Richard Baker

Speaker 10:01

BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts.

Speaker 10:05

Hello, I'm Lauren Laverne and this is the Desert Island Discs podcast. This is the only extract the BBC has of this episode, and for rights reasons, the music is shorter than on the original broadcast. The presenter is Roy Plumley. I hope you enjoy listening.

Presenter0:20

Richard, are you a musical person? Up to a point I am. I've always loved music and when I was a little boy, aged seven, my mother made me start to learn the piano and I hated it for about three years.

Presenter0:33

And she had to shut me in while I practised, but

Presenter0:35

After that, I began to love it. My father took me to the proms when I was pretty young. Yes, it's always been very important to me. Yes. You never played the piano professionally? No, no.

Presenter0:46

Did you have any plan in choosing these eight records for your desert island?

Presenter0:50

There's simply music which I.

Presenter0:52

Like, probably because they all have a certain magic for me.

Presenter0:57

Different kind of magic in each case. Nostalgic?

Presenter1:00

Yes, I think so. What's the first one you've chosen?

Presenter1:03

The first is

Presenter1:05

The cello concerto by Dvorschak.

Presenter1:08

In The Version by

Presenter1:11

Rostropovich, the great Russian cellist.

Presenter1:14

with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra.

Presenter1:16

Mm-hmm. Why'd you choose it?

Presenter1:19

I love the music. I met Rostropovich several times in the course of introducing concerts on television. I admire him enormously as a cellist.

Presenter1:28

And the

Presenter1:29

Czech Philharmonic Orchestra I choose because I went to Czechoslovakia about a year ago in October 1967 to record Schoenberg's survivor from Warsaw with them. And in this recent series of events in Czechoslovakia with the Russian invasion, I found myself remembering so often the playing of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra.

Presenter1:49

And the great spirit that there is in in Czech music, and that's why I chose this record.

Presenter2:54

A section from the first movement of Wachak's cello concerto, Lostopovich, with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra. What's your second choice?

Presenter3:02

It's a nocturn by Chopin in D-flat played by Rubinstein. Why do you choose this particular recording?

Presenter3:10

Because I enormously admire the playing of Rubinstein, I like a great many other fine pianists, Ashkenazi, several others I can think of. The thing I especially admire about Rubinstein is a wonderful sense of classical balance in playing a romantic work such as this, a marvellous.

Presenter3:30

Restrained.

Presenter4:32

Rubenstein playing the opening of Chopin's nocturnal number eight in D-flat.

Presenter4:37

Are you in London, originally?

Presenter4:38

Yes, I am. I was born in Guelston, in northwest London. Now, obviously, as a boy, you didn't say to yourself, one day I'm going to be a television newsreader. What did you say to yourself, what was your first ambition?

Presenter4:50

Well I think I had three. I wanted to be the captain of a ship.

Presenter4:55

And I wanted to be an actor.

Presenter4:57

And I wanted to be a teacher. What were you good at as a boy?

Presenter5:02

At school. Yes. Um, English and languages.

Presenter5:06

History, things like that. Terrible at maths. You were at Cambridge. What did you read?

Presenter5:11

History for two years and then I did a third year with French and Italian. Were you theatrically active at Cambridge?

Presenter5:18

Yes, I was in the Marlowe Society and the ADC. Your time at Cambridge, of course, was interrupted by service in the Royal Navy for three and a half years. Any entertaining there?

Presenter5:28

Quite a lot. I was, for a period, an entertainment officer on an enormous naval air station. We had tremendous fun. We used to produce.

Presenter5:37

uh reviews or plays every fortnight or three weeks. It was like being in in rep, really.

Presenter5:44

Very, very little naval work, I must say. When you were immobilized back to Cambridge.

Presenter5:48

And then?

Presenter5:50

First of all, at Cambridge, when I came back, I wasn't terribly happy. I found it very difficult to settle down to studying again.

Presenter5:57

Very soon they came.

Presenter5:59

acclimatized once I started acting again and and and got away from books rather. I think there must be something a bit significant about that. So when you came down?

Presenter6:09

When I came down, I met Joyce Carey, the actress, and she was very kind to me.

Presenter6:15

introduced me to a repertory company at Brighton at the old Dolphin Theatre. Well here we are, we've got you launched in your career. At this point I think we might break off your third record.

Presenter6:25

Well the third record is of John Gielgood doing

Presenter6:28

A speech from The Tempest. It's a speech by Prospero.

Presenter6:33

After

Presenter6:35

The pageant of

Presenter6:37

spirits which he's conjured up for the entertainment of the young lovers.

Richard Baker6:41

and like the baseless fabric of this vision,

Richard Baker6:45

The cloud capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, the solemn temples, the great globe itself, yea, all which it inherits

Richard Baker6:55

shall dissolve.

