very young and they wouldn't go to bed, we used to have a little sing-song of this uh It's What a Mouth.

Speaker 49:21

He showed him small in derived

Speaker 49:29

I o well oh yes, I'm

Speaker 49:32

What a mouth, what a mouth, what an orphan south Blam it what a mouth he's got! Now the poor old man being a short-sighted fellow, when he saw Jim's mouth, he took it for the cellar and he shot The lot her eye into his mouth, no joke Jim, poor soul's got a tummy full of coal and he caulks up lumps of coke

Presenter9:52

Tommy Steele and What a Mouth. One of the first songs I read, or or some of Tommy Steele, you sang George in public as a little boy at a garden party, is that right? My guess is that not a lot of people know this, but one of the most memorable and famous things that you've sung in public is you're on the the soundtrack of Cry Freedom, aren't you?

George Fenton10:00

I just

George Fenton10:01

My guess is

George Fenton10:13

I don't know if singing's the right word, I was more mumbling really, but um when we were finishing the film.

George Fenton10:19

There was a great deal of talk about

George Fenton10:23

who's gonna sing the title song. And Universal Pictures went into complete overdrive and decided that the ideal thing would be to get Peter Gabriel, The Rolling Stones, Bob Geldolf, Stevie Wanda, Michael Jackson and everybody all into the same studio at the same time.

George Fenton10:42

and record a kind of

George Fenton10:44

you know, some anthem that would encapsulate the whole message of cry freedom. And it became quite clear as time went by that it was going to be quite difficult to organize this. This was not going to happen.

Presenter10:54

This was not gonna happen.

George Fenton10:56

Anyway, so it went on and on and on and and and and we ended up dubbing the picture and we still didn't have any.

George Fenton11:04

Music for the end titles. And so I I d I just put down a piano track and then I wrote this sort of lyric of all these names.

Presenter11:12

Just give me a just remind people of it. I can't do so ito steep.

George Fenton11:16

Yes, Mandela, Sizulu, Latuli, Dadu, Stephen Biko, Governum Becki, Robert Subuque, Baba Tambo, Bazoopa.

Presenter11:25

Palupa.

Speaker 411:25

Uh

George Fenton11:25

So I wrote them all down and then I sang them against my piano track.

Presenter11:26

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 411:26

Yeah.

George Fenton11:31

Again, we never thought anything really was going to happen to it, so it didn't really matter. Took it into the dubbing theatre.

George Fenton11:37

Dickie was suitably amused, we put it on the film and and um

George Fenton11:41

And there it still is. Yeah, and it got nominated for an Oscar, and so I then found myself seeing it on live television to about a billion people, which was not what I intended at all.

Speaker 211:41

And then

Presenter11:50

But there's a bit of a performer in there, isn't there? I mean, you like the kind of show biz.

George Fenton11:55

I do. That's true. I love live audiences. And I want to.

Presenter11:59

Interesting, isn't it? Because you're such a solitary worker and what you do is so solitary that's what's most interesting.

George Fenton12:01

Except now that I've you know, I d go out and conduct occasionally, but I I just love that difference between the show each night. I w I wanted to be an actor anyway in the first place and

Presenter12:15

And your mum wanted you to be.

George Fenton12:16

My mum wanted me to be an actor and she got her wish a little bit because I did begin doing a bit of acting, so.

Presenter12:23

But just tell me a little bit about your family. Give me a bit of context. Because, you know, you mentioned Tommy Steele and Bromley Boys and so on, but you were not a Tommy Steele. You were not a working-class boy. You were quite.

George Fenton12:32

Oh no, we were we were we were yes, we weren't posh posh as in we were wealthy, but yeah, we were middle class. I've got three sisters and a brother, so we're quite a large family.

Presenter12:32

Oh no we will

Presenter12:44

And all of you were privately educated, and for some reason you resented this.

George Fenton12:44

Yeah.

George Fenton12:46

Yeah.

George Fenton12:49

Well, no, I didn't resent being privately educated. I I was planning a career in rock and roll and sort of frantically practising the guitar and things, and I could see that it wasn't in my favor that I spoke nicely. Um but I was a dreamer as a child, you know, that that that when I was seven they sent me back home from school

George Fenton13:08

and asked for my mother to take me to see a doctor because they thought I was deaf. But I I it wasn't that I couldn't hear, it was just that I had switched off. I sort of felt that um somehow there was this other life out there that I should

George Fenton13:26

have, you know.

