Lorin Maazel

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 five, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:29

My castaway this week is a musician. This spring the Royal Opera will present the premiere of his opera based on George Orwell's novel 1984. It's a considerable accolade for someone who's thought of more as a conductor than a composer. He was a child prodigy. He's a bit dismissive of that these days, but the facts speak for themselves. He conducted Mendelssohn's Italian Symphony at the New York World Fair when he was nine, the New York Philharmonic when he was ten, and Toscanini's NBC Symphony Orchestra when he was eleven. His later career took him to Europe, where he conducted all the great orchestras and became artistic director of the Vienna State Opera. He then went home to Pittsburgh, where he conducted the symphony orchestra there for ten years. Three years ago, by now in his early seventies, he took up his present post as music director of the New York Philharmonic. Great conductor, soloist, he's a considerable violinist, and composer, he describes himself as a person with an odd combination of gifts. Whenever I've been asked to help guide musical destiny, he adds, I've always given it my all. I don't think there's anyone who's worked harder since the age of sixteen. He is Lauren Mazzell. And uh you're still at it, age seventy five, Maestro. What's more, you've just been extended in your post at the New York Phil, I think, till two thousand and nine.

Lorin Maazel1:44

That's correct. I'm uh enjoying my tenure there as music director. It's a marvelous orchestra and I think we've come to understand one another. We seem to be cut out of the same cloth musically.

Presenter1:55

But are you having fun? I mean, you must be.

Lorin Maazel1:57

I will really enjoy it.

Presenter1:58

Such an appetite for work there must be some fun in there.

Lorin Maazel2:00

Well, curiously enough, having, yes, been very active for these many years, since my sixteenth year, I am nevertheless not a workaholic at all. It is true that when I was younger,

Lorin Maazel2:14

Being a very young man in an old man's profession, I may have appeared to be overly serious and even arrogant.

Lorin Maazel2:21

But I certainly don't give that impression today. Today you're mellow. I'm mellow.

Presenter2:24

Today you're mellow. This is the word. But tell me, you've said before now that you didn't choose that profession, that that you were chosen, as it were. What's the combination then that m made you obviously a conductor?

Lorin Maazel2:38

I I have uh a good ear, I have a good memory, I uh seem to be able to communicate uh manually as a conductor.

Lorin Maazel2:47

Uh that's something that uh one is uh apparently born with.

Lorin Maazel2:51

Um

Presenter2:51

But there's also an element of

Presenter2:54

Well, what do we call it? Is it fate or is it lucky breaks or what? Because I know there was a moment, wasn't there, when you'd come to Europe, you were in your early twenties, it was Christmas Eve, there was a a a concert to be conducted, and um the conductor fell ill and there you were, and there was an even greater coincidence, wasn't there, because of the nature of the programme.

Lorin Maazel3:15

Yes, indeed. The telephone rang in my one room flat in in Milan. And of course, as a student, you can't afford uh a room with heat. So I was, I think, in my overcoat washing the dishes when I got this offer to go to Catania, Sicily, to conduct a programme of music that I had, for one reason or another, conducted. And so I caught the the train. It took seventeen hours from Milan to Catania. There were no seats available, so I stood for the seventeen hours and learned the one piece of the program I didn't know. And I arrived. The director of the theater took one look at me and he slammed his fist down on the table and he said, They send me a boy, obviously, right out of kindergarten. And I want to tell you, young man, I'm the head of the local mafia. And if you don't do well, I don't think you're going to get back. No pressure, then. No pressure.

Speaker 44:09

No pressure then. No pressure.

Lorin Maazel4:11

So, um

Speaker 44:11

So

Presenter4:11

Uh

Speaker 44:11

Yeah.

Lorin Maazel4:12

Nevertheless, um it was a wonderful experience and I I was um quite stunned that that it went well.

Presenter4:20

Tell me about your first record for this desert island.

Lorin Maazel4:23

Asha Ivetz was a rather close friend of my teacher, Vladimir Romanovich Bakalenikov, those Russians stuck together.

Lorin Maazel4:34

he, my teacher, asked me to play uh for Joshu Heifz. Uh I was so frightened and so much in awe of the greatest master of the violin since the violin was um invented. And I chose this uh work, La Femme Proudigue.

Presenter4:44

Huh?

Lorin Maazel4:51

Because I think there's no more ravishing sound than can be heard in his uh transcription.