Richard Baker6:57

And like this insubstantial pageant faded

Richard Baker7:02

Leave not a wreck behind.

Richard Baker7:06

We are such stuff as dreams are made on.

Richard Baker7:10

And our little life is rounded with a sleep.

Presenter7:16

Sir John Gilbert a speech from The Tempest.

Presenter7:19

You began your career at the Dauphin Theatre, Brighton. What was your position in the company? An assistant stage manager. So you went around borrowing crops and making the tea and so on. All that, yes. And after Brighton?

Presenter7:31

Then I went to a theatre in Aberystwyth, which is a converted swimming bath. And in this converted swimming bath, we did four plays a week throughout one summer.

Presenter7:43

And I did go and teach at a grammar school in South London for a time. End of return? Yes, for about six months. What happened then?

Presenter7:52

Then I had an offer from the Oxford Playhouse to go to be in 1066 and all that, and that's Napoleon and various other things. Had broadcasting attracted you yet?

Presenter8:02

It had, but in a rather distant sort of way.

Presenter8:05

And at Oxford, I remember we were playing about with a wire recorder because, you know, this dates me rather, but it was wire recorders who were using them. And somebody says, well, you've got an ideal broadcasting voice. And that was what made me at that stage write to the BBC and ask what the prospects were there. And what were they?

Presenter8:22

None for actors, but they did offer me an audition as an announcer. And I managed to pass it after they said I did sound a bit cockney, but they might be able to do something about that. And let me in. So what did you start with at the BBC?

Presenter8:37

In the BBC, first of all, as a studio manager at Bush House in the World Service, and then...

Presenter8:42

for a time in Birmingham, in Glasgow, and then a job on the third programme for three years. Plenty of opportunities for hearing music.

Presenter8:50

Oh, an enormous number of wonderful opportunities.

Presenter8:54

Being in the studio with Sir Thomas Beacham, for example. Yes, have you a Beecham story? Oh, yes, yes, yes. I think I've got one too. But the one I like best perhaps is of him doing a performance of the Mozart Requiem with the BBC Symphony Orchestra. And suddenly, after the second movement of this work, he sat down on his stool and I thought, my goodness, he's going to pass out or something. And he didn't. He turned round to me and he said...

Presenter9:18

In a loud voice, all the microphones live, he said, I'm tired, dear boy He said, You say some more recite Macaulay's nays. I couldn't remember Macaulay's name. He had silence over it.

Presenter9:30

And after after this he went on to music.

Presenter9:33

Yes, first of all in sound and then on television. Well, at this point, let's break off your fourth record. What are we going to have?

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This is baby.

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Amadair string quartet because I admire them so much playing the

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Schubert Quartet.

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Death and the Maiden.

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Uh

Presenter10:50

An excerpt from the first movement of Schubert's quartet in D minor, played by the Amadeus string quartet.

Presenter10:56

So you were newsreading, Richard, and you started going up the hill to Alexandra Palace. Television news still comes from there, doesn't it? Yes, it does, although in July 69 we're moving to a special wing of the television centre. When was it that you started?

Presenter11:10

In 1954, I was in the very first television news bulletin that was ever done, but I was only a voice out of vision, as we say. I wasn't seen at all.

Presenter11:20

For how long do you rehearse a bulletin or or the main part of one?

Presenter11:25

You can run through it first. Yes, we do have. We attempt to have a rehearsal, but news being what it is, a lot of the film and other material that goes into the programme isn't with us.

Presenter11:36

In time for a rehearsal. So it's a pretty scratch. Oh, yeah, yeah. But most of the time they're not looking down at your script and obviously you haven't had time to memorize it all. So one assumes you've got something written up.

Presenter11:48

Well, I don't think it's really any secret now, is it, to say that we have

Presenter11:53

Got just below the camera a thing called a teleprompter, little box with a glass front and some of the script can be typed out and put inside this little box and then moved.

Presenter12:04

By an operator to keep pace with your own speed. So that helps you to look at the audience and therefore to communicate with the audience, is why we use it.

Richard Baker12:08

Hi, I'm

Presenter12:13

It's better than having your head down all the time. Well, we don't use it all the time. And of course, apart from nudes, you also do a lot of music programmes.

Presenter12:19

Yes, I do. Proms and all sorts of other comusic quizzes.

Presenter12:23

Bridget, where do you move on to from here? Do you want to administrate or produce or stay where you are or develop the commentating side of things?

Presenter12:31

Yes, I think the last, probably.

Presenter12:33

I don't really see myself becoming an administrator. I think I'm too inefficient.

Presenter12:39

I would like very much to go on with the outside broadcast commentating that I've begun to do.