Presenter13:28

And what what image of that other life did you have?

George Fenton13:31

I think it changed from wanting to be a footballer.

George Fenton13:37

to wanting to be a guitar player.

Presenter13:39

There was a church organist somewhere in between.

George Fenton13:41

And then then there was a then I then there was a church organ. I I I look I'm not quite sure what happened with with the church organ. It just was it just came along and uh I was quite surprised by that. But by learning the organ, I did meet the most important person to me.

Presenter13:47

It was it.

George Fenton13:56

who taught me and

George Fenton13:59

really was so crucial, not o not to my I mean, not only to my musical education, but to my education about the world of music, about

George Fenton14:11

Life in music, and we remained firm friends and colleagues until he died about ten years ago.

Presenter14:17

What's his name?

George Fenton14:18

Peter Whitehouse was his name.

Presenter14:21

Record number three.

George Fenton14:23

This is really my earliest memories of the record player at home, where all the family were quite musical.

George Fenton14:29

My sister, my eldest sister, Anne.

George Fenton14:31

and her friends used to sort of kneel on the piano bench with staring at the record player and sort of waggling their heads side to side as they and screaming even in the sitting room as um they listened to records like this. And this is Johnny Rae singing Just Walking in the Rain.

Speaker 414:50

Just walking in the rain

Speaker 414:56

Get me soakin' wet

Speaker 415:01

Torture in my heart

Speaker 415:05

Fight tried to forget

Speaker 415:10

Just

Presenter15:10

Johnny Rahm just walking in the rain with a sort of whistler knock

George Fenton15:17

Yeah, the whi well the whistler when he begins, obviously they didn't agree on the note when he when he s whistled the intro there, but um

Presenter15:23

He did seem very exotic at the time. Anyway, there you were. You went to school. You managed to avoid being head boy, which means

George Fenton15:30

Yeah.

Speaker 415:31

Well

George Fenton15:33

They see

Presenter15:33

You avoided university, ended up you went to London and set yourself up, sort of trying to make a living. How how did you survive?

Speaker 415:33

Uh

George Fenton15:41

I w I worked in a an off licence as the uh

George Fenton15:45

Salaman

Presenter15:46

Pumping the bottles on here.

George Fenton15:46

Yeah, just bottling up as they we used to call it. And then while I was in the midst of this, my mother called me up and said that she'd seen an advertisement in the Daily Telegraph which said boys wanted.

George Fenton16:03

So, um, so um, and she said it's a show, you ought to.

George Fenton16:10

You ought to go along and I really knew nothing about it actually. And I just went along to Her Majesty's Theatre to an audition.

George Fenton16:19

And they gave me a part in Forty Years On.

Presenter16:22

About a minute.

George Fenton16:23

Of course it was you know, I was typecast because it was about a a tall eighteen year old schoolboy and I was at at at that point a a reasonably tall eighteen year old schoolboy, so that was it and I did it for fourteen months.

Presenter16:37

And and and then you sort of moved into the sort of musical end of the business, which is slightly less popular than young boys who wanted to be actors.

George Fenton16:41

Yes, well slightly less popular than young boys who wanted to be out of the way.

George Fenton16:45

Well, I was playing I was you know, I had a group and things at that time and and I'd start it w we were called Whistler.

Presenter16:49

And I'd start

Speaker 416:50

Yeah.

George Fenton16:53

But in the end, I didn't really make a conscious choice to.

George Fenton16:57

Gum play, I wasn't thinking particularly of writing.

George Fenton17:01

I'd always written stuff, you know, like various unwanted arrangements of.

George Fenton17:08

Dido's Lament, which I sent to Oxford University Press in three different colour biros, you know, got a nice kind letter back and things like that. But I mean, I ha I'd never really sort of thought about writing. I just so didn't want to be in the world of a regular job. And in those days, you didn't really have any pressure. My parents

Speaker 217:26

Yeah.

George Fenton17:32

Never put me or any of us under any pressure. I can see that it would have been.

George Fenton17:39

Nice for them after all the money they'd spent on my education if I had.

