Gyorgy Pauk

Presenter0:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Discs from BBC Radio 4. For rights reasons the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast.

Presenter0:10

For more information about the programme, please visit bbc.co.uk/slash radio four.

Presenter0:34

My castaway this week is the violinist George Palk.

Presenter0:38

His aptitude in music was first spotted when he was three years old, he used to tell his mother off when she played a duff note on the piano. That was in Hungary, a country already fiercely anti Semitic, which ended up a battle ground for German and Soviet troops.

Presenter0:52

More than half a million Hungarian Jews died during the war, and it was a miracle, says George, that he and his grandmother survived in the Budapest ghetto.

Presenter1:02

His prodigious talent allowed him to travel to the West, and eventually that was where he fled first to France, then Holland, and finally to Britain, where he has lived for nearly fifty years. He became the violin professor at the Royal Academy of Music in London, and Professor Emeritus of the List Academy in Budapest. Now, aged seventy three, he continues to give master classes around the world. He says There were times when you were punished if you were listening to the radio. That's when it started to get to me, realizing that I am not free. Music is international. It has to be world wide.

Presenter1:38

So much to talk about. But first of all, we should get your name straight. I called you George Powe. What should I have called you?

Gyorgy Pauk1:45

In Hungarian it's called Jerj. But I have had a lot of problems with how to pronounce my name. But finally I'm resigned to.

Presenter1:56

So it's all getting it wrong. Didn't you once encourage people just if they couldn't get it right to call you Gregory Peck?

Gyorgy Pauk2:02

Well, it's my first uh big Australian tour in nineteen sixty five. They constantly asked me how to pronounce my name, and every time they mispronounced it. So finally the announcer said

Gyorgy Pauk2:17

We are going to call you Gregory Penn, and that's it.

Presenter2:20

So I said, fine. So that was in Australia. But let's talk about your first trip from behind the Iron Curtain. It was when you were.

Gyorgy Pauk2:23

Yeah.

Presenter2:27

You were twenty years old. You went to Italy for the Paganini Violin Competition. Do you remember what that felt like, stepping out?

Gyorgy Pauk2:34

Well, it was a miracle, because I arrived to Italy actually late. I didn't have my papers in order, and the jury came together after the f the first round, and especially came together to just to listen to me.

Presenter2:49

And importantly, you won.

Gyorgy Pauk2:51

I won the first prize.

Presenter2:53

And was anybody there to celebrate with you in Genoa?

Gyorgy Pauk2:55

Unfortunately not, I was totally alone, and after playing the gala concert, which every winner has to do on Paganini's violin,

Gyorgy Pauk3:05

I immediately had to return to Hungary because I was ordered to.

Presenter3:10

Did I hear you correctly? You said Paganini's violin.

Gyorgy Pauk3:13

Yes, you you did. Well, Paganini was born in Genova, and his violin is in the museum there.

Gyorgy Pauk3:20

And every winner is allowed to play on that violin one concert.

Presenter3:26

Aged twenty. I mean, w did it not overwhelm you? Not just winning the competition, but with with the very thing in your hands.

Gyorgy Pauk3:32

You know when you're twenty years old.

Gyorgy Pauk3:35

You are not thinking this kind of things. You are you are optimist.

Presenter3:40

Did you know, given that you were behind the the Iron Curtain in Hungary up until then?

Presenter3:45

Did you understand anything of the fact that music may be your passport to freedom?

Gyorgy Pauk3:49

Yes, I did. So this was the first time I was able to come to the West. And I felt that music is international and I cannot live in a in a prison.

Presenter4:00

We can't go any further without hearing some music, then. Tell me about your first disc.

Gyorgy Pauk4:04

My first disc is uh Bach. Well, for a violinist the Bach sonatas are like a Bible. You are always thinking about and and playing Bach. So I would like to have the andante from the second sonata in A minor.

