Howard Goodall

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.

Presenter0:27

My castaway this week is the composer Howard Goodall. Musicals, chordal works, movie scores, and popular T V show themes, including Blackadder and the Vicar of Dibley, his talent extends to almost any area of musical endeavour.

Presenter0:40

His enthusiasm and deep rooted commitment to his life's work have regularly propelled him away from the score and on to our television screens, where he's presented award winning documentaries on the power and importance of composition.

Presenter0:53

earning him the sobriquet of music teacher to the nation. Indeed, in January last year, he was appointed as England's first ever National Ambassador for Singing, leading a forty million pound programme to improve group singing in primary schools. Howard, you've said before that you hear music in your head all the time. To those of us who don't, that's most of us. That seems quite odd. Can you explain how it goes?

Howard Goodall1:17

Yes, it's a bit like a C D playing of music you've never heard before, all the time. And I suppose that's why I b I became a composer, because I suppose it it would have started to happen when I was a boy.

Howard Goodall1:29

Abran eight or nine or ten years old, I just started to hear music all the time, and then would started to write it down.

Presenter1:35

You said that it began round about the age of eight. When did you realize well, I was gonna say, when did you realize that it wasn't normal? That's a bit judgmental, isn't it? But it certainly it wasn't the experience of most people on the planet.

Howard Goodall1:38

Uh

Howard Goodall1:46

Well, I was in a choir school when I was eight years old, and a lot of the other choristers were very musical, and therefore I suppose it wasn't that unusual. One or two of my friends also composed. It was only when I went to secondary school and was with lots of people who weren't particularly musical that it became obvious to me that what I'd been having as an experience as a boy chorister wasn't normal.

Presenter2:05

Can you imagine a life without music?

Howard Goodall2:07

No.

Howard Goodall2:09

I can't imagine what would be in my head without it. It is like a soundtrack that's there the whole time. And it's not you know, it's not a bad thing. Sometimes it's something I know, you know, like it would be for anybody remembering a favorite tune or record or something, but often it's just this other music that's there.

Presenter2:26

I read that you once suffered a pretty severe bump to the head, and the music stopped.

Howard Goodall2:30

Well, I lost my memory for a day as a result of that bang to my head. And the musical bit I knew for the first few hours wasn't there, and then eventually it kind of booted in all in one go, and in those hours when it had gone, it was very scary. But then I think it would be scary for anybody to lose their memory for a period of time.

Presenter2:48

So there were many other things you were worrying about at the time, not clearly just the music. Yes. And what about today? I mean, I've put you through the torture of narrowing it down to eight. For most people it's difficult, for most castaways, for you it must have been almost impossible.

Howard Goodall3:01

Yes, there has been a very big choice of of favourite pieces of music and a very wide choice that I've had to narrow down. But I really thought it would be good to think of things that were really special to me as opposed to just really lovely music. Because I I would like to think that out there on that um island I could probably summon up a bit of a C D collection in my head if I really you know worked hard at it.

Presenter3:23

You're at an advantage then. Tell me about your first piece of music today.

Howard Goodall3:26

My first piece of music is The Beatles. I suppose because I'm the generation I am, The Beatles are very important to my childhood. I love The Beatles, so did my parents. We listened to it in our home. And this particular song for me says everything. It's half written by Paul McCartney and half written by John Lennon, so it's a real Beatles coming together of their talents. I find the idea of a song called We Can Work It Out just so perfect. That's what someone would write if they were from Britain. They would think there's a way through this, we'll talk it through, we'll find a compromise.

Speaker 44:04

And there's no time.

Speaker 44:08

Fussing and fighting, my friend.

Speaker 44:14

I have always thought that it's a crime.

Presenter4:21

The Beatles, and We Can Work It Out. And you say, Howard Goodong, reminding you of your childhood of the songs that were played at home. Your parents then music lovers?

Howard Goodall4:28

Yeah, music lovers. Not professional musicians, but lovers of music. And our house had loads of music all the time: classic music, pop music.

Presenter4:35

And you were the middle of three boys.

Howard Goodall4:37

Yes. We had the three boys and I had a sister who was ten years younger than me.

Presenter4:38

Yeah.

Presenter4:41

Competitive boys, or did you all get on?

