Dame Fanny Waterman

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.

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

Presenter0:34

My castaway this week is Dame Fanny Waterman.

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It was during a sleepless night more than forty years ago that she came up with the idea of launching a piano competition in Leeds. Since then it's become a world-renowned event, and been a springboard for many of our most celebrated pianists. She was a child prodigy herself, but turned her back on a career on the concert platform to teach. She has instructed and inspired generations of musicians, and, as she celebrates her ninetieth birthday, continues to teach masterclasses, whilst her piano books sell in their millions. It's all about listening, she says. I'm very frank, and I have the courage to say what I believe. You don't stop working because you grow old. You grow old because you stop working. Dame Fanny Waterman, it's an extraordinary idea, the city almost coming alive with the sound of all these great of course young musicians, they're they're under thirty years old, and the competition happens every three years. It must take meticulous planning. Have you yourself sort of stepped back from the the everyday and

Dame Fanny Waterman1:39

Oh no.

Presenter1:39

Oh no.

Dame Fanny Waterman1:40

It's like a military operation and people call me Field Marshal Fanny. I'm a busy British, and I've got to know what's happening on every front. But I must say that the Yorkshire hospitality is outstanding. We've got a team of marvellous people who are all volunteers giving their time and help. You say a busy Britches. Are you something of a stickler?

Dame Fanny Waterman2:12

Oh yes, I was at school, and my school motto was In minimis fidelis, faithful in little things and the headmistress, Nora J. Henderson, used to deliver little homilies about you must make the most of your talents, and she turned me into being a perfectionist. I might be difficult to work for and to live with, but fortunately I married Geoffrey de Kaiser, who was also a perfectionist.

Presenter2:47

And you are indeed a perfectionist in everything, it strikes me. You are entirely immaculate, from your hair to your brooch, that matches your earrings, that matches your jacket. That's all important, is it to you? Of course it is.

Dame Fanny Waterman3:00

If you're going to meet people or go on the stage.

Dame Fanny Waterman3:04

Then you have to consider.

Dame Fanny Waterman3:07

Your body language, how you look.

Dame Fanny Waterman3:11

And in life I think it's very important to have that kind of elegance that goes with a musician.

Presenter3:20

You've said of the contenders in the competition that the walk towards the piano is the loneliest journey they make. What do you feel for each of those contestants as as they're walking up onto the platform?

Dame Fanny Waterman3:33

I feel that I'm in their shoes. They've been examining every note of every beat of every bar, and I think it's one of the wonders of music that we see these dots and dashes on the pages. And there was Murray

Dame Fanny Waterman3:52

Making his first steps to fame and rather loophole, and I think.

Dame Fanny Waterman3:58

Here is something a new baby is born.

Presenter4:01

Seems like a good time then to turn to the music. Tell me about your first disc that we're going to hear today.

Dame Fanny Waterman4:07

Maripayer playing part of the second movement of Mozart's Concerto, No. twenty one, with the English Chamber Orchestra. He is a prince of pianists.

Presenter5:18

Murray Peria, playing part of the second movement of Mozart's Concerto No. twenty one, with the English Chamber Orchestra. Murray Periah, who won the leads in nineteen seventy two. What do you remember of the day that he won?

Dame Fanny Waterman5:31

Well, he made that Steinway because we only have one piano, different from many international competitions where there's a choice of piano, but the moment he came and played that piano, he made it sound like the greatest piano in the world, quite differently from anybody else.

Presenter5:52

Now, you do have two sons of your own. We will talk about them, I hope, a little later on. But it sounds as you talk.

Dame Fanny Waterman5:55

That's

Presenter5:57

of your winners as though it is almost a

Presenter6:00

Certainly a very nurturing and quite a motherly relationship you have with them. Would that be fair?