Speaker 35:01

Uh

Presenter5:21

That was Julia Fischer playing the Andante from Bach's second sonata in A minor. It could equally, of course, have been you playing. That is a piece of music that you've you've played many, many times, George. As an encore, it it it was very popular.

Gyorgy Pauk5:32

This particular movement I played countless of times because I feel that it's sort of quiet and it settles down the nerves.

Presenter5:41

So tell me about who we were listening to there. As I say, it was Julia Fisher. That's somebody you.

Gyorgy Pauk5:45

This is one of my favorite young artists who I have known for about twelve years. When she was fourteen years old, I was giving some masterclasses in Switzerland and she started to play and I've never forgotten this incredible communication. The talent was just unbelievable.

Presenter5:57

I've had

Presenter6:04

Are you always feeling music? Is music always there in the in the way that the rest of us have a pulse? Do you have music?

Gyorgy Pauk6:13

Yes, I wake up in the morning and and usually th there's something Bach in my mind and and it's a beautiful thing.

Presenter6:20

So when did the music start? Then you as I say you you were born in Hungary, 1936. What are your memories of the very early days at home with your mum and dad?

Gyorgy Pauk6:28

Well, my father and mother unfortunately and this must get psychological in my mind I don't remember my parents.

Speaker 36:35

No.

Gyorgy Pauk6:36

Which hurts me very much.

Gyorgy Pauk6:38

Because I lost my father's my father was in the labor camp.

Gyorgy Pauk6:42

From when I was four years old. So I have not seen him ever since. And afterwards, my mother was taken away.

Speaker 36:43

Scott.

Gyorgy Pauk6:48

then I just don't remember and I'm sure they loved me very much, but I don't remember anything. I don't remember their their physical signs, how they they kissed me or they they stroked me, and that pains me very much.

Presenter7:04

And so when I mentioned in the introduction your mother playing the piano when you were just three and you noticing maybe if she she hit a a duck note, that you've been told about that, have you? Yes.

Gyorgy Pauk7:11

Doesn't matter.

Gyorgy Pauk7:13

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Presenter7:15

And you f say then your father wa was taken away to uh the labor camp. Can you remember the last time you saw him?

Gyorgy Pauk7:19

Yeah.

Gyorgy Pauk7:21

No.

Presenter7:22

Uh

Gyorgy Pauk7:22

No. I can only remember when uh one day, and that was already in nineteen forty four, my mother was still alive, that the postman came and brought my father's papers. And my mother started to scream, and she knew, and of course I knew that that meant that my father died.

Presenter7:43

And so after that you lived wi you lived with your mother and your grandmother in in Budapest?

Gyorgy Pauk7:48

Yeah, well no, the mother was taken also. That was in October forty-four. So I I was brought up by my grandmother.

Presenter7:55

What was your grandmother like?

Gyorgy Pauk7:57

Well, she was a very sweet lady. She took care of me more than I can say. And she was still alive when I I came to England, so she came to visit me. This profession is not possible without practising, and she was very careful and very strict with me that I have to practise the four or five hours a day. She locked the door that I have to practise.

Presenter8:03

Yeah.

Presenter8:22

And did you get I mean, you say that your grandmother gave you structure, she was very strict about uh practising and and so on. Did she give you love too? W did you get the hugs from her?

Gyorgy Pauk8:31

Yes, I did, of course. And therefore, you know, it was so difficult for me to leave Hungary because I knew I knew that I'm going to leave her. That was very difficult for me.

Presenter8:42

More on that later. For now though, George, please tell me about uh your second disc that we're going to hear today.

Gyorgy Pauk8:46

The second disc is again Bach. Well, Bach is the eternal father of music and uh what I would like to hear is uh opening chorus of the San Matthew Passion.

Presenter8:59

And this is conducted by Simon Rattle. Why particularly did you want this recording?

Gyorgy Pauk9:03

Simon Rettel is, I think, one of the greatest living English musicians, and I have known him since he was twenty years old. Of course, later in life we we played countless of times.