George Fenton17:43

you know, made the effort and gone to university and

George Fenton17:47

got a great job and everything, but nobody could have ever been more thrilled to see me sit at the piano or pick up a guitar than my dad.

Presenter17:58

Quick number four.

George Fenton17:59

It's Dorothy Love Coates. I mean, Little Richard said she was his greatest influence. She's one of those singers that was like the heart of the black gospel movement, but she never went mainstream because she's driven by this amazing conviction. She's like a preacher as well as a singer. When you hear her singing at the age of twenty-four, like on this record, you can't believe that her vocal chords lasted till she was seventy, but she's still doing it.

Speaker 418:30

Mine to make a hundred f

Speaker 418:34

Oh, light and eye.

Speaker 418:38

Yeah.

Speaker 418:41

I won't do

Speaker 418:45

It's a rugged arpedal joint of genes.

Speaker 418:50

But I've got to make a hundred

Presenter18:55

Dorothy Love Coates singing ninety nine and a half. So you started George Fenton getting commissions for the theatre. You wrote stuff for the RSC and for the National Theatre, didn't you? What what was the first television commission you got?

George Fenton19:04

Yeah.

George Fenton19:06

Um it ca the first thing I wrote was something called Hitting Town, which Steven Polyakoff wrote. And it was directed by Peter Gill, who I'd done most of my work for in the theatre. He gave me my break in the theatre really, writing, and then in television too, so I o owe it really all to the to then and to him.

Presenter19:27

And then you were asked to do the theme for Newsnight, which is still running, isn't it?

George Fenton19:32

I did it as a did it as a as a as a demo and and then

Presenter19:34

I didn't deserve it.

George Fenton19:39

In those days when I I was doing sort of theatre and trying to

George Fenton19:44

to television drama and

George Fenton19:47

Various odd projects. None of them really pay.

George Fenton19:51

And of course if you've got a signature tune or two going, then after a few years and they start to the royalties start to tick in, you know, be even though they're small. But at least it's something that's kind of keep you you know, fed and watered while you investigate.

Presenter20:07

I've always wanted to ask you that, because does that mean then because you went on to do all the news bulletins, beginning with the six o'clock, didn't you? And then you did the nine o'clock, and then you did the lunchtime and so on?

George Fenton20:14

Yeah.

Presenter20:17

Every time they played, every day the coffers were tickling, were they?

George Fenton20:21

Yeah, yeah.

Presenter20:23

How wonderful.

George Fenton20:24

Well, yes. Um I wish it were more. I mean, no, I'm not I wish it were more. I I'm very grateful for it, but but it's just as quickly as I shot to prominence in the in the in the world of news jingles, they didn't ring me to say, Oh, just to let you know in six months your income stream will stop. I just one day heard the news and

George Fenton20:45

My music wasn't on it anymore. But if they do go on um and play for a long time, then it is rewarding in all senses.

Presenter20:55

So when Shoestring or Bejerac or Jewel in the Crown runs again now on BBC Three or whatever it's on.

George Fenton20:58

Uh

George Fenton21:02

Mm-hmm.

Presenter21:03

Is it the cuffer tinkle? Yes, they have.

George Fenton21:04

Yes, they have to. And even if I'm on a desert island, they'll still keep rolling.

Presenter21:07

Still keeps capitalists.

George Fenton21:11

Although I won't be able to benefit from them.

Presenter21:13

Record number five.

George Fenton21:16

If I were sitting on a desert island and thinking about what a good time I'd had r writing music, which I have, I'd just want s one thing that reminded me about the best part of writing, which is really the fact that you write something and then you're so surprised and thrilled at the way it's played. That's, you know, for a composer the biggest kick you can get.

Speaker 421:42

Yeah.

Speaker 421:44

Um

Speaker 421:50

Yeah.

Presenter22:12

Reunion played by John Lowe from the soundtrack of the film Accidental Hero, composed by my costaway George Fenton. That was a first take, you say. He'd never heard the orchestra.

George Fenton22:20

Never heard the orchestra. No, no, he didn't know what was going to happen. He just sat down he just sat and played it. I just couldn't get over it. I went in the control room. I I said, Can you believe that? What that he he just sort of

George Fenton22:31

I don't know. Sounds like he's talking, you know.

Presenter22:33

Very good.

George Fenton22:34

Yeah.

