Simon Rattle

Presenter0:00

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 eight.

Presenter0:26

My castaway this week is Sir Simon Rattle. He is beyond doubt the finest British conductor of his generation, and has been causing a stir for thirty-five years. His epiphany came in Liverpool in nineteen sixty six. Whilst most youngsters around the world were gripped by the music of four lads from his hometown, he was listening to a performance of Mahler's Second Symphony, and was gripped by the certainty that he must be a conductor. He was eleven. He led an orchestra for the first time aged just fifteen.

Presenter0:56

Things have gone pretty well as a grown-up, too. He notably transformed the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra from a provincial company hammering out old favourites in the town hall to one of the most capable, adventurous, and challenging in the world. And now, as the principal conductor and artistic director of the Berlin Philharmonic, he has what is widely regarded as the best job in the business. The Berlin Philharmonic, then, is described by some as the Rolls-Royce of orchestras. Seems to me that's not quite right. It's not one of those vehicles that anybody can drive and will faultlessly perform whoever is behind the wheel. It's much more spirited than that, much more like a maybe a Formula One car.

Simon Rattle1:36

I think that's true, and it will happily drive itself off the road if you ask it to. But if you can manage to steer it in the right direction uh and it's a group of extraordinarily brilliant, capable, and also very strong minded people, if you can get it going in the same direction, it's like nothing else.

Presenter1:59

What what is its unique character? I mean, each orchestra does have a character, and the very best have very strong characters.

Simon Rattle2:06

Maybe the quality of the sound coming out of the centre of the earth oh and it has something about lava flow as well. I mean a number of people have said they have the sensation that if you got your hands too close to it it would get very badly burnt. It's a type of desperate enthusiasm that carries all before it.

Presenter2:27

Sounds like a dangerous place to live and work.

Simon Rattle2:30

Um of course it's a dangerous place, but that's also part of the immense pleasure, because at the moment of making music nothing is more important. And one of the things that I would miss the most on my desert island and most need to hear was that astonishing sound welling up.

Presenter2:54

When you heard that Claudia Bada was to step down, did you think, somewhere secretly in your head, it will be mine, this job?

Simon Rattle3:02

Not in this or any other existence, no.

Presenter3:05

How did it happen? Because, um, of course it is an orchestra that gets to choose its own conductor.

Simon Rattle3:11

Well, it's one of those very rare creatures. It has a secret balance.

Simon Rattle3:16

They had a year where they decided what they wanted before who they wanted. But I heard in a phone call.

Simon Rattle3:24

When I was

Simon Rattle3:25

In Oxford.

Simon Rattle3:27

Very extraordinary moment.

Presenter3:29

And the first thing that occurred to you was what?

Simon Rattle3:32

Thank God I'm going on holiday to Africa to morrow.

Presenter3:37

Tell me about your first piece of music, then.

Simon Rattle3:40

Well, Marlowe was, as you said, what made me become a conductor, and I still feel, in a way, like the kid who had this

Simon Rattle3:49

Saint Paul's Vision on the Road to Damascus, one I hear, Mahler.

Simon Rattle3:54

I would want to take one piece with me conducting and my musical family playing, just to remember the sound. And this is Mahler's Ninth Symphony, The Climax of the First Movement, where you can hear this extraordinary sound in full cry.

Presenter5:11

Part of the Andante from Mahler's Ninth Symphony, performed by the Berlin Philharmonic, conducted by my castaway, Simon Rattle. As I said in the introduction, Simon, you grew up in Liverpool. What was life like?

Simon Rattle5:23

Fantastic city, full of football and poetry and culture and pubs and

Simon Rattle5:30

Look, I'm a Scouser, so it's the greatest city in the world. What can you say? And I spent all my time playing.

Presenter5:34

Yeah.

Presenter5:38

And your father was a businessman, but in his fifties, interestingly, he had a complete change of career. What happened?