Presenter5:57

De Bussy's Prelude, L'Enfant Prodigue, played by Jasha Heifitz. Um any child prodigy, Lauren Moselle, is required to describe the experience more than once in his life, and I'm afraid this is no exception. But give me the background first, because music

Presenter6:11

Was in your blood, wasn't it? Your grandfather, your father, your mother were all very musical.

Lorin Maazel6:17

Yes, my grandfather was um a violinist uh at the Metropolitan Opera. Very fine one, I'm told. My father, uh who's still alive, a hundred and two years old he is, still sings in his room.

Lorin Maazel6:31

And um my mother studied piano. Music runs in the family, but I I I wu would like to make the point that I always make, that the musical gift must appear at a very early age.

Presenter6:43

Yeah.

Lorin Maazel6:43

So how uh

Presenter6:44

So how early on did yours emerge then? How early on

Lorin Maazel6:47

Well, I remember becoming interested in the violin when I was five, uh mainly because I had a cousin who was younger and al was already playing the violin and I felt um you know, well, she was just a girl and I was a big strapping man of five and what she could do I could do better.

Lorin Maazel7:05

Yeah.

Presenter7:05

And the conducting?

Lorin Maazel7:05

And the conductor.

Lorin Maazel7:06

My father had me learn the surprise symphony of Haydn on the piano, and then he bought a score and he set up a kind of mini orchestra in our living room. Uh chairs would represent an entire group of first violins and our dog.

Lorin Maazel7:24

Awale became the double base section.

Lorin Maazel7:28

And then he would play a record and I would start conducting.

Presenter7:31

How old were you?

Lorin Maazel7:32

I was seven.

Presenter7:33

But do you remember enjoying it? I assume

Lorin Maazel7:35

Yes, it was fun. It was it was fun. Uh, I was a fun lover and it was um it was like riding my bike. It was just one more one other way of enjoying life.

Presenter7:46

But it's a long way, isn't it, to from that point of enjoyment and having fun, like riding a bike, to standing on a podium in front of w well, the New York Philharmonic, for heaven's sake.

Lorin Maazel7:57

Looking at the some years later, but

Presenter7:57

Looking

Presenter8:01

Well, take me back then to when you were a b you know, a boy standing in. That that's my point. Which I don't know which orchestra you stood in front of, but certainly at the New York World Fair when you were nine years old.

Lorin Maazel8:05

Yeah.

Lorin Maazel8:09

Nine, yes. I conducted um a student orchestra from the uh from a music camp in the north of Michigan where my teacher was a music director. I conducted uh Mendelssohn's Italian symphony and showed the ultimate talent for conducting because when one of our musicians fell off the stage because there was no room, this poor violinist actually fell five feet into the into the public. I didn't bat an eye and continued conducting, totally impervious to the human element, showing you know that kind of determination and disregard for the the the the human beings who are after all musicians. And on the basis of that uh I was uh engaged by a professional agent. to conduct major orchestras. And uh I conducted Toscanini's an MBC in nineteen forty one at the age of uh eleven. He was kind enough to come to the rehearsal and uh as the story goes did put

Presenter8:58

And the

Lorin Maazel9:12

his hand uh on my head and did say God bless you.

Presenter9:16

In English.

Lorin Maazel9:17

Um in fact um

Lorin Maazel9:20

It was translated because he was saying Dio Ti Benedica, which is of course God bless you in Italian. I didn't speak Italian at the time, but I remember and someone whispered in my ear, he's saying, God bless you And, you know, I was c totally mute.

Presenter9:33

Oof.

Presenter9:37

Record number two. Tell me about that.

Lorin Maazel9:39

Ottalo continues to fascinate musicians and opera fans alike. And so we have Attua Toscanini's version of the Ava Maria sung by Evanelli. And I hear this aria with much joy and much reverence.

Speaker 410:01

Oh the Marie of Pierna digara

Speaker 410:06

They left all his falls and liver genius like

Speaker 410:12

See a burn, oh burned a situation.

Speaker 410:22

Yeah, so

Speaker 410:29

Yeah.

Speaker 410:34

They brought

Speaker 410:39

I woo a grip.

Speaker 410:51

If we take the body of Christ Labor Savior.

Presenter11:00

Part of the Ave Maria from the fourth act of Verdi Zotello, with Ervanelli as Desdemona, with an NBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Arturo Toscanini, and that was recorded in nineteen forty seven.

Presenter11:12

So, Lauren Moselle, when you talked about your relief as a teenager in leaving all that behind and actually moving into obscurity after being little Lauren, whom everybody knew.

