Sir Thomas Beecham

Speaker 10:01

BBC Sounds, Music, Radio Podcasts. Hello, I'm Lauren Laverne, and this is the Desert Island Discs podcast. For rights reasons, the music is shorter than on the original broadcast. The presenter is Roy Plomley. I hope you enjoy listening.

Presenter0:27

How do you do, ladies and gentlemen?

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On our Desert Island this week is a great figure, a towering figure in the world of music.

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In fact, he's done more for music in this country than any other man at any time.

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We were fortunate in getting half an hour of his time in his hotel room in Paris in the midst of a hectic tour of the continent with his own orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic.

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Here is Sir Thomas Beacham.

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Welcome ashore, Sir Thomas. How would you face the idea of a desert island exile?

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Would the loneliness be hard to bear, do you think?

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I don't think I'll be very lonely for a while.

Presenter1:01

and up to the moment the only place I had been able to think of

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Select to provide me with sanctuary on such an occasion is jail.

Presenter1:11

But I've never managed to get into jail. I've tried hard, but it's never come off yet. I can't promise that this island will be even as comfortable as jail. But the climate's better, and you do have those eight gramophone records. Oh, gramophone records.

Presenter1:26

Well, of course I c could put up with a few of those.

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Uncertain conditions.

Presenter1:32

Certain conditions, what conditions?

Presenter1:34

Well, it's very difficult for me, being a man of exceeding modesty and reticence, as you know, to explain simply. I don't know many gramophone records now other than those of my own. I've always found some difficulty listening to my records.

Presenter1:55

But not half as much difficulty as I have found in listening to those of other persons.

Presenter2:01

Well, there's no reason why you shouldn't take some of your own, Sir Thomas. The hell eight, if you like.

Presenter2:05

Now speaking generally, what type of record do you think would be best value under desert island conditions? Symphonies, opera, songs, programme music?

Presenter2:15

Well, I think on the whole, operatic record.

Presenter2:19

They provide more variety.

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Than symphonic work.

Presenter2:24

You have the orchestra, of course, and you have uh singers, who are of course more often than not a source of exasperation to me. But still you have chorusists as well.

Presenter2:38

Though there is more variety in a good operatic record.

Presenter2:42

And in these notes I I had from you, you have La Boué.

Presenter2:46

I'm hoping this is going to mean something from your own recent complete recording of the opera with Victoria to Los Angeles. It's really pretty magnificent.

Presenter2:55

Well, everyone seems to think that the boy is very good throughout. I think a very successful piece of recording and very appealing to incentiment.

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is the duet in the last act between Mimi and Rodolfo.

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when she's brought in the room to die.

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Well let's hear that.

Presenter4:14

Victoria at Los Angeles and UC Bureau.

Presenter4:17

Now the next item you have listed is

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Handle arrangement

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You've made quite a lot of arrangements for Handel's music, haven't you?

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Most people call them derangement.

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There are two I like very much. I've now been quite frank about it.

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But I really took enormous trouble over them.

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And it took me about twenty or twenty-five years to discover how to rearrange.

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Handle

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for the modern orchestra.

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And yet make it not too unhandeling.

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It isn't easy. The first effort I made was in the Gods Go Abegging, which was not altogether successful from my point of view.

Presenter5:00

The next one I did I didn't care about, although it's played frequently the origin of design.

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I don't consider I got on to the right treatment.

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Until I did the face rush at.

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Well, I have pulled off what I was endeavoring to achieve.

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which was a species of compromise.

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Between a handle

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of the eighteenth century and the orchestral resources of the twentieth.

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I do feel that I've.

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A rechain.

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almost essentially a handful.

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at the same time adapted it to the modern concert hall and even more so, a piece which is not laid nearly so much, the greater loopback.

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The Great Eleven.

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Or shall we have a hornpipe?

Presenter6:48

We had there the famous few bars of Royal Britannia at the end, which I believe you added to celebrate a British naval victory during the last war, which coincided with the first performance of the work in the United States.

Presenter7:01

Now, back to these notes, Sir Thomas. Your next choice is an aria from Sabo Flote, the magic float.

Presenter7:07

You said just now that singers are more often than not an exasperation.

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Is there anyone you'll definitely accept from that?

Presenter7:15

Taba made more of the music than any other that I know. He sang for me in the end funeral.

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As Belmont says?

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And he sang in the Zambruta and in some respects the best Tamino I ever had.

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Or shall we hear then Richard Talber as Tamino in The Magic Fruit?

Speaker 37:46

Door.

Speaker 37:51

Oh kind, oh good.

Speaker 38:05

Uh feeding breath for the beach. Uh

Speaker 38:25

There's a maze of riko.

Presenter8:33

O loveliness beyond compare

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What are your views on opera on television? Very poor view, I take.

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I haven't seen anything good yet.

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I am the limited stage.

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There's a great drawback.

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And then the the the bringing the artists, you know, so near.

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To the front.

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You see clamping jaws.

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contortions of faces of singers and

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Frenzy Reference.

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to achieve the right kind of sound on high notes.

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It it's really very much of a caricature, you know, up to the moment.

Presenter9:14

You have no plans to set about it yourself and have some changes made? You can't put it right with the greater number of operatic works. You can't.

Presenter9:25

I did part of Erbilin of Delius.

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Which wasn't so bad.

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Because the singers haven't got to go through this ordeal, you know.

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Of action. They were quiet and they sang simply.

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was that Delius is not a very demonstrative writer.

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Inoperative work.

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His uh principal characters are inactive.