Simon Rattle5:45

Well, he'd always wanted to be a school teacher, and he went back to teachers' training college, taught English, in schools also taught the piano, but did what he really wanted to do.

Presenter5:55

And he learned the piano as well. Didn't you both learn at the same time? Well, I did.

Simon Rattle5:59

Well he played I mean he played very well. He was a very good jazz pianist. But I mean we went both and had serious lessons with a wonderful old man called Douglas Miller. That was wonderful doing that together, I must say.

Presenter6:11

He bought you a drum kit, or the family bought you a drum kit when you were four. Do you think he had in mind that you might one day be a fabulous jazz musician?

Simon Rattle6:18

I think he hoped I would be. I admire jazz musicians more than anything, because they really compose it as it happens. That's the point. It's in their head and out it comes. It's reacted at the moment. The rest of us need more time.

Presenter6:33

Can you remember what you made of that little drum kit when you were four?

Simon Rattle6:37

Oh.

Simon Rattle6:38

Blood, sweat, and tears. It didn't last very long. The symbol I still have the drums went within days, the skins went. Because they were very, very long suffering, and they tended to move out very fast.

Presenter6:47

Because

Presenter6:53

Is it true that you used to uh construct little concerts that would be uh the family would have to take part in whether they wanted to or not?

Simon Rattle6:56

It would be uh the family

Simon Rattle6:58

Five

Simon Rattle7:01

You know, somebody once said to me that conductors are like the people who always order in Chinese restaurants. So it's insufferably bossy people. I must have been.

Simon Rattle7:10

My father and my sister and a long suffering next door neighbour would come and play every Sunday along to Records and we would

Simon Rattle7:18

bang the hell out of all these different percussion instruments.

Presenter7:21

Did you always give yourself the best bits?

Simon Rattle7:23

Yes.

Simon Rattle7:25

Absolutely. And I order in Chinese restaurants. It's horrible.

Presenter7:29

Yeah.

Simon Rattle7:29

Uh

Presenter7:29

Tell me about your next piece of music.

Simon Rattle7:30

Yeah.

Presenter7:30

Basic then.

Simon Rattle7:32

I always loved jazz.

Simon Rattle7:34

Jazz was the first music I heard uh

Simon Rattle7:37

My father had.

Simon Rattle7:38

A jazz band in Oxford in the in the forties.

Simon Rattle7:43

which people like Dennis Healy never used to miss a dance.

Simon Rattle7:47

Now, for a whole lot of my generation, Joan Mitchell

Simon Rattle7:52

Wrote the soundtrack anyway.

Simon Rattle7:55

A few years ago she said she wanted to do

Simon Rattle7:58

A recording really with an orchestra.

Simon Rattle8:01

And she put together one of the most extraordinary jazz albums of the last twenty years, with musicians like Pete Erskine on the drums and Herbie Hancock on the piano.

Simon Rattle8:13

And I must say also a singing style that you you can hardly recognise her voice from thirty years ago. And I would say the one positive thing in my lifetime that I've seen smoking do is what it did to Jonie Mitchell's voice.

Speaker 38:29

Sometimes I'm happy

Speaker 38:32

Sometimes I'm blue.

Speaker 38:36

But despite

Speaker 38:39

Is dependent on you.

Speaker 38:43

I never mind the rain.

Speaker 38:47

From the skies.

Speaker 38:50

As long as I have

Speaker 38:54

The sun in your eyes

Presenter8:57

Joni Mitchell and Sometimes I'm Happy. So, Simon Rattling there you were a busy little boy, a bossy little boy, a bright little boy. You were playing percussion. You were also playing violin. W were you conscious that you were

Presenter9:10

Somewhat out of kilter with the kids around you, that there was a world inside your head that was potentially a lot more complex than the one they were experiencing.

Simon Rattle9:19

I don't think it was more complex, I just think it was different and more obsessive.

Simon Rattle9:23

And anyone who knows what they're going to do when they're ten or eleven is by definition a strange duck.