Speaker 310:11

Save the limb of sweetness.

Presenter10:16

That was the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, singing the opening of Bach's Saint Matthew Passion, conducted by Sir Simon Rattle. And you said that you worked with Simon Rattle when he was twenty, but you met him when he was just nine.

Gyorgy Pauk10:28

I did, but I didn't know about it. What happened? I was playing with the Liverpool orchestra and Simon's father told me that they came to the artist's room and asked for my autograph.

Gyorgy Pauk10:39

And he showed at one of our concerts together in Birmingham, he showed me. I said, My God, am I so old?

Presenter10:46

Let's talk a little bit then about uh you as as a child. We were talking about um life in Budapest and indeed towards the very end of of the war you lived in in the ghetto. What can you remember about that?

Gyorgy Pauk10:58

I can remember the following hunger,

Gyorgy Pauk11:01

Fear?

Gyorgy Pauk11:03

And I was always called.

Gyorgy Pauk11:05

but mainly hunger and fear, and this stayed with me so much all my life

Gyorgy Pauk11:11

that all all the time when I was staying in in the best hotels in the world I always made sure that I had some food with me.

Gyorgy Pauk11:20

I didn't eat it, I didn't touch it, but it was such a fear and such a feeling that I might go hungry that I always had some extra food with me.

Presenter11:29

You seem such an optimistic person to me, so full of sort of vigour.

Gyorgy Pauk11:33

Well, you have to be you have to be to succeed in this life, and I'm very happy that I did.

Presenter11:39

Uh the story of how I suppose really how your life w was saved is linked strongly to that of a a Swedish diplomat. Explain that story to me.

Gyorgy Pauk11:47

Well, of course I didn't know him personally, but we all knew that there is a Swedish young Swedish diplomat in Hungary who was giving out letters to Jews. We would be under the protection of the Swedish Government. And this was, I understand, that which saved about sixty, seventy thousand Jews.

Presenter12:05

So these the documentation was really saying that you were Swedish citizens waiting repatriation

Gyorgy Pauk12:09

And I managed to survive. But it was just a question of luck.

Presenter12:13

Yeah.

Presenter12:18

And this was you and your your grandmother.

Gyorgy Pauk12:19

Yeah, my grandmother.

Presenter12:20

Can you remember finding out that the war was over?

Gyorgy Pauk12:24

Well, I was in the ghetto, as as as I told you before, and suddenly it was just we were free. And we could leave this apartment in the Jewish quarter of our Budapest, where we were forty, fifty people in a small apartment without food, without eating, without every anything.

Presenter12:41

And then of course yes, without anything I've that's what I was going to ask you. What about rebuilding your life then? I mean the the resilience that was shown

Gyorgy Pauk12:42

Yeah.

Gyorgy Pauk12:48

shown by your community is is almost unbelievable. Well, I continued with my violin playing and it was discovered quite soon that I had musical talent and I was helped by the Communist regime.

Gyorgy Pauk13:01

As it happened, you know, in the same house where we lived, there was the most famous violin teacher for little children. She lived in the same house. So I had such a musical education I acquired the most perfect technical know-how from this lady. For a child, you know, it was just a miracle.

Presenter13:23

Of course we tend to think in the West, you know, we perceive the end of the war as a as a point of celebration and freedom, but for for the people of Hungary it was Stalinist rule was imposed from Moscow and and the regime that you were living in was was far from free.

Gyorgy Pauk13:36

Yeah, well, it was terrible. I mean, I I can only remember that the year when Stalin died, nineteen fifty three.

Gyorgy Pauk13:42

Suddenly it became a little bit easier. But up till then, I mean, it w we were not allowed to say anything even within our our own apartment because it was we were afraid that somebody hears it and gives you over to the police.

Presenter13:57

Let's have some more music. Uh track number three now. What are we gonna hear?