Dame Fanny Waterman6:03

Wonderful family relationship. I'm very proud of them. And in fact, Radhu Lupu said if I fitted in with his schedule

Dame Fanny Waterman6:15

He will try and fit in with my schedule when I have my birthday, and imagine my delight when I was told that he was coming over especially to give a Schubert recital to help me celebrate my ninetieth birthday.

Presenter6:33

What a treat. You've said of the concert pianists too that

Presenter6:37

Their life isn't selfish, but it's self-centered. Tell me what you mean.

Presenter6:41

What's the difference? What's important?

Dame Fanny Waterman6:43

Well, they need support, and I think that they're very lucky if they ha meet somebody, as I know that Murray and Radhu have wonderful wives who understand them and give them all the kind of support that they need behind the scenes. It's such a strain to go on the platform and perform. And what about their travelling and living out of a suitcase?

Presenter7:15

Do you think it's fair?

Presenter7:17

On all of the people that surround them, that they must in the end always put their performance and the music first.

Dame Fanny Waterman7:25

Well, I think they do. And if I could just mention that many great women artists, pianists and singers

Dame Fanny Waterman7:35

make a decision not to have children, because I think they feel that they can't do justice to bringing up a family, and when a w woman is a great artist they have a tenderness.

Dame Fanny Waterman7:51

even more, in my opinion, than any great man artist. It's a very lonely life, and the people surrounding them have to appreciate that.

Presenter8:04

Tell me then about the second disc that you've chosen today, Dame Fanny. What are we going to hear and why have you chosen it?

Dame Fanny Waterman8:09

Uh the Brandenburg Concerto of Bach.

Dame Fanny Waterman8:14

I'm a great party girl.

Dame Fanny Waterman8:17

I love holding musical evenings, I love going to parties, and so I want to be reminded of those wonderful moments where I was transported because I enjoyed myself so much. And I remember my late mother saying to me when I was very young, All you want to do is enjoy yourself, at which I used to burst into tears as if it was really disgraceful. Then when I got married and she said it, I said, You know, you're absolutely right.

Presenter9:51

That was the opening of Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. three, played by the Academy of Saint Martin in the fields, conducted by Sir Neville Mariner.

Presenter9:59

So, Dame Fanny Waterman, let's talk a little about your beginnings. You were born in 1920 in Leeds. Yes. What do you remember of the home you grew up in?

Dame Fanny Waterman10:08

Well

Dame Fanny Waterman10:10

We were an impoverished family, really. My father came from Russia at the turn of century, where he'd learnt to be a jeweller. But in those days he wasn't in the kind of circle where anyone would be buying his beautiful pieces of jewellery, and we lived in a house that didn't have an inside bathroom. We shared the loose with five neighbours.

Presenter10:27

You won't

Dame Fanny Waterman10:40

and I don't think I realized really that we were rock bottom. And so at that time my parents gave me one of the greatest gifts

Presenter10:50

Apparently

Dame Fanny Waterman10:54

to have the right values in life, to never value anything that money can buy, like fine houses, fine cars, fine jewelry, even though he was a jeweller.

Presenter11:06

Yes, explain a little of that to me. So what your father worked in in the gem business and the jewelry design business, but what he he didn't value his customers, he didn't value their values.

Dame Fanny Waterman11:14

Now he didn't l like them because they simply had the money to buy his works of art. And so if he didn't like them, he didn't open his safe.

Dame Fanny Waterman11:26

So I've inherited some of those beautiful pieces, but um

Dame Fanny Waterman11:31

I think that their values have helped me throughout my life because I've never chosen my friends from certain circles. I chose people because they're real.

Dame Fanny Waterman11:45

And I married somebody who had the same values, and I think that's very important in life.

Presenter11:52

Uh y you mentioned Radhu Lupu coming to play at your ninetieth birthday celebrations. I mean, you do indeed have some very elevated friends these days. Oh, ye.

Dame Fanny Waterman11:59

Oh yes, and the more elevated they are, the more simple they are.