Simon Rattle9:30

And so, in a way, you know, I am the person who never had to grow up.

Presenter9:34

You joined the Merseyside Youth Orchestra, as a very young, untypically young percussionist, and there you found your sort of people. That must have been a wonderful discovery.

Simon Rattle9:45

Yes, it saved my life because I realized that there were other funny ducks out there and being musicians they were funny ducks of all different sorts with this one passion, and that that was okay.

Simon Rattle9:58

Uh in a weird way I could become much more normal.

Presenter10:01

And hearing the Mahler in nineteen sixty six then, I described it as a moment of epiphany. I mean, it literally was was it? A moment when you thought, This is my certainty, this is my truth.

Simon Rattle10:13

It's still tattooed on me. Ah.

Simon Rattle10:16

And as anyone who's had any kind of conversion experience, which is I'm sure what it is.

Simon Rattle10:22

We'll know you remember everything. I remember everything about the days around everything was.

Simon Rattle10:30

blown on to me in the way that

Simon Rattle10:34

You still see the shadows of people up after a lava flow.

Simon Rattle10:39

It is still there because of that.

Presenter10:42

And is that what music does for you? It brings life into vivid.

Presenter10:46

Strong focus. It makes life more real than it would otherwise be.

Simon Rattle10:51

Well, I think I had understood what colours and tastes and textures were because of that. I can remember looking at flowers in those days and being simply blown away.

Simon Rattle11:04

Means you don't have to take drugs.

Presenter11:06

I was gonna say, it sounds like some trip.

Simon Rattle11:07

To be out, it's a lot cheaper.

Presenter11:11

Tell me about your next piece of music, then.

Simon Rattle11:14

This is very important to me because actually these recordings helped take me back to Bach.

Simon Rattle11:20

I'm really in my forties.

Simon Rattle11:22

The composer I had always loved and thought I would never be able to deal with it was just simply too hard. Ah

Simon Rattle11:29

When I heard this

Simon Rattle11:32

when I heard once again how wonderfully Bach could dance, and when I heard it played in a Mediterranean way, where all the colours were at the fore.

Simon Rattle11:44

It was another moment.

Simon Rattle11:47

All these choices are from the pleasure principle, but very little more so than the Bachfirst Brandenburg.

Presenter12:53

The beginning of Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. One, played by Giardino Armonico. So at nineteen then, you were launched into this professional life as a musician. The thing that launched you was the John Plair International conducting competition. The prize money, six and a half thousand pounds. Can you remember what you did with it?

Simon Rattle13:10

The orchestra got the prize money.

Presenter13:12

So essentially you were employed through the mm.

Simon Rattle13:13

I was employed, absolutely. And for two years I was thrown into

Simon Rattle13:18

Whatever. I started conducting professionally when I was nineteen, uh and it was kind of a joke, known as Baby Rattle by the orchestra, for for very good reason. You'd never seen Behind the Ears so green. But my

Simon Rattle13:33

God, was that a way of getting into the profession?

Presenter13:36

So no experience, no knowledge, and yet launched on this professional career. Do you think the musicians resented you, disliked you?

Simon Rattle13:45

No, it's very interesting. I think they didn't dislike me at all. I think they probably a lot of them must have hated it. It depends. Sometimes things went very well. It was much easier with a larger orchestra than a smaller orchestra. Maybe with a larger orchestra it was easier just for all the youthful enthusiasm to come through.

Presenter14:05

What about being in front of an audience at that age? Did you feel any self-consciousness at that?

Simon Rattle14:10

No problem. Sorry. I just felt as though I had found.

Simon Rattle14:15

the right thing to do. I loved doing it. It seemed very easy at the time. And of course when when you don't know things, it does seem easy.

Presenter14:26

Well, let me ask you about that. You once intriguingly said music is one little bit of life, it's not life, and it's very easy to be persuaded otherwise by the way most people live in our profession.