Gyorgy Pauk14:00

Well, Wozat is my other love, and one of my favourite instruments are the woodwind instruments. And I would like to have uh the adagio from the serenade for thirteen wind instruments. I had a a very close relationship with the chamber orchestras of Europe, and therefore I would like them to play it for us.

Presenter15:21

The Wind Soloists of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, led by Alexander Schneider, playing the third movement of Mozart's Serenade No. ten for thirteen wind instruments in B flat. So, George Pike, you started to take music very seriously when you were a young teenager. How many hours a day would I have found you practising then?

Gyorgy Pauk15:38

Uh four or five hours a day.

Presenter15:40

And you did say, uh you said, well, you know, my grandmother would lock the door and make sure I practically she literally did that, didn't you?

Gyorgy Pauk15:45

She literally did it and then sometimes I cheated her and myself because I was playing but I was reading some sports magazines.

Gyorgy Pauk15:55

Every naughty boy does.

Presenter15:58

I mean, we heard this brilliant story of when you travelled, first of all, you were aged twenty, to to Italy for the Paganini uh competition. You came back home victorious. Was there any sort of celebration at home?

Gyorgy Pauk16:08

Apparently I arrived the day before the Hungarian Revolution broke out.

Gyorgy Pauk16:14

Of course, it was totally unexpected. And uh in a way it was lucky for me because I won quite a big p prize, you know, money wise. I I think it was about three thousand dollars, which in those years it was a lot of money. But I was advised to keep at least half of the money.

Gyorgy Pauk16:34

in Italy, which I did.

Presenter16:37

Well

Gyorgy Pauk16:38

They helped me to put it in a bank.

Presenter16:40

Right.

Gyorgy Pauk16:41

But I supposed to give all the money back to the State. Ah But luckily the the revolution broke out and then this question never arrived.

Presenter16:49

And it was a revolution that was that was started by the students, essentially. I mean, given that you were twenty, given that you were a student, w were you were you part of it?

Gyorgy Pauk16:52

Yeah.

Gyorgy Pauk16:54

Yeah.

Gyorgy Pauk16:57

No, I wasn't. I was coward.

Presenter16:57

No

Gyorgy Pauk16:59

Because, you know, I what I went through during the war, all the the sh shooting and the tanks and the aeroplanes, I just was afraid.

Presenter17:09

And so you were twenty two when you you took your chance and fled.

Presenter17:15

You had been living all this time with the love and support of your grandmother.

Gyorgy Pauk17:18

Did you

Presenter17:19

Did you tell her what you planned?

Gyorgy Pauk17:20

No

Presenter17:21

Yeah.

Gyorgy Pauk17:21

I didn't dare to because she loved me so much and I was her life. And I was afraid she would do something to to not to let I I shouldn't be able to go.

Presenter17:31

And also, did you have the concern that once you had fled the authorities' focus would be on her and that if she did know anything she

Gyorgy Pauk17:36

Not only I was afraid they did.

Presenter17:37

The fridge

Gyorgy Pauk17:39

I went to Paris and as soon as I asked for political asylum

Gyorgy Pauk17:44

And the authorities in in Hungary, of course, they knew it immediately, and they took away her telephone.

Gyorgy Pauk17:49

I wasn't able to write to her letters, because it was all sensed.

Gyorgy Pauk17:54

They were very, very angry given so for many, many years, in fact for seventeen years.

Gyorgy Pauk18:00

I didn't go back to Hungary. First, I didn't want to, and secondly, I didn't dare to.

Presenter18:05

And it must have been heartbreaking I mean, of course, we know about the decimation that your your family suffered.

Presenter18:11

At the hands of the the Nazis, to have this the support, the love, the connection with just your grandmother, and then suddenly not to be able to talk to her must have been.

Gyorgy Pauk18:19

Very, very difficult, and I was on my own.

Gyorgy Pauk18:23

You are young and you are twenty two years old and you are an optimist and in the twenty fifty six revolution two hundred thousand Hungarians left the country.