Lorin Maazel11:21

Well, you know, I was uh

Lorin Maazel11:24

bemused by the fact that I had enjoyed this fame and the day after was suddenly forgotten I was no longer a child.

Lorin Maazel11:33

I was no longer of any interest and no one asked me to conduct orchestras anymore. It was a moment in of reflection, gave me an opportunity to think, well, now that I have had a career as a conductor, let's move on to the next one. What else am I going to do? I'm going to become the great American writer. You know, this and it's a choice that I will make and not somebody else.

Presenter11:47

What else am I going to do?

Lorin Maazel11:54

Yeah.

Presenter11:55

So, um but this was the early fifties. Mm m McCarthyism was in full cry.

Lorin Maazel12:01

Yes, um and that's when I began to think about um leaving uh the United States. It was not just a political um uh gesture. It was because of Victor de Salvatum and to a kind of vitality that I didn't believe could be brought to music uh in his in his interpretations of the classics of the requiem of uh excerpts from Wagner operas.

Presenter12:28

And he believed in you, didn't he? He he he saw something in you. He thought you could go a long way.

Lorin Maazel12:31

Well, eventually I had the good fortune, again the good fortune. My teacher had suggested that I share a program with him. He was associate conductor there. So he put his hand on my shoulder and he said, Go to Europe. You have to broaden your scope and your horizon. And so.

Presenter12:53

This is where the idea for the Fulbright scholarship came in.

Lorin Maazel12:54

Yes, and then I applied. I had no business applying uh because I was quite unqualified. But um at my at the examining board

Lorin Maazel13:04

interview. I was so brazen in pretending to know what I didn't know.

Presenter13:08

What the Italian language?

Lorin Maazel13:10

For one thing, yes. That um they uh finally gave it to me on the basis of of uh sheer nutspa.

Presenter13:17

What's pa?

Lorin Maazel13:18

Putspa. Good word.

Presenter13:19

How how can you

Lorin Maazel13:21

Also referred to as toupe, nerve, unmitigated.

Presenter13:23

Yeah.

Lorin Maazel13:25

Gaul, how can you prefer?

Presenter13:26

How can you pretend to know the Italian language?

Lorin Maazel13:28

Well, I'm I memorized,'cause I had a good memory, I memorized three pages of conversation, which I rattled off uh trying to convince people who speak Italian that I knew the language perfectly. In fact, uh I met uh a couple of members of that examining board years later.

Speaker 413:39

Yeah.

Lorin Maazel13:44

And uh he said, Well,

Lorin Maazel13:47

You remember the two of us got up and left the room?

Lorin Maazel13:50

And I said, Well, yes, I was wondering why. He said, Because we were so overcome with fits of laughter that we couldn't bear it another moment. I mean, if can you imagine the scene?

Presenter14:02

But it was, as we've heard, the great turning point. Yes, it was.

Lorin Maazel14:02

It wasn't

Lorin Maazel14:04

Yes, it was. And so I went to Europe and then I uh there the Italy was filled with um uh expatriates, you know, uh young Americans with beards um uh hating their country because he was uh in what seemed like the death grip of Senator McCarthy. And in fact it came very close to um going all the way towards a dictatorship, no legarchy. It was only thanks to President Truman, who finally pulled himself together and clipped the senator's wings.

Presenter14:16

Hood

Presenter14:36

Next piece of music.

Lorin Maazel14:37

We have Alexander Skriabin's Prelude to Opus Eleven, No. Nine, performed by Vladimir Horowitz. It's an extraordinary piece. Horowitz again belonged to this Russian community uh in Pittsburgh knew my teacher very well. And so um

Lorin Maazel14:54

I think it only appropriate that this recording uh be be heard in this in this context.

Presenter16:01

Alexander Scriabin's Prelude Opus Eleven, No. 9, performed by Vladimir Horovitz. It's almost, um, Lori-Moselle, as if you became a European then for a time in the nineteen fifties, having come to Europe. You you set about learning all of these languages. Uh uh so ma how many? Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, am I right?

Lorin Maazel16:23

Well, yes. I certainly did because I I wanted to re relate to people in their own language. I of course knew very little about European musicians, and someone came through I'd never heard of, conducted the bronze requiem.

Lorin Maazel16:40

in a church and uh I went there and I asked somebody I said, That's really a pretty good conductor. He has a fine future. Oh, his name is Herbert von Kaiken.

Presenter16:40

Yeah.

Lorin Maazel16:50

Well, uh, you got good taste there. Yes, it just uh indicating how little uh Americans knew of what was happening in the world around them. I caught up.