Simon Rattle14:38

Well, it's about life and death.

Simon Rattle14:41

But it is a part of life and the music should be about something. And if you don't have a chance to actually live a life around it, and a a life with variety, with many different things and many different emotions, you won't have a chance of making sense of the music either.

Presenter14:58

You've been careful to try to do that, and I want to talk to you about that in just a moment, for neither tell me about your next piece of music.

Simon Rattle15:03

Opera came to me from working as a student at the Royal Academy of Music at the age of seventeen on The Cunning Little Vixen. It's pretty extraordinary to me to find that I'm living with someone who comes from Bruno, where Janacek was born and lived.

Simon Rattle15:19

And that one of my first walks there with Magdalena was through the forest where the cunning little vixen was written.

Simon Rattle15:28

This is the end of the opera. The forester, who has had a whole lot of life experiences through the opera, which started in what might have been a dream by a little frog jumping on his face, finds himself

Simon Rattle15:43

in the forest, woken up yet again by a little frog jumping on his face, saying to the frog Just a moment, it's you again and the frog says, No, indeed, this is not me again. That was my grandfather who jumped on you last time. He always used to talk to me about you. And it's at this point in the opera where you realize the whole cycle of life.

Simon Rattle16:04

And only Janacek could do it with a baby frog and a last orchestral toottie lasting less than a minute.

Presenter17:12

The end of Janacek's The Cunning Little Vixen with Delabor Yedlichke and Peter Scharai with the Vienna Philharmonic conducted by Sir Charles McKerris. So in nineteen eighty your relationship with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra was already pretty much under way, but you decided to do what could be regarded as quite an unusual thing. You decided

Presenter17:31

to branch off and find in a way this

Presenter17:34

Other life, this real life that had nothing to do with music. Why did you do that and what did you do?

Simon Rattle17:41

I wanted to see if I could survive without music, whether anything would replace that. I wanted to know.

Simon Rattle17:49

I wanted to know what it felt like, because I think this is part of feeling like a strange duck, of wanting to know whether you could walk without that crutch. And also very selfishly, uh I'd left school at sixteen, I'd I'd finished my A levels and I'd always thought that I would go to university and study English. And St Anne's was the only place crazy enough to say yes, you can be a postgraduate without having done a degree.

Simon Rattle18:17

And so I had really an extraordinary year. In fact, it coincided with my first year in Birmingham. But I did the university terms at Oxford and the holiday times in Birmingham. But each two month term time I did m make myself a rule that I would not listen to music.

Simon Rattle18:34

and just see whether something else would have an equal weight. And indeed the work there did, uh what I discovered through

Simon Rattle18:42

This literature and poetry was yes, it could, and that when I when I went back to music it came with a redoubled force.

Presenter18:51

So, for the best part then, of two decades, it was, what, around eighteen years you were with the Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, credited, of course, with turning it from this provincial workhorse into a far finer, fitter animal. Did you have

Simon Rattle19:03

It was a pretty damn good orchestra already.

Simon Rattle19:06

It's just we all grew up together.

Simon Rattle19:09

Look, I was very lucky. They really knew that they needed to change and that they needed to develop, and so they were hungry.

Simon Rattle19:18

For this, I was twenty-five, they were taking a huge risk.

Simon Rattle19:24

How

Simon Rattle19:25

and it seemed to have paid off.

Presenter19:27

Tell me about your next piece of music, then.

Simon Rattle19:29

Anyone who's seen the play or the film Amadeus about Mozart and Salieri, the very good but composer of not genius, was his contemporary, will remember the moment where Salieri realized what the difference between being good and a genius. It was where this music from the Adagio of the Serenade for Thirteen Wind Instruments came on written by the very young Mozart Mozart who'd just watched his mother dying in agony.

Simon Rattle20:06

Writing what seems to be a mixture between an extraordinary lament and almost.

Simon Rattle20:13

a set of wings to send her up into the air.