Howard Goodall4:43

I think being three boys in relatively close ages, it's impossible not to be a bit competitive. I I don't see that as a bad thing though. All three of us were choristers at the same choir school in Oxford, and I think being the second is a really good position to be in because your older brother breaks the ice, creates the social safety for you, he's there if there's trouble, you know, and all that, and it's great to be the second one.

Presenter5:05

Tell me about the life of a chorister. I mean, I think of it as being rather disciplined, narrow life, is it?

Howard Goodall5:12

It is disciplined, but if you ask any chorister today and then what they most like about it is, it's the total immersion in beautiful music. You have a normal life as a school child the rest of the time, and then for an hour a day, or an hour and a half, or half an hour a day, whatever it is, you sing this exquisite music, and it's just a great way of going through life.

Presenter5:34

But that sort of discipline, I'm wondering as a young boy how much time there was for well, you know, playing football and using crisps and pulling worms apart and doing all the things that little boys like to do with their time.

Howard Goodall5:43

Yes, I think there was time to do that. After we had holidays and we were made to play sport and all those things, so it was not like it was so exclusive that we only did music all day long. Uh we did a lot of

Presenter5:53

Would you have done music all day long? I mean, did you love it that much when you were young?

Howard Goodall5:57

Yeah, in my spare time I just went either to the piano or the organ, which I was mad about when I was that age, or to my music paper and would just compose and compose and compose in my spare time. It's my favorite thing to do.

Presenter6:08

And then you went on to Stowe, yes, to study there.

Howard Goodall6:10

Yeah.

Howard Goodall6:11

Yeah. Yes. How was that? It wasn't really for me. You know, I mean, lots of people loved it and had a great time. It just didn't really fit with me.

Presenter6:11

How was that?

Presenter6:18

Why not?

Howard Goodall6:19

Um

Presenter6:19

I mean, what would the other people like?

Howard Goodall6:20

What were the other pupils? Quite a kind of macho thing, quite an emphasis on being strong and being a man and growing up and all that. And the other pupils were often quite privileged and quite wealthy. And I think that there was a slight arrogance to, I think, the ethos of the place at the time.

Presenter6:35

a sort of atmosphere of entitlement, of the world belongs to us.

Howard Goodall6:38

Yeah, I mean it made me quite a left-wing person being at Stowe.

Presenter6:41

Because of

Howard Goodall6:41

Yeah, I I think seeing what people with privilege can be like. Of course, this is before they introduced girls to Stowe, and I'm sure that improved it no end. And then at sixteen I transferred to my local comprehensive school where I was much happier. But you know, there could have been people who'd done the opposite and who would have been happier at Stowe. Um it just wasn't for me.

Presenter6:59

And so you transferred to your local comprehensive interestingly, your your father was the was he the headmaster? He was the principal.

Howard Goodall7:01

But interesting.

Howard Goodall7:03

He was the principal, yeah.

Presenter7:04

And was that one of the reasons you wanted to go, or you just thought it was time to be at home?

Howard Goodall7:08

Well, I think my parents had actually thought it would protect me not to be at my dad's school, and so had looked for an alternative. As it happened, when I moved to Thame to my local school, the fact that my dad was a principal didn't seem to be an issue at all.

Presenter7:12

That's what look.

Presenter7:19

I'm thinking about uh socially now. Did you immediately feel at home? I mean uh away from the toffs?

Howard Goodall7:23

Away from the TOFs. Yeah, I just loved it from the m first moment I walked in the door.

Presenter7:28

Tell me about your next piece of music, fan.

Howard Goodall7:30

My iconic composer when I was a chorister was William Bird, the Tudor composer. He was a contemporary of Shakespeare. My grandmother's name was Bird, and I had this little fantasy that she came from East Anglia, my grandmother, and I had this fantasy that maybe Bird who came from East Anglia was maybe a relative of mine. And in fact, I was going to play William Bird in the film Elizabeth and had been cast and everything, had signed a contract and went to Durham Cathedral to film my scene as William Bird, which was like the climax of my whole career. And the scene was cut before I arrived.

Speaker 38:00

Right.

Howard Goodall8:01

So I was gutted. Although I'm no actor, perhaps it would have been cut anyway after I'd done the performance. So I've chosen his Mass for Five Voices, which is is very, very beautiful Renaissance English music.

Speaker 38:02

The agony.

Speaker 48:30

Oh darling's faith.