Presenter16:52

And you got good taste there.

Presenter16:58

Yeah.

Presenter17:00

Yeah.

Lorin Maazel17:01

Yes. And five years later I was conducting in Bayroid.

Presenter17:01

Yeah.

Presenter17:05

Well, that's right. And what the first American and the youngest conductor ever

Lorin Maazel17:10

That's right in nineteen sixty at the invitation of Wilan Wagner. I had no idea what I was facing um technically. With the orchestra, of course, playing under the stage, uh the conductor stands under a cowling.

Presenter17:21

Do you know the case?

Lorin Maazel17:24

And uh basically the only way it for the conductor to maintain uh contact with the singers is to read lips. And um if you hear anything from the stage, it means that you're you're late or early, because uh when it's perfectly together you hear very little.

Lorin Maazel17:44

I was unprepared to deal with all of that, but apparently it was quite successful.

Presenter17:48

And a lot of bookings followed from that. But let's pause for record number four.

Lorin Maazel17:52

I was said.

Lorin Maazel17:54

in my uh late twenties, engaged by Desabuto, who was artistic director.

Lorin Maazel18:00

Ah, Vlascale.

Lorin Maazel18:02

Uh there was um a pianist by the name of Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli engaged to play Rockman IV, piano concerto. I memorized the score, arrived in Milan, had three rehearsals for the programme, and Michelangelo took one look at me and he said, I need all three rehearsals. He was the star of Italy at that time and I was no one. And indeed he was very tough on me for about twenty minutes. And then he sort of looked up quizzically and saw that in fact he was dealing with someone well prepared who knew the score.

Lorin Maazel18:36

And the rehearsal's over and he said, I'm too bored and too tired to rehearse any more. Said he, a backhanded compliment. And indeed I had two rehearsals to finish the programme and the concert was most memorable. I had a great deal of trouble accompanying him, however, because I was totally blown away by this beauty of his sound.

Lorin Maazel18:57

And I would just stand there, conduct as if I were an abject fan, in love with the Benedetti Michelangeli sound. And I I had to keep reminding myself that I was conducting the orchestra and had things to do up there.

Presenter20:09

Partoro Benedetti Michelangeli playing the opening of the third movement of Rechmaninoff's fourth piano concerto with the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Ettore Gracchis, and that was recorded in nineteen fifty eight.

Presenter20:21

You, um, Laurie Moselle, made your uh London debut in nineteen sixty one for the BBC in fact, um uh conducting Marla's Second, The Resurrection. Um can I read you a a a piece from a review of the time which I think paints a picture of you? I quote He is dark, dapper, and dynamic. Diamonds flash at his cuffs, reflecting a little of the showman or dandy. With his thick, dark, curling hair, he looks like a young executive of some fashion house in Rome.

Lorin Maazel20:50

Yeah.

Presenter20:50

What a figure you cut!

Lorin Maazel20:52

You can see how many years ago that was.

Presenter20:56

For you obviously having fun. I mean, it was a long way from Pittsburgh, by the way. You you you were becoming a a showman, as it were, were you?

Lorin Maazel21:04

Well

Lorin Maazel21:05

I don't think you could become a showman. I think you have a and and the word is usually taken in a pejorative sense, but someone on s on stage uh must have that gift.

Speaker 421:17

Hmm.

Lorin Maazel21:17

But I think it it it basically comes from your uh enthusiasm, enthusiasm for the material.

Lorin Maazel21:25

Subject matter the music.

Presenter21:28

Let's spool on because you did so much and we can't rehearse it all. You know, you went to Berlin as music director of the Deutsche Oprah and so on and uh you went back

Presenter21:38

eventually across the Atlantic to Cleveland and so on. But in your early fifties,

Presenter21:42

You got a call and I think Herbert von Karion told you that call was coming in. He said you're about to get the call of your life.

Lorin Maazel21:50

Yes, um, the um to become general manager of the Vienna State Opera. And he said during that conversation, he said, uh, yes, it would be great if you could take this position. There's been no musician at the helm of the Vienna State Opera since uh I was there. However, he said, I bet you my gold watch that you will not last as long as I did. And I said, Well, how many years was that? My son he said, Seven.

Lorin Maazel22:17

And I said, Well, I'll do my best and of course he was right. I quit after two years.

Lorin Maazel22:22

because basically I wasn't enjoying it.

Lorin Maazel22:26

It was uh a problem with the uh Minister of Culture who had uh uh personal access to grind. But I've never taken any of that uh amiss. It's not for me to pass judgment on on those who in fact I may run afoul of uh professionally. Uh that's the risk that one takes.