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To a dreamlike they're not like Kristen Lisold, very bald and

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Creed

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Which is all right on the big stage, in a big theater, but in this small

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area of television.

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That's ludicrous.

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Yes, it's a tricky problem.

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Let's get back to your desert island discs. What now? Well, I'm going to take you into another.

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domain to which I attach considerable value

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Because

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It's the sort of thing that is done very rarely.

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It's done

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Well, by only one or two people.

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They are humanists.

Speaker 110:32

But it

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Thank you.

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And at the head of the group

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Is that great French?

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caricaturist of music.

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Monsieur Beethoven of France.

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This gentleman

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has caricatured most of the famous

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Composers of music

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As well as the styles of differing countries.

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Such as

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Spain, France

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China, America, Great Britain, and so on.

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What I'm about to play you

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are two caricatures of his

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of the music of Wagner and Rossini respectively.

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Both terror.

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Oh, treasure.

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Both catastrophes in Vitas

Sir Thomas Beecham11:35

The president of the world.

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Lord Tito Council.

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I see what I'm

Sir Thomas Beecham11:55

Yeah.

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Uh

Sir Thomas Beecham11:56

Uh

Presenter12:00

Et le beef tack, a rapour ya.

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Here is another example.

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Of humor.

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or shall we say, grotesquery in music.

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The artist who sings this.

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Song was Florence Foster Jenkins.

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And for three decades,

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was one of the idols of New York City.

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She enjoyed a reputation in the United States for something like thirty years.

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And people are still undecided.

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After all that time.

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Whether the lady was a caricaturist.

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or whether she was taking herself

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with complete seriousness.

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For my part

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It is such a remarkable and subtle art.

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that I cannot think of it in any other terms.

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with that of remarkable caricature.

Sir Thomas Beecham13:17

I profiles three and felt my cheek with each other skill.

Sir Thomas Beecham13:27

Don't miss a wind

Sir Thomas Beecham13:30

Yeah.

Sir Thomas Beecham13:32

I see it your shore.

Sir Thomas Beecham13:37

Through your glasses and see. My costume I am.

Presenter13:46

I think you will agree with me that that was a very extraordinary effort.

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That's the wood.

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Now Sitomas, the next item. All I have here is the word symphony, the bollacular symphony.

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It's one of those pioneery.

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uh underivative works that make their appearance

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Now and then, and it throws a flood of light upon other Russian composers.

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Like Rimsky, they owe an awful lot to Vlakirev.

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But really was a Pathfinder.

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and a remarkably independent and successful pioneer.

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Not a bungling fellow who just puts something down.

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The actual accomplishment of this symphony is far greater than most people realize.

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The orchestration, the themes, the whole mood, the architecture, all those things are quite unique.

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The second movement of Balakirev's first symphony.

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When I have written down popular song.

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I believe I'm right in guessing that it won't be a crooner. I think you've expressed your views before on that subject. Who's it to be? A singer?

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whose commands of the language

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Our language, or rather the Scottish language?

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was in my opinion

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Unrivaled.

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I speak of Harry Lauder.

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you will hear one of his most popular songs.

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and a favorite record of mine.

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I love a lattice, a bunny, bonny lattice. She's as pure as the lily in the dell. She's as sweet as the heather. The bunny purple heather. Mary must

Sir Thomas Beecham16:34

Yeah.

Sir Thomas Beecham16:38

I love a legend, a boy, boy, legend. She just

Presenter16:49

I Love an Essay by Sir Henry Lauder.

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Now we come to your last record, What If You Save Until the End?

Presenter16:55

Well, I'd like to have a massive life deal with

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Undoubtedly.

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Because it has the greatest amount of variety in it of any work of his.

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A park presented is r really first rate, right?

Presenter17:10

I think he agreed with that, as does it himself.

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Out of all the pieces of dealers have I had to choose one.

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You know, to take around with me in my pocket.

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I'd uh choose a massive life.

Presenter18:23

The opening of Delius's A Mass of Life.

Presenter18:27

Well, there are your eight records, but before we let you go, there are one or two traditional questions in these programs, apart from the choice of records. Firstly, how efficient do you think you'd be as a castaway?

Presenter18:37

Could you look after yourself on a desert island?

Presenter18:40

I think I could, you know. I should find it much more difficult now than I would have done

Presenter18:46

uh twenty-five uh third years ago.

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Because uh

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I've got very much used now to uh married life.

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Uh prior to that I did look after myself, with the assistance, of course, of an excellent factotrum. Good. An optimistic outlook is surely half the battle.

Presenter19:07

You could get some food. You could fish or trap. Oh, I could do that. After a little practice. A little revolver practice.

Presenter19:16

For I once was a very good shot, one of the best in England. Now, wait a minute. I I'm afraid you're not as well equipped as that. You you haven't a revolver. Well, then I have to make a catapult.

Presenter19:27

Fine. If you can find a rubber tree for the elastic, otherwise it'll have to be a sling.

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If you were allowed to take one luxury onto the island, any one thing you like that isn't of any practical use.

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An inanimate thing. You mean not a living creature? It has to be inanimate. Good haven't a cigar.

Speaker 119:43

Yeah.

Presenter19:45

You shall have the biggest box that we can find.

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Would I be doomed to remain on this desert island for the rest of my life? Or is there any hope of escape?

Presenter19:55

Well, don't worry, we'll get you off somehow. You, sir, are one of the men who give excitement and savour to the times we live in, and there are far too few, and we want you with us. Incidentally, it's very good news that you'll be returning to Britain in April.

Presenter20:08

Thank you, Sir Thomas Beecham, for letting us hear your choice of desert island discs. Goodbye, everyone.