Speaker 48:38

His trouble is there above.

Speaker 48:50

Jesus

Speaker 48:53

And they love you.

Presenter9:10

The Annues Day from William Bird's Five-Part Mass sung by Christchurch Choir, Oxford, and and a choir, it has to be said that is very close to your heart.

Howard Goodall9:18

Yes, I've had a kind of twenty year relationship with them and Stephen Dinton, who's their conductor, has a tremendous empathy with my music, and so I've done so much with them. So hearing that sound is very uh emotional for me actually.

Presenter9:29

Let's talk about you and composition then. You mentioned a few minutes ago that there you were as did you say as an eight-year-old boy beginning to compose? It was as young as that.

Howard Goodall9:38

Yeah, so I don't think the music was very good, by the way. No, but I.

Presenter9:39

No, but I that's not really the point, is it? I mean, you were getting stuff done.

Howard Goodall9:42

Yeah.

Howard Goodall9:44

Yes, I was. I've still got it all actually in reams and reams of this music I wrote when I was eight, nine, ten.

Presenter9:44

Yeah.

Presenter9:49

What was it you were trying to express at that age?

Howard Goodall9:51

I I was a chorister, therefore I wrote music that I thought the choir would sing, and eventually, by the time I was twelve or thirteen, the choir did sing a couple of my pieces, which was an immensely exciting thing to have.

Presenter10:00

Tell me about that. How did you feel the first time you heard them express something that had been this sound inside you?

Howard Goodall10:06

Well, I suppose in those days it came as a bit of a surprise because I was putting down music on the page, I didn't really know exactly what it sounded like.

Presenter10:13

But I'm sure the choir master wasn't indulging you. Well, see, I mean, I'm sure they probably thought it was good enough.

Howard Goodall10:17

I don't know, you might have been indulging him. He was a very nice man. I mean, looking back at it, I think probably it was a very generous thing to ask a chorister who he knew was composing to do one of his pieces. His name is David Lumson, he was a very great choir master, and he probably had no idea what an impact that had on me, having the choir sing one of my pieces. I mean, I thought, gosh, you know, I could do this.

Presenter10:18

I don't know, you might

Presenter10:37

Yes, this can be real. This can be a job of work.

Howard Goodall10:38

Yeah.

Howard Goodall10:40

Yeah.

Presenter10:40

And when you look back, you say you still have the scores. I mean, do you take time to look back on them now?

Howard Goodall10:43

Yeah.

Howard Goodall10:45

No, I don't. They're all in in big boxes. I don't look at them. I've kept them, I suppose, for sentimental reasons.

Presenter10:50

Were you just composing classical choral pieces, or were you also composing pop music?

Howard Goodall10:56

Well, adolescence came along and I was writing started to write songs in the kind of Gilbert O'Sullivan Leonard McCartney manner. Obviously the idea was to try and impress girls.

Presenter11:07

Obviously.

Howard Goodall11:07

Although I was at an all-boys school initially in the middle of nowhere, so I don't know who which girls I thought I was going to impress, certainly not matron.

Presenter11:14

Well I was gonna

Presenter11:16

Tell me about your next piece of music then.

Howard Goodall11:18

When I was at University at Oxford, I had two kind of soundtracks, and one of them was Mahler. I did a special thesis on Mahler, and I absolutely fell for the music of Gustav Mahler. I've chosen a piece of Mahler which is incredibly significant. It's Kathleen Ferrier, the great English singer, in the last few months of her life, she was dying of cancer, went to Vienna to perform Daslied vonte Erde with Bruno Walter as conductor, who was a protégé of Mahler himself. And it's a live performance that was recorded in 1952. And the last movement of the piece is called De Abschije the Farewell. And the last few words just go Evig, Ebig, forever, forever. Mahler was trying to create the idea that the piece never really went away, it just drifted off into the ether. And it's unbearably moving listening to this woman sing this final part of this great work that came from the end of Mahler's life. She knew what was happening to her as she sang this last great effort was to sing this piece one more time and miraculously it was captured in a recording.

Presenter13:22

The Farewell from Mahler's Das Liet Fonte Erde, sung by Kathleen Ferrier with the Vienna Philharmonic conducted by Bruno Walcher. Now among the many T V shows that you've worked on, one that everybody has enjoyed, I certainly know that I tuned in as much for the theme tune as I did for the comedy in the middle, was Black Adder, but you got to know Richard Curtis and Rowan Atkinson long before they hit the big time.