Presenter12:05

Um the beginnings then, the the humble beginnings not much of a home in terms of home comforts, and yet always an upright piano there.

Dame Fanny Waterman12:14

But it's a

Dame Fanny Waterman12:15

Was that?

Presenter12:15

That would be pin

Dame Fanny Waterman12:15

Were parents interested in music? I think they were music lovers and there was an upright piano and I got onto the stool when I was four or five and would play the dishes of the day, kind of tiptoe through the tulips, th that kind of thing.

Presenter12:32

And and so how did your parents develop that gift? I mean, given that they didn't h have a a great income themselves, it must have been something of a sacrifice for them to get you to piano lessons and to nurture your talent.

Dame Fanny Waterman12:41

Wow.

Dame Fanny Waterman12:42

I had a very poor teacher who had the piano in her kitchen.

Presenter12:47

Poor as in terrible, do you mean? Or poor as in non-terrible.

Dame Fanny Waterman12:49

No, terrible. And she was to do the cooking and baking at the same time as teaching. I only hope her culinary talents were better than her teaching. And it was only when I was eighteen and someone heard me, a distinguished musician heard me, and suggested that I had lessons with Tobias Mathey, who was eighty-six, and his fees were two guineas half an hour, three guineas three quarters of an hour, and four guineas an hour. And my father could only afford the two guineas half an hour, and I went to London very rarely to have this half an hour lesson.

Presenter13:33

Let's have some more music now. Tell me what we're going to hear. We're on disc number three now.

Dame Fanny Waterman13:38

Well, we're going to hear Benjamin Frith play Mendelsohn's Perpetuum Mobile.

Presenter13:44

And why have you chosen this?

Dame Fanny Waterman13:46

Well, because

Dame Fanny Waterman13:48

He has been a lifelong pupil, a loyal pupil.

Dame Fanny Waterman13:52

And I think he's a brilliant British pianist. And I'd like to say about teaching that it is the greatest profession, in my opinion, in the world. The relationship between a teacher and a pupil is something very precious. You're not only a teacher, you're a psychiatrist. You encourage them in moments of despair. It's the most wonderful relationship, and I think we owe a debt to all our teachers.

Presenter15:28

Benjamin Frith playing Mendelsohn's Perpetua Mobile, aptly named Perpetual Motion. I was wondering, Fanny Waterman, as you listened to that, did he make any mistakes? Was that a good enough performance by your pupil? It was virtuasic and sparkling finger work.

Dame Fanny Waterman15:38

Performance by your pupil?

Presenter15:43

How old was Benjamin Fris when you started teaching him?

Dame Fanny Waterman15:46

Duh.

Presenter15:47

And when did you stop teaching him?

Dame Fanny Waterman15:49

I've never stopped. He comes whenever he's got a new concerto or a new programme to play. It's a different kind of a lesson, but we speak on a different level.

Presenter16:00

As you were a little girl, practising your piano, did your father indeed your mother offer plenty of encouragement to you?

Dame Fanny Waterman16:06

Oh yes. I went in for local musical festivals, and I went with my brother Harry to the Blackpool Festival.

Dame Fanny Waterman16:16

Was this when you were judged by Herbert Howells, who was the celebrated composer and he wrote in his adjudication, Fanny treats the piano like a box of toys, inviting brother Harry to join in. But there was a slight family disagreement on the top of page four.

Presenter16:20

Celebrated composer.

Dame Fanny Waterman16:38

Bov Five.

Presenter16:40

And Harry didn't he didn't pursue his own.

Dame Fanny Waterman16:42

No, he became a solicitor.

Presenter16:45

And why was that? Why were you why were you encouraged to and and he wasn't?

Dame Fanny Waterman16:49

Well, he wanted to, but my parents thought that for a man it was too precarious a career.

Presenter16:56

Yeah.

Dame Fanny Waterman16:56

And for you they am

Presenter16:56

Yeah.

Presenter17:00

Me.