Presenter22:35

But if his heart and soul is in it, I mean, you composed it, obviously yours is as well. Is that what you do? And how and you do write more i in general terms for romantic films. You're not a sort of action movie writer, composer.

George Fenton22:46

And

Speaker 222:46

Uh

George Fenton22:46

Turn movie right.

Presenter22:49

You know, you must tap in, like an actor does, to all of the highs and lows of your own life to write stuff like that, don't you?

George Fenton22:55

Yes, I think you do and um

George Fenton22:58

When you write something, I think you leave a bit of yourself i in it. When that's recognized.

George Fenton23:06

by people playing and they give it back to you.

George Fenton23:09

With the addition of that amount of soul, you know, it's a really lovely.

George Fenton23:14

Thing.

Presenter23:15

But also it's why it works, because it's genuine. Again, what you were saying earlier, you're talking to the audience, aren't you? You're leading them, you're telling them the truth. You're saying, come this way, this is the story, this is how the narrative unfolds.

George Fenton23:23

Come this way. This is the story.

Presenter23:26

If it weren't a genuine emotion, if you'd sat down and said, I am now going to impersonate great passions, it wouldn't work, would it?

George Fenton23:32

Yes, yes, yes. It wouldn't work, wouldn't it? No, I think it wouldn't. And I think it's why your background and your preparation for it is life. It's not necessarily music. You've got to understand what people understand by emotion.

George Fenton23:46

Rather than, as you say, just borrowing.

George Fenton23:49

What is called emotion and sticking by because I think that in the end, then that's just hack work, isn't it? And so.

Presenter23:55

Yeah.

Presenter23:56

But is that also why you like to conduct as well? Um because you do, don't you? And and some c composers of film music don't. Is that a joy, placing that music

George Fenton24:05

It is and it's it's fun to do and also of course usually it's the only performance you get.

George Fenton24:11

And performance in a way is is healthy. To just get out there and do it. To be out there with the guys, you know, waving your arms around and them playing and all the jokes and I mean, I'm used to being solitary, but, you know, that's an important thing.

Presenter24:26

The final delivery. Record number six, what's this one?

George Fenton24:30

My dad was an absolute major fan of big bands and big bands writing, great big band writing, apart from being brilliantly skilful, is very often incredibly witty. And this is uh Billy May's big band with um You're Driving Me Crazy.

Speaker 425:02

Um

Presenter25:20

Billy May's big band with you're driving me crazy. So, George Fenton, you're an interpreter. You're a kind of knitter together, a puller together of other people's sensibilities and, as we say, sense of narrative and so on.

Presenter25:33

Do you ever write music for its own sake, not to do with films? I mean, in other words, how great a difference is there between what you do and being a classical composer?

George Fenton25:42

I have done. I have written various things. I wrote a string quartet for the Medici two years ago. I've written a some solo trumpet work. I wrote a children's opera. Various things like that. But they've always been because I've been asked.

Presenter26:00

But I mean that was true of Mozart and Beethoven.

George Fenton26:03

Well, yes, it's slightly different.

Presenter26:06

It's slightly different.

Speaker 226:08

Uh

George Fenton26:11

The difference, I think, between writing film music and r and and a and a a classical composer is that I think the gesture is a different gesture. I think there's no comparison. I think

George Fenton26:23

To sit down and write a classical commission.

George Fenton26:25

You have to know who you are musically.

Presenter26:28

But that's really my question, because there are people who do what you do, like Richard Rodney Bennett and John Williams, who also do this other thing you're discussing, which is which obviously the word for it is original, isn't it? There cannot be space in any original classical composition for that which is derivative or pastiche or whatever it is.

George Fenton26:47

Uh

Speaker 426:48

Uh

George Fenton26:48

Yeah, I think.

Presenter26:48

And I think I'm asking you whether you feel you would like to do that, or are you saying you can only do it

George Fenton26:53

I think I might eventually, when I've resolved everything I need to resolve in my life, as it were, I might say, Well, I know who I am now.

Speaker 227:02

Uh

George Fenton27:02

And therefore I'm gonna write this, but the fun for me has has always been the variety.

George Fenton27:11

You know, I'm a mess in terms of w what I like. I I like so many different things. You know, I could have chosen eight records of Indian music, and that would have been fine. I could have

Presenter27:21

Or eight pieces of handle, thank you.