Gyorgy Pauk18:33

So I I kept in touch with them.

Presenter18:35

And were you able at all to get letters or anything to postcards to your grandmother just to let her know that?

Gyorgy Pauk18:39

Not to her own address. No, but would you send them circuitously? Yes, of course, to other addresses. This is a stu stupid thing by the authorities, of course.

Presenter18:41

No, but did you send them circuitously?

Presenter18:47

So much life to fit in, and the music too, George Pike. So let's have some more music then. We're going to hear uh disc number four.

Gyorgy Pauk18:54

Number four. Well, Bartok of course for a Hungarian musician is another Bible. All my life I I played Bartok and I interpreted Bartok, I taught Bartok. I was again very lucky because the my professor, Zatoretzki, he played with Bartok.

Gyorgy Pauk19:13

And one of my favorite early operas is the Bluebeard Castle, and I would like to have a scene from that.

Speaker 319:23

Prix!

Speaker 319:37

Worship in the world.

Speaker 320:07

Thanks so Keith

Presenter20:17

Part of Door Six from Bartocks, Bluebeard's Castle, with Kolosz Kovarch and Sylvia Schosch, with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Sir George Schulte. George Schulte, there we heard, uh, another Hungarian. He was a generation older than you. He was able to leave the country at the start of the war. Exactly. How did you first meet him?

Gyorgy Pauk20:31

Yeah.

Gyorgy Pauk20:33

Exactly.

Gyorgy Pauk20:35

He was the music director of Coven Garden, of course. And I met a a man here whose name was Nicholas Seckers, who was then chairman of the London Philharmonic Orchestra, director of the Mozart Players, and

Gyorgy Pauk20:50

He heard me and he liked very much my playing and tried to bring me together with George Shorty, who also he knew. And so this is how I met met him and we played many, many times. So I I became quite friendly with him also privately, not just musically.

Presenter21:08

Um one of Schulte's names it would be useful to remember is uh the Screaming Skull. It rather suggests that he was not the easiest person to work with. How did you find him to work with?

Gyorgy Pauk21:16

Well, I found him very easy. Did you? But I know that the this story that he was he was called the Screaming Skull. you know, especially in his earlier years when he was younger.

Gyorgy Pauk21:27

Nowadays perhaps it w wouldn't be uh tolerated.

Presenter21:30

Yeah.

Gyorgy Pauk21:30

But

Gyorgy Pauk21:31

We were such a big star.

Presenter21:33

So he wasn't always the maestro then. You saw him in more private moments?

Gyorgy Pauk21:36

I saw him very often in his house, and I tell you a little secret that we were watching together Match of the Day, and he was just another Hungarian who was interested in football like I was but as soon as the maid or anybody came into the room he became the maestro.

Gyorgy Pauk21:54

He behaved totally differently.

Presenter21:56

There are interesting parallels, of course, between you both. You know, you you both attended the List Academy, you left Hungary to forge these great international careers and to embrace freedom. Did you ever talk about those shared experiences?

Gyorgy Pauk22:07

Yes, we I did. We had a lot to talk about, you know, the the good old days. And he was a great, great musician, a great conductor. I mean, it's now ten years ago that he died.

Gyorgy Pauk22:20

We are missing him so much.

Presenter22:22

Let's talk for a moment about going back to Hungary. I I noticed, Addie, you said it w it was many years before you could bring yourself to go back to Hungary. How how long after you left?

Gyorgy Pauk22:28

Yeah.

Gyorgy Pauk22:30

Seventeen years. As I said, you know, I was afraid to go back. By that time Communism wa wasn't Communism, but it was still nineteen eighty nine. But a friend of mine, a great pianist, Annie Fischer,

Presenter22:31

Tonight.

Presenter22:34

Yeah.

Presenter22:36

Yeah.

Gyorgy Pauk22:44

Persuaded Please come, you have to come and play again in Hungary, because we want to hear you.