Dame Fanny Waterman17:02

They th I think, perhaps wrongly, thought thought I was a star and I was going to make it.

Presenter17:10

Let's have some more music. Uh

Dame Fanny Waterman17:11

Uh

Presenter17:11

And tell me what we're going to hear.

Dame Fanny Waterman17:12

Go next.

Dame Fanny Waterman17:13

I was very lucky many years ago to meet Benjamin Britton and Peter Pearce, but I did get to know Ben and he was in my house worrying about his performance in the evening of De Vinteriser. And I said, Ben, the notes are not all that difficult on the copy. Why are you so nervous? And he said, My dear, it's because there's so few notes on the page, and you've to conjure up a world of sound. And I walked with him when I was in Aldborough along the beach, and I noticed his reaction to the sky and this effect it had on the waves, and he loved the sea. And so I thought it would be wonderful to include one of his great pieces.

Presenter19:07

Dawn, the first of the C interludes from Benjamin Britton's Peter Grimes, played by the orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, conducted by Bernard Heitink.

Presenter19:16

So, Dame Fanny Waterman, you won a scholarship to the Royal College of Music. You were seventeen. Three years later you'd picked up pretty much every major prize that there was going. You ended up playing at the Proms under Sir Henry Wood. That is a dazzling degree of success by your early twenties. How did it feel?

Dame Fanny Waterman19:36

I remember I wasn't even nervous because I was playing with two other pianists, the Bach Triple Piano Concerto, but I made a conscious decision later that I did not want to be a concert pianist.

Presenter19:54

Why? What what decided you upon that route? As you say, because at that point everything, including your parents' expectation and certainly all of your achievement to that point, would lead one to believe that that was an entirely

Presenter20:05

Um obvious thing for you to do.

Dame Fanny Waterman20:08

When it It was really because I met my husband.

Presenter20:11

How did you meet?

Dame Fanny Waterman20:12

Uh

Dame Fanny Waterman20:12

We were introduced by a friend, and at that time I hated my name, and he was called De Kaiser, and I thought, Oh, he was very handsome, and I liked him straight away, but I thought Fanny de Kaiser, that sounds great. How quickly did that occur to you? Well, within a week he said, after meeting me, he said, I would like to marry you and I think it was love at first sight. And he used to say to me every day he loved me, and I one day challenged him with it and said, What do you love about me? and he said, You're so unpredictable. So that put me down a place or two.

Presenter20:54

That's what happens when you fish for a compliment. Exactly. Um the point I want to discuss a little bit more with you, the point at which then you decided that you would not pursue life as a concert pianist.

Dame Fanny Waterman20:56

Exactly.

Dame Fanny Waterman21:04

Well, I made a decision that I would prefer to be happily married to a doctor.

Dame Fanny Waterman21:12

Rather than travel the world and live out of a suitcase.

Presenter21:15

Feel like a big decision at the time.

Dame Fanny Waterman21:17

Or did it feel like

Presenter21:18

Yeah.

Dame Fanny Waterman21:18

Whatever decision I've made in my life, I seem to be content.

Dame Fanny Waterman21:24

with it. I was in love and I had two children and I I realized that in those days if you

Dame Fanny Waterman21:34

Could afford it. You could get a nanny or a housekeeper, but we couldn't afford it.

Presenter21:41

When you look at all the I mean, you've been instrumental in launching the careers, as we've heard, of so many of our great concert pianists. Over the years you've been very happily married and you've had two sons, and that has all gone very well. Has there ever been a moment as you've watched these great performers and their careers progress that you have just wondered what might

Dame Fanny Waterman22:01

Yeah. Uh

Dame Fanny Waterman22:02

No, because the replacement was the wonderful teaching. At one point I had five prodigies. They played with the great conductors Barbirolli, Giulini, all Sir Malcolm Sargent, and one by one they left me because they considered that I was the local piano teacher and I was jolly lucky to have them as pupils, which of course I was because we were very talented. And I was very miserable when they left me. And I said to my husband one morning, when I woke up, I think I'm going to do for the rest of the world pianists what I've done for my own pupils.