Presenter21:17

The adagio for Mozart's serenade for thirteen wind instruments performed by the Berlin Philharmonic.

Simon Rattle21:23

Listening to the pieces I've chosen, I hadn't realized, but so many of them have this extraordinary quality of classical music, which is to be able to convey happiness and sadness at the same time and in equal measure.

Presenter21:39

Is that something as somebody who is clearly

Presenter21:42

highly articulate and enthusiastic. Are those things that you would have difficulty expressing merely by words? I mean, you've spoken about your your passion for English and your enjoyment in studying it. What is it about music that is able to travel beyond that for you?

Simon Rattle21:56

I think music reached us before language.

Simon Rattle21:59

Words are very, very useful as aids.

Simon Rattle22:02

But in a way they're like the bottle or the label of the real wine is the music.

Presenter22:08

Let's talk then about Berlin. It was September two thousand two that you finally got to take up the baton there. There had only been five other people in that post in the one hundred and seventeen year history of the orchestra.

Simon Rattle22:22

That's ludicrous, isn't it?

Presenter22:24

That's ludicrous, isn't it? Yes. Was it exhilarating, terrifying, daunting, thrilling?

Simon Rattle22:30

All the above.

Simon Rattle22:33

And still is.

Simon Rattle22:36

Sting said to me, What, it's Real Madrid, isn't it?

Simon Rattle22:41

It is the most extraordinarily gifted group of musicians all put together I have ever.

Simon Rattle22:49

I've ever come across.

Simon Rattle22:51

And I must say, ah, that

Simon Rattle22:53

Most of the greatest musical experiences in my life have been.

Simon Rattle22:58

There. And will be, I'm sure, because when you can make this move together, there is nothing else like it.

Simon Rattle23:06

We just have to simply keep on doing the things that musicians have to do, exploring, working.

Simon Rattle23:13

We have to find all the ways to agree. And with a group of people with such strong opinions, it's actually finding different ways round it is very, very important.

Presenter23:22

This

Presenter23:23

Yes, let's talk about those opinions then. I mean there there are many, many stars in this orchestra. In their own way, they are all stars. They are all people operating at the absolute pinnacle. I think anyone

Simon Rattle23:35

I think I think anyone seeing the Berlin Philharmonic ought to go and see the film being John Malkovich, if only for the point where John Malkovich finds himself in a world with all other John Malkoviches.

Simon Rattle23:46

It is

Simon Rattle23:47

A world of unlimited possibilities. Uh but even John Malkovich found that idea a nightmare as well.

Presenter23:56

Unlimited egos, then, one assumes.

Simon Rattle23:59

Very big personalities.

Simon Rattle24:03

Some huge egos. But then.

Simon Rattle24:06

You need that.

Simon Rattle24:08

One of my old friends from Birmingham, he said, How look, Simon, when you went there

Simon Rattle24:13

It said it was going to be incredibly good, not incredibly easy.

Simon Rattle24:18

And again for a conductor there's this strange, slightly feudal position that they do want you to be a little bit separate from them, so that you can work with them as a team. Ah there is no such thing as an orchestra playing well with a conductor conducting badly.

Simon Rattle24:36

And in times of trouble there was a time where

Simon Rattle24:40

I got a series of I mean such witheringly bad reviews that actually the orchestra were very sweet. Ba basically said to the outside world, Don't give him a hard time. That's our job. He's our guy.

Simon Rattle24:52

We are a team, and we know that, and we live and die together.

Presenter24:56

Tell me about your next piece of music, then.

Simon Rattle24:58

Well Haydn.

Simon Rattle24:59

in a strange way the most human of all the great composers.

Simon Rattle25:04

And a in a weird way, one of the most underrated because.

Simon Rattle25:09

He's always there, and people tend to forget that he created the symphony, that he created the string quartet he provided music of such wit, intelligence, and beauty ah that it staggers the imagination. And I also think of all the composers he makes you the happiest to be.