Presenter22:45

You sound very, of course, sanguine about it now, but it was quite a blow at the time, I'm sure. I mean, it was a nasty experience all round, wasn't it?

Lorin Maazel22:52

No, no, no, no, because I had uh actually won the battle, so to speak, um e press wise and uh public wise.

Presenter23:01

Well yours was the moral victory, wasn't it?

Lorin Maazel23:01

We go as

Lorin Maazel23:03

I wasn't enjoying it and uh when I stop enjoying something I just pick pack up my bags and go.

Presenter23:10

We better have record number five. Look, it's the Vienna Phil.

Lorin Maazel23:12

That's

Lorin Maazel23:13

Well, I'm very fond of the Vienna Philharmonic and have the great honor of being an honorary member of the orchestra, which would allow me to play a violin in in the orchestra if I w so wished.

Lorin Maazel23:25

And in fact, I asked whether maybe sometime I

Lorin Maazel23:29

could do so. And they said, Well, Maestro,

Lorin Maazel23:32

You'd have to audition first, and you'd better practice.

Presenter24:33

The opening of Beethoven's Symphony No. three, the Eroica, played by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Wilhelm Furtwengler, and that was recorded in nineteen fifty three. So you became a a freelance conductor again after the Vienna experience and and and as we've established, you're very much your own man and in a sense are

Presenter24:51

Perhaps more at ease when you're

Presenter24:54

Being freelance, doing your own thing, going where you decide to go next.

Presenter24:59

You went back eventually to to Pittsburgh in the late eighties and became uh the first conductor there to command a salary, I read, of a million dollars a season. It strikes me that

Presenter25:11

Again, it's been important to you, presumably yes, to earn the money that you felt you deserve, but also because of your beginnings, when, as we've established, your your family didn't have a lot of money.

Presenter25:22

To be paid and to make it financially has been part of what's driven you, yes?

Lorin Maazel25:28

Well uh I used to say at press conferences in in um in Vienna when I was general manager there, when you boil boil it down to the hard facts of the matter, only fifteen percent of the budget is allocated to the artists who conduct, sing, dance and play three hundred performances of o of opera every year. And so with regard to my uh own

Lorin Maazel25:58

fees and those of fellow artists. There is no employer, and after all, we are employees who will pay or offer a cent more than he feels he can.

Presenter26:08

Mecca number six.

Lorin Maazel26:10

Right. The Death and the Maiden. Very, very difficult violin part. I remember uh playing some chamber music uh with some friends in my teens and it was suggested we play the the quartet and I tried to sight read it with catastrophic uh results. I was a good violinist, but um

Lorin Maazel26:29

Not good enough to sight read and very few people I think are. So I took it home, learned it, and since I was first violin of a string quartet, the fine arts string quartet of Fitzpring, we did program it and I played it fairly well, but I don't think as well as the Buddhist Best string quartet, which I adored. And I think the performance of the Schubert Ma masterpiece is more than worthy of a good listen and taking to that desert island.

Speaker 427:01

Yeah.

Speaker 427:19

Yeah.

Lorin Maazel27:51

Uh

Presenter28:01

The opening of the fourth movement of Schubert's quartet number fourteen, Death and the Maiden, played by the Budapest String Quartet, and that was recorded in 1927.

Speaker 428:02

The

Presenter28:10

You said a few years ago, Lorine Moselle, that every conductor should play an instrument.

Presenter28:16

compose and produce at least one opera. And now at the age of seventy five you're about to do that very final thing, one opera. You've written an opera based on 1984, the the George Orwell novel, which is in production as we speak at the Royal Opera House. Why did you choose that novel? Why I mean it's a great novel, but what made you think it would make a good opera?

Lorin Maazel28:38

We all had read nineteen eighty four in our teens.

Lorin Maazel28:42

People in my generation.

Lorin Maazel28:44

And it seemed like the stuff of opera, a doomed love affair, caught in the vice of an oligarchical system from which there was no exit, no no escape.

Presenter28:56

Power versus love. I mean

Lorin Maazel28:58

Very good.

Presenter28:58

Verdi might have chosen it himself.

Lorin Maazel28:59

Exactly. Little did I know six years ago when that decision was made how relevant the subject matter would be to in today's world.

Presenter29:08

Is it possible to describe the kind of music you've written? I mean, we immediately think of Big Brother and the Thought Police and so on. I mean, are there leit motifs as these people appear?