Presenter22:47

More of that in just a moment. For now, though, some music. Tell me about disc number five.

Dame Fanny Waterman22:52

Dannett Baker singing Schumann Zeitisch Ingesern.

Dame Fanny Waterman22:58

That is, since I saw him. The moment I saw my beloved Geoffrey, I was blind. Janet Baker is one of the greatest artists of our time, and I'm privileged to feel that I am one of her friends.

Speaker 323:18

Sightish Hingers

Speaker 323:22

Glaudish Blain Suzanne.

Speaker 323:39

Feel more control.

Speaker 323:46

Shapes and bare to be formed Talks the noncurl head.

Speaker 324:02

Hello

Presenter24:15

Janet Baker singing Schumann's Zeit ich in Gesein. The moment I saw him I was blind. She was accompanied there by Daniel Baron Boehm and and you chose that you say Janet Baker you consider a very good and close friend, but you chose it um really for your husband Geoffrey because it was love at first.

Dame Fanny Waterman24:31

It was

Dame Fanny Waterman24:32

Because the moment I saw him, I fell in love with him.

Presenter24:37

And and you were married just short of fifty seven years? Fifty seven years. He was a a highly capable man, as as you say, a GP. But his ambition really was for you, to allow you to fly and succeed and soar. Was that an important part, do you think, of your success?

Dame Fanny Waterman24:52

Yeah.

Dame Fanny Waterman24:53

He was brilliant, not only in medicine and music, but everything, he was never ambitious for himself. even though he could have gone much further in his career. But he only wanted the best for me, and he wanted me to get to the top of where I was going.

Presenter25:14

You nudged him awake at the beginning of the nineteen sixties and said, Um, I've got this idea. I want to start a piano competition. What did he say?

Dame Fanny Waterman25:23

It won't work in Leeds. It has to be in a capital city.

Presenter25:27

Has to be in London, did you think?

Dame Fanny Waterman25:28

Yes not unreasonably not unreasonably,'cause he was a Londoner, but I said I'll show you, and I rang Marian, who was then the Countess of Harwood, and now is Mrs Jeremy Thorpe. She was a great friend of mine, and she'd brought her eldest son, David Lassells, for lessons. I didn't manage to make David into a pianist, but it forged a wonderful friendship between Marian and myself.

Presenter25:55

What was the thinking behind starting this international competition in Leeds? What did you want to do in the beginning?

Dame Fanny Waterman26:01

Well, I know how difficult this career is for people to get to the top. And Murray Pariah, for example, had played twice with the New York Philemoni, but he had to come to Leeds to be recognised. And Radhu Lupu had come first in the Van Clyben competition, but he risked everything to come to Leeds because of our wonderful engagements and opportunities.

Presenter26:33

And wasn't it Radhu Lupu who was in danger of not actually going through to the final then? Well, there was that problem.

Dame Fanny Waterman26:40

And what happened? You were not one of the judges, but you stepped out of the job. That's right, but I intervened, and Geoffrey wasn't very pleased with me because he said.

Presenter26:42

That's right.

Dame Fanny Waterman26:48

It wasn't my right to intervene after this jury had made up their minds.

Presenter26:53

Did he have a point?

Dame Fanny Waterman26:55

No, he didn't have a point, because if I wouldn't have intervened, Radu might not have played in the finals. Clifford Kerson, great pianist though he was, didn't vote for Radu Loopoo, and so he was one short. And I followed Clifford into the green room, and he had his hands folded in prayer, and he said, Thanks be to God that I heard that performance. And I said, But, Clifford, you didn't vote for him. He said, I was so sure he'd go through that I'd voted for a weaker one. So he was not the best member of a jury.