Simon Rattle25:27

Alive.

Presenter26:29

The great work is completed from Haydn's creation, performed by the Arnold Schoenberg Choir and the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Nicolas Anancourt. So, Simon Rattle, you won huge plaudits for taking the Berlin Philharmonic into areas that they hadn't explored before, more modern work, taking them out into Berlin and beyond to meet people that wouldn't normally associate with an orchestra. But you also, as you said, got some withering reviews. People saying you were insubstantial in your work, insipid, that the bite had gone from your bat on. What did you make of the criticism? Do you care about that sort of criticism?

Simon Rattle27:05

I would say anyone who wouldn't say they are deeply wounded. Bye.

Simon Rattle27:10

Reading that kind of thing about themselves must be deluding themselves.

Simon Rattle27:16

What you have to do is try to make use of it as best as you can. It's no use saying that they just simply don't understand. I mean that's that's not the point. The critics are also there, they're also part of our continuum.

Presenter27:31

After those sort of critical maulings, though, you you not only have to restore your own confidence, which I'm sure well, from what you said, it it does take a bit of a a battering, you have to then go in and restore the confidence of your players. That's doubly hard.

Simon Rattle27:45

There are many things you have to do in Berlin.

Simon Rattle27:49

But I must say, restoring confidence among my players is not one of them. I see. If they were any more confident, they would be an international menace.

Presenter27:52

I play it

Simon Rattle28:00

This is not a problem. But what they want to do, and bless them, is they always want to be better. There is no ceiling.

Simon Rattle28:10

And that's a great thing to know.

Presenter28:12

Tell me about your next piece of music, then.

Simon Rattle28:15

Schumann's oratorio, The Paradise and the Peri, which was in his lifetime his most enormous.

Simon Rattle28:22

Success. The Perry

Simon Rattle28:25

is a cross between a mortal and a fallen angel. Apparently in the mid nineteenth century everybody would have known that. She's trying to get into heaven and the angel says This is not possible unless you bring some extraordinary gift.

Simon Rattle28:41

This is the end of the second part. The Perry.

Simon Rattle28:45

is about to bring

Simon Rattle28:47

God help us The dying sighs of two lovers who have stayed together through the plague. She is going to bring that to heaven. Once again a piece of music that mixes transcendental joy and grief together in a

Simon Rattle29:03

Astonishing way.

Speaker 429:14

I must be

Presenter29:57

Barbara Bonny and the Monteverdi Choir with Sleep On and Rest in Dreams from Schumann's Paradise and the Perry with the Revolutionary and Romantic Orchestra conducted by John Elliott Gardner. So you are five years into this tenure contract at Berlin.

Presenter30:11

Is it the case that the members of the orchestra decide if they want to keep you on at the end of the contract?

Presenter30:17

Actually, yes, it is. And who does that?

Presenter30:20

reflect when it comes to your relationship with them. I mean, one can't obviously be seen to be obviously carrying favour, but uh it must make it a tricky balancing act.

Simon Rattle30:30

I think particularly in a German context the idea of currying a favor is i the exact opposite of what they want. I mean n norm when they they talk to me what they like, they say, you know, please we prefer it when you're tougher.

Simon Rattle30:44

But no, that's bless them, that's up to them.

Presenter30:48

And what about the rest of your life, the the real world out there? You um have two marriages behind you. You are now uh living with the beautiful young mezzo soprano Magdalena Cozina. Do you have much space for a a family life with a young child? You have a son?

Simon Rattle31:04

Yes, we do. Uh and we have made very sure that there's

Simon Rattle31:09

A lot of time.

Simon Rattle31:11

Otherwise, why be together?

Simon Rattle31:13

And why try to have a family?

Simon Rattle31:15

And we both live in Berlin. Most of my work is there, but I also now really make sure that I have more time.

Presenter31:21

Yonash will be three this year. Do do you do you plan to give him a little drum kit?