Howard Goodall13:45

Did you meet them? Weirdly, I met both of them on my very first day at university. They'd already been there for a year. And I went to the Freshers' Fair to see what clubs I was going to join in and all that kind of stuff. And they all had these stalls, you know, the Rowing Club and all that kind of stuff.

Howard Goodall13:58

And I thought, what I'd like to do is write music for the comedy review. So I went up to this desk and the blake said, well, what do you do? And I said, well, I write music. I'd really like to be involved. He said, well, put your name down there and what college you're in. And someone will come and see you this afternoon and talk about it. Well, the guy at the desk was Rowan and the guy who came to see me later the afternoon was Richard. Of course, they were just two students at the time. It wasn't a big deal. And Richard came to see me and he said, We're doing a show in the Playhouse in three weeks' time, a review. Do you want to do the music? So I said, I'd literally walked into university. He's been hours with arriving. I said, Of course I would. I'd love to. So that's how it started. And we did comedy shows together all through my time at university.

Presenter14:38

And what did you think of their material? What sort of material was it they were doing?

Howard Goodall14:41

Well Rome even then was doing a lot of kind of mimey, weirdo characters that turned into the kind of bean-like characters he did later. That and a combination of kind of schoolmastery, bossy characters which sort of more or less turned into Black Adder. And um people would just when they saw him for the first time really helpless, helpless. For whole periods of the show people would be just out of control laughing so much'cause it it was so different.

Presenter14:52

Mm-hmm.

Presenter15:05

And were they I'm thinking about offstage, now w were they your kind of people? I mean, were you caught up in a gay social whirl with them? Were you partying and socializing?

Howard Goodall15:13

Well, it wasn't a gay social world. I I mean, I did see them more or less every day of my time there, but we were a slightly um quiet group, I think it would be fair to say. I wasn't really a party person at university at all, nor was Rowan. Richard was a bit more partyish.

Presenter15:27

You look geekish.

Howard Goodall15:28

Yeah. I was in the same room in my college for the whole three years. Never lived out of college. And I just more or less carried on, did my music, had my little piano, did my thing. It was just very straightforward and rather um yeah, I suppose I was a bit geekish.

Presenter15:42

And what about I mean, you graduated with a first in music from Oxford. W were those years seminal years for you? Did you find strongly find that you had defined yourself by the time that you left and and defined what it was you wished for?

Howard Goodall15:55

No, I don't think so. I got lots of things out of it. It was wonderful to learn about music'cause I love my subject. And you've got these great libraries and performances going on everywhere. But I don't think when I left I knew what I was gonna do. I w I kinda think I wanted to be in music. I suppose I probably still wanted to be a pop star. I wanted to write musicals. I wanted to carry on doing my work with Rowan and Richard. But I had no real focus of idea what I was going to do and I went and lived in a bedset in Kilburn.

Presenter16:22

You wanted to be a pop star again for the girls?

Howard Goodall16:25

It might have been a fair uh factor. Yes, it didn't really work. You know, in in my last week of my last year at university, I finally plucked up the courage to ask out this girl to whom I'm now married, by the way. You know, I've been wanting to ask her out for a year and I finally asked her out and and she did say no. But twenty-one years later

Presenter16:44

Twenty-one years later.

Howard Goodall16:48

I guess I was shy lacking in confidence in that respect, I suppose.

Presenter16:52

Tell me about your next piece of music.

Howard Goodall16:54

The other thing I listened to more or less all the time as well as Marla at university was Stevie Wonder. And on that island I want to put something on that will make me want to dance and feel that life is happy and exciting. I wish would do that.

Speaker 417:11

And back on training I

Speaker 417:13

Was a little laughing hit and fall

Speaker 417:20

Then the only word was for Christmas what would be my dog.

Speaker 417:29

Even though we sometimes would not get a pay

Speaker 417:34

We were happy

Presenter17:38

Stevie Wonder, I wish and you said there that that strongly that was one of the memories you had of university and that it took you twenty one years before you and Val got together. You were married before. Yes. Your first wife was your leading lady of your show.

Howard Goodall17:52

Yes, it's a bit of a cliche, isn't it? I wrote a musical and she was the leading lady in it and uh we got together and and and got married.