Gyorgy Pauk22:49

But I must say that my first visit to Hungary was uh very difficult. Home for me is England. So when I went to Hungary I went to visit the country where I was born, but not a home. Home is England.

Presenter23:02

And so when you you got on the plane to leave

Presenter23:06

I mean, I I don't want s to say was it a sense of relief, but you

Gyorgy Pauk23:09

A great, great relief. Almost, I would say, almost up till today, I come back to England.

Presenter23:11

There was a wall.

Gyorgy Pauk23:17

I kissed the ground.

Presenter23:19

Let's have some music. What are we going to hear? A change of pace now, I think, George.

Gyorgy Pauk23:24

Well, as it happens, you know, apart from classical music, I I love jazz. And I heard a wonderfully talented Canadian lady who plays the piano and also sings, and her name is Diana Kroll, and I would like to take one of her songs with me to the desert island.

Speaker 423:47

East of the sun, and west of the moon

Speaker 423:53

We'll build a dream house of lovely you

Speaker 423:59

Close to the sun at day And nearer to the moon at night

Speaker 424:05

We'll live in a lovely way

Presenter24:09

She I love it love Uh

Presenter24:14

Diana Kroll and East of the Sun. You arrived in Britain then in nineteen sixty one. It was George Park, and you met you'd already met your wife, Susie. How had you met and where had you met?

Gyorgy Pauk24:25

Holland. After Paris, some of my friends lived in Holland and they thought, Come to Holland, it's a wonderful country and one of the or Dutch orchestras was looking for a concert master, a a a half job and I went over to Holland and and I got the job, which was wonderful for me. They gave me a lot of opportunities to perform.

Gyorgy Pauk24:47

As it happened, my friends who invited me met Susie, and she came over.

Gyorgy Pauk24:54

That was fifty one years ago.

Presenter24:57

So they were doing a little bit of matchmaking, were they?

Gyorgy Pauk24:59

That's what we call it, yes.

Presenter25:01

So you you got married and uh did you have a determination that family life was going to be an important part of your life?

Gyorgy Pauk25:07

Yes, that's because I lost my family. That was my main aim, to bring up a new family, because family for me, apart from from music, is my second most important thing in life. So we managed to have two wonderful kids and four grandchildren.

Presenter25:09

Yeah.

Presenter25:25

But of course the the career of a of an international musician is just that. It's an international life. You're always getting on planes. You're you're away sometimes for weeks at a time. How did you manage to combine that and a stable family?

Gyorgy Pauk25:35

Well that was my wife.

Presenter25:37

Right.

Gyorgy Pauk25:37

Right. She brought up the children. So very often, you know, she was alone and I was travelling.

Gyorgy Pauk25:43

for the first few years, you know, all these big tours, I b I was alone and and it was not easy.

Gyorgy Pauk25:48

But, you know, I knew that my children are in good hands and uh

Gyorgy Pauk25:53

That was a good feeling.

Presenter25:54

Did you did you miss them when you were away?

Gyorgy Pauk25:55

I miss them very much. Miss them. And in a little bit, even now, today I've got a

Presenter25:57

Mazdam

Gyorgy Pauk26:01

Bad feeling that perhaps I wasn't a good father because I wasn't here.

Speaker 326:05

Yeah.

Gyorgy Pauk26:05

And plus all the time practising, and so I really didn't spend enough time with my children. But luckily it that was as uh compensated.

Presenter26:15

But you're you're you're you're close to them now, isn't it?

Gyorgy Pauk26:17

Very close. So there's a very warm family around me and we love each other, of course.

Presenter26:24

Let's have some more music then. What are we gonna hear?

Gyorgy Pauk26:28

Now we are returning to oper opera, and one of the greatest operas, I think, which are written is by Verdi is the Otello. And I would like to have the opening scene from Otello.

Speaker 327:01

Yeah.