Simon Rattle31:23

It does

Simon Rattle31:26

You know, he's so much more interested in wheels now. They would simply be going round the floor motorized.

Simon Rattle31:34

But

Presenter31:34

Yeah.

Simon Rattle31:34

Yeah.

Presenter31:34

It's not a bad idea. And your eldest son, Sasha, he is, in fact, a musician. He plays. Sasha is a musician.

Simon Rattle31:39

Sasha's a musician. He he now lives in Berlin. I was very sweet when I conducted the Cunning Little Vixen that we heard uh earlier in Covent Garden when he was six. He was also

Simon Rattle31:51

He was also making his debut there, so we went hand in hand in the underground to

Simon Rattle31:56

to Covent Garden every night. But he's nearly twenty five. He's a clarinetist studying in Germany, doing a lot of gigs. My eighteen year old Elliott still lives in San Francisco and says Everyone else in my family is a musician. I'm going to do whatever else. That seems very sensible, and he'll have a proper profession.

Presenter32:14

Does Sasha ask for your advice? Does he ask for you to critique his performances?

Simon Rattle32:19

Yes, he does sometimes. Ah and vice versa. And it's well, it's lovely to have him around.

Presenter32:24

Is it at all difficult to do that for your own son?

Presenter32:27

Yeah.

Simon Rattle32:28

Not at all.

Presenter32:29

Your own father lived to see you get a knighthood. What did he think of that?

Simon Rattle32:34

He was so proud. I th my parents were very, very happy. Edguna made made up for all my other friends giving me so much shit for having accepted it.

Presenter32:45

And he didn't live to see you take on the Berlin Philharmonic sadly. What do you think he would have made of the greatest job?

Simon Rattle32:54

he would have been equally proud and he would have been I know he would have been there at at every moment. I think he would have believed it more than I did.

Presenter33:04

Do you think you would have gotten over the fact that you were never quite the great jazz musician you should have been? Nah, never.

Presenter33:11

Tell me about your final track, then.

Simon Rattle33:14

Well, I've been told very, very firmly that I'm not allowed to take my family as my luxury to this.

Presenter33:23

I'm afraid it's true.

Simon Rattle33:23

To this island. So I thought, well, at least I have to take Magdalena's voice.

Simon Rattle33:31

And so it's as simple and as selfish as that.

Speaker 434:11

Living but you.

Presenter34:35

Your partner Magdalena Kozhna and Skerta Infida from Handel's Ariodante. So, of course, I will give you the Bible, the complete works of Shakespeare, and one other book. What will your book be, Simon?

Simon Rattle34:48

I thought for a long time, because I love novels.

Simon Rattle34:54

And then at the end of it all I thought, actually, there really is only one choice, which is Don Quixote, because if there is any novel that contains the seeds of every other novel,

Simon Rattle35:06

It's that one.

Simon Rattle35:09

and one that also shows both the joys and the dangers of too much imagination, which I imagine sitting on your own is going to be really a theme.

Presenter35:20

It's yours. And the luxury?

Simon Rattle35:22

For me.

Simon Rattle35:23

The day starts with really good Italian cappuccino.

Simon Rattle35:30

So I need everything. I need the milk, I need the little fridge, I need the wonderful beans and the grinder, and the Italian coffee machine, and somehow, once that's done,

Simon Rattle35:42

The day is really okay. All that espresso saying

Simon Rattle35:46

Wake up immediately, all that milksang, but you know, it's okay.

Presenter35:51

You may have it. And I'm going to ask the impossible. You have to choose, of course, just one track, if you could only take one.

Simon Rattle35:59

Well, I'm a sentimental old soul, aren't I?

Simon Rattle36:02

Um I take

Simon Rattle36:04

what little bits of Magdalena that I could take.

Presenter36:08

Sir Simon Rattle, thank you very much for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Simon Rattle36:13

Thank you.

Presenter36:20

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