Presenter27:32

He was

Presenter27:36

Tell me then about disc number six. We're going to hear Radu Lufu playing now. What what are we going to hear him play?

Dame Fanny Waterman27:41

He's going to play the first mov part of the first movement of Beethoven's Third Piano Concerto. It has authority.

Dame Fanny Waterman27:51

Passion and integrity.

Presenter28:53

Radu Lupu playing part of the opening movement of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. Three with the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Zubin Mehta.

Presenter29:03

Dame Fanny Waterman, sixty years ago the phrase work life balance didn't really play much of a part in uh the social fabric of our lives, and yet you seem to have pulled it off at a time when uh

Presenter29:15

A lot of women were forced to to give up work. You continued working and were also a mother of two sons. How did you manage it?

Dame Fanny Waterman29:23

Well, I just devoted myself to them when Robert and Paul came back from school.

Dame Fanny Waterman29:30

Neither of em wanted to learn the piano. They only wanted to start with concertos. I wanted them on five finger exercises, but that didn't work, and so they learnt the violin, and both of them played in the National Youth Orchestra.

Presenter29:45

And so the work was sort of concertina in to the the the hours that they were at school, was it?

Dame Fanny Waterman29:49

The hours that they

Dame Fanny Waterman29:50

Yes. And my husband pulled his weight. No, I think we were devoted parents. I never neglected them because of my workload.

Presenter30:00

Now any young child in Britain, indeed any grown up now, will know that over the decades your name has become very familiar to them, because of course you have written all of these books that that help teach so many children.

Presenter30:12

Is there a particular moment as a teacher that you know that you have somebody special, however young they are, sitting on that piano stool, when you think, Goodness me

Dame Fanny Waterman30:21

Well, I always say I don't choose the pupils, I choose the parents. And that is so important. And so would you literally interview the parents before you take the parents?

Presenter30:32

Oh yeah.

Dame Fanny Waterman30:34

And I would say, let's experiment. Let's see how he or she enjoys the lessons. And if we feel we can't make progress, let's be honest. I've done a lot of adjudicating in the Far East and the children begin at the ages four and five. And they're playing grand pianos like masters. Here they don't start early enough, I'm afraid. And

Dame Fanny Waterman31:03

I don't think it's treated with the same seriousness. You know, I had a pupil and her mother came in and said, Annabel can't come for a lesson next week. She's got a swimming gala. I said, Well, there's six other days in the week. This wouldn't happen with my Chinese pupil. They would never miss a lesson.

Presenter31:24

But do you think that mother might well say that, you know, I want a a rounded child, I want a child that is not just preoccupied with one thing, I don't want to sacrifice the childhood of this little person just to try to make her a great pianist. That's not fair.

Dame Fanny Waterman31:37

Well, this little pianist isn't going to be a great pianist, but to be accomplished.

Dame Fanny Waterman31:43

Because to play an instrument, especially the piano, is an accomplishment which helps you and nurtures you all your life. It opens all doors, local, national, international.

Presenter31:59

Do you think that the sacrifice and by your own admission the great concert pianists, of course, have to make these sacrifices in the rest of their life do you think that the sacrifice is entirely worth

Presenter32:10

The great art at the other end.

Dame Fanny Waterman32:11

Well, I think you'd have to ask the artist. I think they feel so so because to

Dame Fanny Waterman32:19

play and study the masterpieces of, say, the great piano literature.

Dame Fanny Waterman32:25

is something that is inspirational.

Dame Fanny Waterman32:29

to be able to be in commune.

Dame Fanny Waterman32:32

With these gods, the composers, and I think they think it's worth the sacrifice.

Presenter32:40

Let's have some more music now, then. We're on disc number seven. What have you chosen?

Dame Fanny Waterman32:45

I've chosen the Beaux Art trio playing the opening of the second movement of Schubert's Piano Trio in B flat because how can I live without Schubert?