Presenter12:45

I was um

Presenter12:46

On board the Queen Elizabeth when it was launched, very exciting that was. And then when Sir Francis Chichester came to Greenwich and was knighted by the Queen, now off to South America on the royal tour there. I must say I'm looking forward to it enormously. Now you have two young children. How do they react to Daddy on the box?

Presenter13:05

They're pretty drowsy about it, you know. As far as the news is concerned, they think it's a terrible bore unless there's a great disaster. They love it when there's a fire or an explosion or something really awful happening. Yes. Then they find it interesting. And then daddy's really doing his job. I reckon so. Let's have record number five.

Presenter13:23

This is Burlington Bertie performed by Ella Shields, who is one of the music hall performers whom I most admire.

Presenter13:33

I first came across the record when I was in rep at Oxford, and I met John Moffat, who was the leading man there.

Presenter13:40

And he had a tremendous collection of about two thousand.

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old musical records. I loved a great many of them, but I chosen this particular one for its

Presenter13:50

Great style and self-possession and

Presenter13:54

Humor.

Speaker 213:55

I'm Burlington Bertie, I ride the ten thirty, and saunter along like a thong.

Speaker 214:04

I walk down the strand with my gloves on my hand, then I walk down again with them all.

Speaker 214:12

I'm all airs and places, collect easy paces. So long without food, I forgot where my place is, I'm first.

Speaker 214:21

Yeah.

Speaker 214:22

I haven't assured.

Presenter14:25

Ella Shields as Burlington Bertie. What next Richard?

Presenter14:30

A piece of opera, the presentation of the rose from the second act of Rose and Cavalier by Richard Strauss, sung by Elizabeth Schumann and Maria Olchewska as Sophie and

Presenter14:42

Tavian, respectively.

Speaker 214:53

Which the world

Presenter15:12

Yeah.

Presenter15:44

An excerpt from the second act of Der Rosen Cavalier with Elizabeth Schumann and Maria Olszzewska.

Presenter15:51

How could you take the loneliness on this desert island, Richard?

Presenter15:54

I don't think I'd be very good at it.

Presenter15:57

I I like very much

Presenter16:00

company and I also like being away from it for quite substantial periods. Uh being on my own, say for a whole day or something like that. I think this is very necessary, but I don't think I'll be very good at it for very long. Are you good with your hands?

Presenter16:14

No, not particularly. I do odd jobs when I have to. I enjoy doing practical things. I'm not very good at them.

Presenter16:21

Could you instruct a craft of some sort?

Presenter16:24

I'd do my very best to. I'd want to get away, I think would.

Presenter16:29

Let's have record number set.

Presenter16:30

This is Mozart Symphony No. 40 in G minor.

Presenter16:34

Played by Giulini and the New Philharmony Orchestra.

Presenter16:38

Why do you choose this?

Presenter16:40

Because I used to play this particular music as a piano duet with my mother, so I grew up with it, because it's my favourite among Mozart symphonies, and that's really quite saying something.

Presenter16:52

Because I so very much admire Giulini and

Presenter16:55

His passionately dedicated approach to music.

Presenter16:59

Would be quite inspiring on a desert island.

Presenter18:01

Carla Maria Giulini conducting the new Philharmonia Orchestra in the opening of Mozart's Symphony No. 40 in G minor.

Presenter18:09

Which brings us now to your last record. What's that going to be?

Presenter18:12

This is going to be the finale from Pineapple Paul, the ballet arranged by Charles McKarris from

Presenter18:20

Sullivans.

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Operas

Presenter18:23

What?

Presenter18:24

Because I suppose the government and salvation operas were the first

Presenter18:28

Things that I began to enjoy in the theatre when my parents took me to see them, and I still enjoy them enormously.

Presenter18:36

Because of the really fizzing orchestration that Makaris.

Presenter18:41

puts into this.

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And because this particular part of Pineapple Poll sums up everything which is to do with the theatre, all the sort of

Presenter18:49

glamour and excitement of it. You know, I give myself away. I'm I'm rather a theatrical person at heart.

Presenter19:24

The closing passage of Pineapple Paw.

Presenter19:27

Charles McKellar is conducting the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. If you could take just one of the eight discs you played to us, Richard, which would it be? The Mozart.

Presenter19:35

Mozart Symphony number forty.

Presenter19:38

And one luxury to take to the island with you.

Presenter19:41

I think a bed, a very comfortable, very luxurious bed, where in the very limited time available, I could sort of lie in it and listen to my records and be very comfortable. You'd better build a good shelter to keep it dry. Right.

Presenter19:55

And one book apart from the Bible and Shakespeare. This would be the collected works of Jane Austen, I think.

Presenter20:02

Good. And thank you, Richard Baker, for letting us hear your Desert Island discs. Thank you very much for having me on the Desert Island. I suppose I ought now to say, and now the weather, but it'll probably be ghastly.

Presenter20:14

I'm not sure.