George Fenton27:23

Oh, eight pie pieces of handle, yeah, definitely, yes.

Presenter27:25

But in the meantime, you know, you have a sort of concert hall career as well, because you perform the blue planet, you and David Attenborough.

George Fenton27:31

Yeah.

George Fenton27:33

Yes, yes, with with a double X.

Presenter27:34

We are at all.

George Fenton27:36

We were on the road, David and I.

Presenter27:38

Off to the Hollywood Bull soon, huh?

George Fenton27:40

Yes, w that's true, yes. Well, the Blue Planet was just one of those great projects because it actually did cross over to a degree in terms of the sense of f music in film. Because there are sequences, or there were sequences in the in the series which were literally more or less just music and picture. People seem to have liked it. So now it's yeah, it's now touring the world. I'm going to Copenhagen next month to conduct it. And for me it's like some totally unexpected

George Fenton28:12

Thrill for me.

Presenter28:13

It's performance and is what you like.

George Fenton28:14

It's performance, I like that, yeah. Yeah.

Presenter28:15

Yeah.

Presenter28:16

Record number seven.

George Fenton28:18

Well, as you said, I could take um eight easily, eight things by Handel. I love Handel's music. He was a very, very cool composer. So I've chosen um this because I can imagine standing on the beach at sunset listening to this, its eternal source.

Speaker 429:30

All five limbs display.

Presenter29:36

James Bowman singing Handel's Eternal Source of Light Divine, a birthday ode for Queen Anne, with the King's Consort. So um you're a workaholic, I gather, George. You compose at the last minute, you like those deadlines, don't you? Will removing you to a desert island, you know, get you out of all that kind of frustration and panic that you get into?

George Fenton29:56

Um

George Fenton29:58

Writing is solitary, there's no question about that. I spend a lot of time alone, so I I wouldn't I wouldn't mind it. I've always also thought that, you know, music came along for me in a way. I didn't go looking for it. And my career writing just came along. I I I didn't go looking for that either. And if it stops, it wouldn't worry me. I would just wait for something else to come along.

Speaker 230:26

Last record.

George Fenton30:28

I saw a a concert at the Carnegie Hall of the Berlin Philharmonic. They did a week there. I saw an orchestra at the height of its power.

George Fenton30:37

Strauss, when he wrote this, really had decided what his power was and signed off with these songs in a way that he knew what he wrote. And there's a kind of confidence in this music that I find so reassuring. It's brilliant music, so there's no other reason really. This is Strauss' Four Last Songs.

Presenter32:01

I'm Schlaffengen on Going to Sleep, one of Ricard Strauss's four last songs, sung there by Renee Fleming with the Houston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Christopher Eschenbach. Now, if you could only take what it gets worse, one of those eight records, George Fenton, which one would you take?

George Fenton32:17

Strauss, I think.

Presenter32:18

Hmm.

George Fenton32:18

You know, you'd never get tired of it really.

Presenter32:21

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

George Fenton32:25

I probably wouldn't take a book, a long book.

George Fenton32:28

because I'd feel kind of sad when I got to the end of it, so I'd probably take Chekhov's short stories. Chekhov said once that there was no human experience so small that you couldn't write a play about it.

George Fenton32:43

And

George Fenton32:45

I think probably on a desert island some of my experiences would be so minuscule that I could test the theory. But but it would be nice to have just a short story to read, you know, and then get on with something, a bit of work or building something or whatever I've got to do to survive on the desert island, so I'll take check off short stories.

Presenter33:06

And what about your luxury?

George Fenton33:08

If I could take a piano at

George Fenton33:10

I'd take a piano. Otherwise I'd take all right, well I wu I probably would take a piano. If I didn't take a piano I'd take something um meaningless but comforting, like a tin of condensed milk. That's that's my idea of bliss.

Speaker 233:11

The white

Presenter33:12

Uh

Speaker 233:12

Uh

Presenter33:12

Zero tip.

Speaker 233:12

Uh

Presenter33:26

and an opener.

George Fenton33:28

Uh yeah, and an opening, yeah.

Presenter33:29

Yeah, okay. George Fenton, thank you very much indeed for letting us see your Desert Island Discs.

George Fenton33:33

Thank you.

Presenter33:33

Uh

Speaker 233:41

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