Presenter27:41

That was the opening of Verdi Zotello with the chorus and orchestra of La Scala Milan, conducted by Carlos Kleiber. George, tell me he probably one of the most significant relationships, as aside from being married to Susie for for fifty one years, is the relationship that you've had with your violin.

Gyorgy Pauk27:57

Oh, that's a wonderful thing.

Presenter28:00

I mean, is it a relationship?

Gyorgy Pauk28:02

It is. It's the continuation of your arm. I mean, the violin should be the continuation of your arm.

Gyorgy Pauk28:08

And these great instruments are very difficult to get. I mean, I've got a beautiful Stradivaris violin, which I got in America when I performed with the Chicago Symphony.

Presenter28:11

I mean, I think it's a very good thing.

Presenter28:20

I'm imagining you didn't just pop into a shop and buy it. I mean, how did you how did you how did you come to

Gyorgy Pauk28:23

Well, it's one of those stories, you know, when if it happens with somebody, you say, Oh, it's not true.

Presenter28:29

Tell me what happened.

Gyorgy Pauk28:29

Well, what happened that after w uh one of my concerts in Chicago

Gyorgy Pauk28:33

A gentleman came into the artist's room and introduced himself. There are always these crazy people, you know, who like to collect uh violins or pictures or whatever, because they are they love, but they they are not able to p play on them or very badly. So this dear man came to the room and asked, Would you like to see my violins? I would like to you to play on them. I agreed. So he came to the hotel and he brought, I think, four of his violins, which I think were two strads, strodivarius and two guarnerius. So I started to play on and he enjoyed it and he said, Oh, please a little bit more on this and this. And after a few hours, it must have been three hours and Susie was with me in the room.

Gyorgy Pauk29:18

He suddenly turned to me, Well, w which which one do you like? How what is your opinion? I said, Oh, they are wonderful, all of them, really. But really, which one do you prefer? I said this one.

Gyorgy Pauk29:30

He turned to me and he said

Gyorgy Pauk29:32

You can have it.

Presenter29:34

Did you know that was coming? Did you really

Gyorgy Pauk29:36

Well, apparently sh Susie tells me that I became white. I almost fainted from the surprise and the joy.

Gyorgy Pauk29:46

Uh it's one of the great strdivarias, it's the Joseph Massart straddivario, which is called because in the nineteenth century it belonged to the great French violin, it's called Joseph Massard. So I used it for quite a few years four or five years, but it was a bad feeling for me. You know, I felt what if if he asked back. So I asked him very gently, Would you mind if you could sell it to me? And after a little bit of thinking he said, Okay, all right. So I'm the proud owner of this beautiful, beautiful violin, which I'm o all my life, you know, I used for thirty-five years.

Presenter30:26

But how much is a violin like that worth?

Gyorgy Pauk30:28

Uh are you sitting comfortable? I'm sitting there. Yeah, well, it it's it's insured for about two million.

Presenter30:31

I am sitting down.

Presenter30:37

You you didn't pay two million pounds for the money.

Gyorgy Pauk30:38

Yeah.

Gyorgy Pauk30:40

That was thirty five years ago. And this man, you know, he was very kind and he gave it to me for a ridiculous price.

Presenter30:44

Yeah.

Presenter30:48

And where is it now? Is it in some safe somewhere?

Gyorgy Pauk30:49

Safe somewhere.

Presenter30:51

I'm so glad.

Presenter30:53

Let's have some music. What are we going to hear?

Gyorgy Pauk30:56

Well, my next uh choice is again back to opera and again back to Mozart. I heard the climber performance at Cozzy, and I would love to have the trio from the first act of Cosy Fantuta.

Speaker 331:13

This feeling.

Speaker 331:18

Oh afraid!

Speaker 331:21

God see I won the

Speaker 331:35

In all this world.

Speaker 331:42

Because we

Speaker 331:49

Small history of the world.

Speaker 331:58

I could be forced to free.