Lorin Maazel29:20

Yes, well it's basically Wagnerian in terms of organization of material.

Presenter29:20

Yes, well it

Presenter29:26

But is it tonal, atonal?

Lorin Maazel29:28

Well the the work is uh compositionally panoramic. It's obviously written by someone who lives today. The the language is contemporary, and yet we're talking about a story that began some hundred and fifty years ago.

Presenter29:40

There's gym instructress music, I read, for for the woman who leads the communal exercise classes on these sort of ubiquitous tele screens.

Lorin Maazel29:46

Thank you.

Presenter29:48

Born of your distaste for uh television aerobic classes.

Lorin Maazel29:50

Buff.

Lorin Maazel29:51

Yes. Um well, um does anyone really enjoy watching this at five o'clock in the morning, not being able to sleep and turning on your T V? You can't even move your toes. It's an affront to one's sensitivities.

Presenter29:53

I don't have

Presenter29:57

What

Presenter30:06

And is there is there Room One O One music?

Lorin Maazel30:09

Oh yes, yes, there is a terrifying two terrifying torture scenes.

Lorin Maazel30:14

So there is uh rack music, there is torture music, but there's love music. Um it's a very complicated story. Have you read it?

Presenter30:22

Have you had fun writing it? Oh, wow. Has it been a heavy slog? Has it together?

Lorin Maazel30:24

Oh wow.

Lorin Maazel30:26

It was a heavy slog, but as I got into each day, as I got into the material, it became outrageously uh fun because I'm a fun loving person and I think you hear that.

Presenter30:39

Next piece of music.

Lorin Maazel30:41

Hiana Saka is a remarkable cellist and uh

Lorin Maazel30:45

I was fortunate enough to be given um uh the his recording of the complete works for Unaccompanied Cello by Sebastian Bach. And um I played it down on the farm for my young children and uh

Lorin Maazel31:02

They were in awe of this wonderful sound. Uh one of my boys uh plays cello.

Lorin Maazel31:07

And um it became a ritual. Every morning at breakfast we would uh play this remarkable uh recording.

Presenter32:14

Part of the fourth movement of Bach's cello suite number three in C major, played by Janus Stake.

Presenter32:20

Um, you say you play it at home on your farm in in Virginia, uh Maestro, where you grow your own fruit and vegetables, I understand.

Speaker 432:27

Great.

Presenter32:27

Planning to make your own wine or you do make your own wine.

Lorin Maazel32:30

Perhaps

Presenter32:31

But you're so peripatetic, are you ever there?

Lorin Maazel32:34

Yes, indeed. Uh it's not very far away from New York and we manage to get down there almost every weekend.

Presenter32:41

Passion for fine wine. Passion for chess, I gather, and for the family. How does our desert island appeal to you? Nothing to do except listen to music and reflect on your life and times.

Lorin Maazel32:51

Well

Presenter32:51

Right.

Presenter32:52

Oh, I can see you tempted to stay there for a while.

Lorin Maazel32:54

They're tempted to say it sounds like a lovely place.

Presenter32:58

Tell me about the last piece.

Lorin Maazel32:59

Yes. Well, I'm very fond of uh Faure's music because of its uh intimate uh introspective quality. The Doctrine No. Six I uh chose because it's uh very typical of the music uh that he wrote at that period and performed by someone particularly sensitive to to French music.

Presenter34:19

The opening of Foray's Nocturne No. Six, performed by Wilhelm Kempf, if in the end you could only take one of these eight records.

Lorin Maazel34:20

Yeah.

Presenter34:29

There's a really tough choice. Which one would you take?

Lorin Maazel34:33

Well, the music that would probably then continue to give me uh the greatest uh solace and comfort would be the Schubert uh Death and the Maiden Quartet.

Presenter34:46

And you we also give you one book. We give you the Bible and we give you the complete works of Shakespeare, and you can take one other book of your own choice.

Lorin Maazel34:55

Well, I'm very fond of the Pensais of Pascal.

Presenter34:59

Okay.

Presenter35:00

Pascal's penset, and we allow you a luxury.

Lorin Maazel35:03

Um, something that would feed my soul.

Lorin Maazel35:06

Then it would have to be a painting.

Lorin Maazel35:08

And um it would be between Vermeer and Georgia on there.

Presenter35:13

Do you want to choose?

Lorin Maazel35:14

Vermeo.

Presenter35:15

Which one?

Presenter35:16

There aren't many.

Lorin Maazel35:17

The uh the piano lesson.

Presenter35:19

Lauren Moselle, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Speaker 335:31

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