Speaker 333:15

Uh

Presenter33:57

That was the Beaux-Arts trio playing the opening of the second movement of Schubert's piano trio number one in B-flat. As we know, Fanny Waterman, your husband Geoffrey died in two thousand one. That was just a a few weeks before your fifty-seventh wedding anniversary. Given the the central role that he played in your life and work, how how did life change after that?

Dame Fanny Waterman34:19

Well, at the beginning I was desperate and felt I couldn't go on, and then

Dame Fanny Waterman34:26

I pulled myself together and said he would wish me to go on, and I've never worked harder in my life.

Dame Fanny Waterman34:35

I mean, then I was just chairman and artistic director. Now I see the programme through every detail that perhaps he might have done, proofreading, I'm involved with now. And um

Dame Fanny Waterman34:51

People say that in a way I've blossomed since then, because he was such a powerful person maybe I stood back very often, and so I

Dame Fanny Waterman35:04

In a way, I've felt that I've been on my own, but I've got to prove myself.

Presenter35:11

Bit of Yorkshire grit in there, I detect. You you were appointed a dame then in two thousand and five, so obviously Geoffrey didn't see that. What do you think he would have made of that, of uh Dame Fanny Waterman?

Dame Fanny Waterman35:21

Yeah.

Dame Fanny Waterman35:23

Oh, he would have been thrilled. And I often feel when I meet new people, oh, but if you would have only met Geoffrey

Dame Fanny Waterman35:32

And I just

Dame Fanny Waterman35:34

I'm still with him, if you know what I mean. And you now have, is it, six granddaughters? Six granddaughters, none of whom played the piano.

Presenter35:39

Thanks.

Presenter35:43

Is that something of a disappointment?

Dame Fanny Waterman35:46

Not really, because they lived in London and um I don't think they had the right teaching. But never mind.

Presenter35:53

But never mind

Dame Fanny Waterman35:55

I love them just the same.

Presenter35:58

Let's hear your final piece of music then, what have you chosen?

Dame Fanny Waterman36:00

Part of the first movement of the Brahm Symphony number two.

Presenter36:05

And why have you chosen this?

Dame Fanny Waterman36:07

Well, this was our symphony. Whenever we heard it we used to sit in the auditorium and hold hands, because we felt it belonged to us when we first met, and it'll live with me forever.

Presenter37:20

That was part of the first movement of Brahm's Symphony No. Two, performed by the Royal Concertlerbau Orchestra, conducted by Ricardo Schailly. So we come to the moment, then, Dame Fanny, where I give you the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare, and you are allowed to take a book to the island. What will your book be?

Dame Fanny Waterman37:38

The Diary of a Nobody by George and Whedon Gross Smith.

Dame Fanny Waterman37:43

because I can amuse myself with the recollections of so many people, with their quirks and eccentricities, who have passed through my life.

Dame Fanny Waterman37:55

Mr and Mrs. Pouter were pathetic.

Dame Fanny Waterman37:59

pretentious, pompous.

Dame Fanny Waterman38:02

And social climbers.

Dame Fanny Waterman38:05

And

Dame Fanny Waterman38:06

We've all come across these people at all levels, and perhaps we can recognize some of these traits in ourselves.

Presenter38:16

And what would your luxury be? You're allowed something to make life on the island more bearable.

Dame Fanny Waterman38:21

Well, I think it's got to be a grand piano.

Dame Fanny Waterman38:24

It can be a shelter, and maybe with the lid up I can store some of my food.

Presenter38:30

Very useful, then. We'll give you the grand piano. And of the eight discs that you've carefully chosen to day, which one would you save if you had to save just one of them?

Dame Fanny Waterman38:41

Radhu Lupu playing the Beethoven.

Presenter38:44

It's yours. Dame Fanny Watermans, thank you very much for letting us hear your Desert Island discs. It was a pleasure.

Presenter39:36

You've been listening to a download from the BBC. You'll find more information on the Radio Four website bbc.co. uk slash radio four.