Presenter32:06

Mia Pirschon, Anke Vondon, and Nicola Ravenck singing Suavisia Ilvento from Mozart's Cosi Fantuti, with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, conducted by Ivan Fischer.

Presenter32:17

You've retired now from performing, Georgia. You still you teach, you give master classes. Do do you miss performing?

Gyorgy Pauk32:23

Yeah.

Gyorgy Pauk32:24

The honest answer is no. You know, I've I spent all my life performing, traveling, practising, rehearsing, and I I made a plan that around when I will be seventy, I was planning to retire from performing. And in fact, it was with Ivan Fischer, uh my last concert in Hungary with the Bartok violin concerto. And I wanted to make my last concert where I started. And Ivan knew he knew that it's one of my favorite operas. And he made a speech after my performance, and without me knowing and seeing, there were three singers coming into the stage. And then he started with this uh the this E major chord, you know, the Picosi trio, and I started to cry. And it was just so emotional.

Gyorgy Pauk33:17

That I always want to have it with me.

Presenter33:20

You spoke earlier about the the main relationships in your life being of of course with your music and also with your family. Now now that the performance is not part of your life, has family taken centre stage, or are you still is there still a large part of your mind given over to the music?

Gyorgy Pauk33:38

Well, it's the the music. I mean, the family is there and I know if if I want to be with them, of course they are there, but music is is through my teaching, through listening to music. You you have done it all your life, it's just in in inside you.

Gyorgy Pauk33:53

So it's of course it has to be music.

Presenter33:55

And neither your son or daughter followed you into music. Is that is that a regret of yours?

Gyorgy Pauk33:59

Not professionally, but they both, you know, they love music and they play some instruments. One played the violin, she played the piano, even today. And even my grandchildren, but neither of them, I think, have this special talent which I think they you have to have. It's a d difficult profession and I am not not sorry.

Presenter34:17

D

Presenter34:21

It's time for our final piece of music then, so wh what are you going to choose as discomber eight?

Gyorgy Pauk34:24

Yes, I would like to return to Bartok. And I would like to hear the music for strings and celesta and percussion performed by my great friends and partners in in life with the Franzlis Chamber Orchestra of Hungary.

Presenter35:37

The final movement of Bartock's music for strings, percussion, and celesta performed by the Franz Lis Chamber Orchestra, directed by Jarnos Roller. So we come to the moment, then, George, where I am going to give you the books. First of all, it's the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare. You get to take a book, too. What are you going to choose?

Gyorgy Pauk35:52

Yes, it's one of my my uh countrymen who lived uh s before the war he lived in England. His name was George Mikash.

Gyorgy Pauk36:01

And he wrote some very funny books, and perhaps his funniest was called How to Be an Alien.

Gyorgy Pauk36:08

This is for foreigners who came to England to get used to the life in England, but it's funny.

Presenter36:15

Okay.

Gyorgy Pauk36:15

That's your book. And a luxury you're allowed as well? Well, all my life, you know, I liked coffee. So and quite recently I bought myself an espresso. Ah, the machine. The master makes the coffee with the with the little capsules. So I would like to have one of those with many, many capsules.

Presenter36:33

Okay. Despite the endorsement, we will give you the Nespresso machine to take with you with an endless supply of capsules to put in. And um if you had to choose just one of these eight discs, which one would you choose?

Gyorgy Pauk36:34

Yeah.

Gyorgy Pauk36:37

Mm-hmm.

Gyorgy Pauk36:45

Wow, wow, that's difficult.

Gyorgy Pauk36:50

Bach, the violin movement from the A minor partit.

Presenter36:55

Okay, it's yours. George Palk, thank you very much for letting us hear your Desert Island Discs.

Gyorgy Pauk37:00

Thank you very much. I was very happy to do this.

Presenter37:48

You've been listening to a download from the BBC.

Presenter37:51

You'll find more information on the Radio 4 website bbc.co.uk slash Radio 4