Presenter17:55

Yeah.

Howard Goodall17:58

It it was a a shortish marriage. Were you young when you married? Yeah, well, emotionally, incredibly young. I think I in years I was twenty eight, but I was probably sixteen in my head.

Presenter18:08

When did you start to make a living?

Howard Goodall18:11

I think it took me, between leaving college to the point where I could live just on earnings from music, uh from composing, it took me eight years. And in those eight years, immediately after college, you know, I did bits and pieces, I played as a session player, went on tour for a few weeks a year with with Rowan and Richard and things like that, just sort of held it together as best I could. You had to be terribly patient, because it's not going to be instant that anybody starts to make a living from composing.

Presenter18:36

And what was your ambition as a young composer who wasn't quite making a living at it? What did you want your first significant piece of work to be?

Howard Goodall18:44

Well, I suppose I began to think quite early on I'd like to do a musical and relatively early on in my twenties I did write a musical with Melvin Bragg called The Hired Man, which did eventually go to the West End. And I suppose I would have wanted that to have become something that was regularly happened, but getting musicals on in the West End is a pretty difficult thing to do.

Presenter19:02

Can you remember the first night in hearing the orchestra strike up with your music in a theatre full of people who had paid money to see what you had composed?

Howard Goodall19:11

I can remember it. You know, I get very, very nervous seeing my pieces with an audience in the room. I did then and I'm still now. I kind of assume they're not enjoying it and that they're going to leave any moment now. I much prefer the rehearsals when there's no one else there.

Presenter19:17

Still

Presenter19:26

And did your parents come along? I'm wondering what they made of their son the composer.

Howard Goodall19:30

I think they probably really enjoyed seeing the show. In fact, the show goes on now, whatever the place is.

Presenter19:34

What even you think? Did they not tell you?

Howard Goodall19:36

Yes, they did. My parents still go to see it now, twenty years old, and they still can sit through it and enjoy it, and my other musicals too. So they're very, very loyal like that. They'll trapes anywhere and see my pieces.

Presenter19:45

Tell me about your next piece of music then.

Howard Goodall19:47

The De Rufflet Requiem is one of my favourite pieces in the world, and I really associate this piece now with my wife Val because we have a house in France where I do a lot of my composing. And Val will often put on this piece on the stereo down in the kitchen, and I'm in my composing room upstairs, and she'd put it on quite loud and sing along with it. But because of the distance between the kitchen and where I'm composing, all I can hear is her voice singing this French Requiem piece, and not really the accompaniment below.

Presenter21:13

The introduction to the De Ruffley Requiem sung by Truro Cathedral Choir conducted by Robert Sharpe.

Presenter21:19

You mentioned that it was this twenty one year gap between asking Val out. You chose that piece of music to remind you on your desert island of her. You said you asked her out. Did did you you asked her directly?

Howard Goodall21:30

Well I actually sent her a note saying would you fancy coming out for supper? The answer was no, by the way, and she was busy. And amazingly she kept the note, and twenty one years later, when we were going to get married, she went out and looked in a trunk in the academ and got it. And so we reproduced this exact note that I'd written as our wedding invitation to people who came.

Presenter21:50

How wonderful. And did you encounter her throughout the twenty one years? Were you in the same sort of social circle?

Howard Goodall21:55

Not really. I mean, we we did some projects together and worked together from time to time.

Presenter21:59

She's a musical agent.

Howard Goodall22:00

Yes, she's a musical agent and we'd done some work together from time to time as as maids. But there had been long periods where we'd gone off and not seen each other for quite a long time, and we both married other people and had other lives.

Presenter22:11

And you said it took you a whole year the first time to work up the nerve, a whole academic year, to ask her out. The second time then, twenty-one years later, were you just as nervous?

Howard Goodall22:19

I suppose it it happened more gradually the second time because we were saw each other through work and it was not going to be quite so nerve wracking. And also if by the time you're in your late thirties you haven't cracked that one of how to ask someone out, you really are lost.

Presenter22:25

And also

Presenter22:33

And do your professional lives still mixed? Do you work together nicely? And you work easily together.

Howard Goodall22:35

Yes, we do.

Howard Goodall22:38

We don't do everything together and she's not my own agent, but, you know, we do lots of things together. We've very sh you know, shared interests in music and shared love of music and uh we do work easily together, yeah.

Presenter22:47

You inherited, on your marriage to Val, two daughters.

Presenter22:51

How old were they when?

Howard Goodall22:52

They were very young. I guess they were five and eight at the time. I absolutely dote on them. I think they're fantastic. They're now in their stepdaughters. They're now older, yes. And one's about to go to university and one's doing a GCSEs. And I've loved every minute of being a stepdad. I just completely I can't imagine life not having been a stepdad.

Presenter22:59

They're now in their stepdaughters.

Presenter23:11

Tell me about your next piece of music.

Howard Goodall23:12

My next piece of music is Windmills of Your Mind by Michel Legrand, sung by Noel Harrison. Some people will remember it from the Thomas Crone Affair movie. This reminds me so much of my stepdaughters because in the car we'll put this song on and they both know all the words to all the songs we put on in the car and we all sing along to these songs. If I want to capture that moment we're in the car together singing a song, this would be the one that would remind me of Daisy Millie.

Speaker 323:36

When you knew that it was over, you were suddenly aware that the autumn leaves were turning to the colour of her hair.

Speaker 323:47

A circle in a spiral, a wheel within a wheel, Never ending or beginning, on an ever-spinning wheel, As the images unwind, like the circles that you find.

Speaker 324:00

In the windmills

Presenter24:02

Uh

Speaker 324:02

Of your mind

Presenter24:06

NOELE HARRISON AND WIND MILLS OF YOUR MIND Much of your television documentary work is about examining the detail of music, about explaining why it is, how it is. What do you want the viewer to come away with?

Howard Goodall24:20

Well my target audience I think is people who love music but are not musically trained particularly and I want them to feel that they know a bit more about it and therefore can get more out of the experience. I mean I really think that a lot of people's fear of music is to do with the jargon and the kind of technical stuff that surrounds it. And I think it should be possible to strip all that away and say, no, listen to this properly in an intelligent way and not be patronising to people, but actually to remove that jargon.

Presenter24:49

And what about I mean, I know from what you know, in your documentaries, when you draw parallels between the work of Coldplay and Wagner, let's say. I mean, that's not just cheap T V tricks as far as you're concerned. That is because you really believe that there are significant parallels.

Howard Goodall25:00

I don't know because you

Howard Goodall25:03

Absolutely. And I think that people who really love classical music and don't know much about popular music, and vice versa, have a lot to learn from each other. It's a totally two-way flowing river. And so it's my duty, I think, to explain to people how that river works. That music is music. It belongs to everybody. And it is changing all the time in subtle ways that are related to each other.

Presenter25:25

And why is it so important to you to impart that information? I mean, I can just tell you, your eyes are shining when you're talking about that, as indeed they do on television. I mean, you have this enthusiasm that transmits itself across the airways. Why is it so important to you? Why can you not just

Presenter25:39

Enjoy your career, enjoy your music, enjoy the people that you work with, and just sort of get on with it. Why do you feel the need to proselytize, to be evangelical?

Howard Goodall25:46

Well, I suppose my dad was a teacher, and I suppose I've got teachers' blood in me, D and A, and I'm a natural teacher. In fact, some people would say I'm a bit lectury.

Howard Goodall25:56

And I suppose if I hadn't been a professional composer I would probably have been a teacher.

Presenter26:00

And what about this post National Ambassador for Singing? That sounds terribly grand. What is it you're meant to do?

Howard Goodall26:05

Well, I head up in a spearheady sort of spokesman-like way a project which is to get singing to be absolutely a normal everyday part, group singing, of every primary school in the country's activity that they do. Singing is really good for you, particularly as a child, to learn. It makes your brain work better, it makes your memory work better, it makes you feel better, gives you great self-esteem, it brings communities together. There's no downside to it whatsoever, and we've been given money by the government and support to do this over a four-year period. What a great opportunity to be given.

Presenter26:34

Tell me about your next piece of music then.

Howard Goodall26:36

I am a great admirer of Sting. I love it when people bring in inferences from other fields of music and they they have a kind of blotting paper approach to other cultures and sounds and they have a way of focussing into their own style. This song All This Time is about his dad and about his growing up in the North East and it's about the river Tyne going out to the sea. It also has in it a wonderful line that is one of my kind of lines for life which is people go crazy in congregations, they only get better one by one. And again, it's a British thing, it's his music from the British Isles. It couldn't be anywhere else. His style, the way he's brought it together, the melodies, the shape of the sound, is the music of these islands.

Speaker 427:19

River flow

Speaker 427:23

Emma See

Speaker 427:26

Like a solid chill

Speaker 427:30

I'm just gonna

Speaker 427:34

The river flow

Speaker 427:37

Father of Jesus exists, and I call me never his.

Presenter27:44

Sting and all this time. I'm wondering, Howard Goodall, I'm looking through this list here and I'm looking at William Bird and Mahler and Sting and Stevie Wonder. Is there any music you don't like?

Howard Goodall27:55

I don't much like Beethoven.

Howard Goodall27:58

And why would that be? I dunno. I don't really like showing off music. You know, Beethoven is a brilliant composer, absolutely brilliant. He was a genius. And his music is full of cleverness and structural ingenuity. And his relationship with the new instrument of the piano was amazing. He understood what it could do. But there's something a bit showy-offy about his music that doesn't really speak to me emotionally. It's probably a failing in me, not Beethoven, by the way.

Presenter28:26

And what about now the music in your head? You know, w we've spoken about the fact that it's always been there since you were old enough to recognise it. How much has the music in your head changed? How much of what you hear now is different from all those years ago?

Howard Goodall28:41

It is different. I suppose as I've got older my music in my head has become more layered, more sophisticated. I I'm sure that's the case. Though I have always loved melody, and melody is really key to the way I write, I think that a piece of music, however layered and richly textured it may be, if it doesn't have a melody, it it's really hard to latch onto it and for it to have emotional power.

Presenter29:05

And what about on the island? Because of course you said earlier that y the fact that it's had to be boiled down to eight is not so much of a problem, because you'll rely on the fact that in your head the music will be there, and new music will be there indeed.

Howard Goodall29:18

Yes, it it will. It will be there and I hope I've got a way of preserving it somehow, you know, maybe writing it in the sand or something so that I can keep those compositions going. I think that a carrying music in your head is is mostly a great blessing, but sometimes a piece gets in there and won't dislodge itself. And the only way of dislodging it is to write it down or to overrun it with something else, which means hearing a new piece of music by someone else or writing a new piece myself to sort of rub it off.

Presenter29:46

Is that traumatic?

Howard Goodall29:47

No, it's not traumatic, it's just something I have to manage.

Presenter29:51

Tell me about your final piece of music.

Howard Goodall29:53

I think there is very beautiful modern music written for orchestra that's film music. And a very, very good example of this would be John Williams's score for Schindler's List, which is utterly beautiful, incredibly moving.

Howard Goodall30:05

has incredible integrity as a piece of music. Apart from anything else, I have all my life had an enormous respect for Jewish culture and have engaged with that myself as a writer. To have Shinder's List music playing to me on that island it would mean a lot to me.

Presenter30:53

The theme from Schindler's List, composed by John Williams. So, Howard, I'm going to give you the complete works of Shakespeare and the Bible. You can choose another book. What would you like?

Howard Goodall31:02

I'd like the Diary of Anne Frank.

Howard Goodall31:04

Yeah.

Presenter31:04

And why?

Howard Goodall31:04

I'd like that because when I'm feeling low or self-indulgent about being on the island on my own, it would be wonderful to be reminded that it's really not that bad. And the positive approach to life, that there's good in everything somewhere if you know where to find it, that comes out of that extraordinary piece of writing by a young person, I think would be a really good thing for me to be reminded of, apart from the fact it's a beautiful piece of writing and the tragedy of what happened to the Jews in the 20th century is something that haunts me. And I would want to be reminded other people's lives.

Presenter31:39

And your luxury?

Howard Goodall31:41

My luxury would be ice-cold vanilla vodka with tonic, please. I don't know how you're going to do that. There's going to be a lot of things.

Presenter31:47

Oh, we can or we can do it. We can work it out.

Howard Goodall31:49

That's what I would I would love, a really cold vanilla vodka.

Presenter31:52

You may have it, and the one piece of music that you would choose to save.

Howard Goodall31:56

I would choose to save the Darufli Requiem, because then in some way thou would be with me on that island.

Presenter32:03

Howard Goodall, thank you very much for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Howard Goodall32:06

Thank you, Kirsty.

Presenter32:14

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