Agnes Nicholls

Presenter0:00

This is the

Speaker 10:01

B B C

Speaker 10:03

Hello, I'm Kirstie Young, and this is a download from the Desert Island Discs archive. This edition may be slightly different from what was actually broadcast, but it is the only version we have. The recording didn't contain the guests' eight music choices, so we've rebuilt the original show by using discs from the BBC Gramophone library. For Wrights' reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

Speaker 10:25

Full details can be found on the Castaways page on the Desert Island Disc's website.

Speaker 10:30

The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen fifty eight.

Presenter0:43

Desert Island Dens.

Presenter0:53

Each week, a well-known person is asked the question, if you were to be cast away alone on a desert island, which eight gramophone records would you choose to have with you, assuming, of course, that you also had a gramophone?

Presenter1:04

As usual, the week's castaway is introduced by Roy Plumley.

Presenter1:08

How do you do, ladies and gentlemen?

Presenter1:10

Our Castaway this week has a unique store of memories of the musical scene.

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A famous singer, she began her career back in the eighteen nineties.

Presenter1:18

She's the widow of a distinguished and well-remembered conductor and composer and pianist Sir Hamilton Harty. Here is Miss Agnes Nicholls, Lady Hartie.

Presenter1:27

Well, Lady Harty, how do you feel about a spell on a desert island? Does the thought fill you with horror?

Agnes Nicholls1:31

No, I don't think so. Not at all.

Presenter1:33

It's quite a nice island.

Agnes Nicholls1:34

Yes, and I'm full of uh very adventures, really.

Presenter1:38

But how have you gone about choosing your eight records to take with you?

Agnes Nicholls1:42

Well, I chose them in various ways. The first one, because I

Agnes Nicholls1:49

I played in the orchestra as a girl. I was a fiddle, not a singer originally. And I played in this orchestra.

Agnes Nicholls1:57

at about, I suppose, 13.

Agnes Nicholls2:00

And I thought it was very wonderful, but I was wondering how on earth I should get to the end of the thing properly, because it was so quick, and I was only very young.

Presenter2:10

What was the beat?

Agnes Nicholls2:11

The manager See Gero.

Agnes Nicholls2:13

The overture to the marriage of Egypt,

Presenter2:13

Yeah.

Presenter2:15

Yeah.

Agnes Nicholls2:15

And then another thing that interests me was because it was the first Mozart opera I ever played in. I played the Countess in it. And so it's always had for me a very great feeling of affection and...

Agnes Nicholls2:32

Oh, so such lovely things altogether

Presenter2:34

Some lovely memories for you.

Agnes Nicholls2:35

Yes, lovely. It's funny that the two things sort of

Agnes Nicholls2:39

coincided with the beginning of my um sort of work in music and my first

Agnes Nicholls2:45

Is saying Mozart opera.

Presenter2:47

Let's listen to it.

Presenter3:57

The opening of the overture to the marriage of Figura.

Presenter3:59

With Rafael Kubilik conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra. What comes next?

Agnes Nicholls4:05

The signets, I think that's the correct pronunciation, which comes from the ballet The Swan Lake.

Presenter4:11

Yes, why do you choose this?

Agnes Nicholls4:12

Because I it was the first ballet I ever saw.

Agnes Nicholls4:16

And it made a great impression on me. It was so very beautiful.

Agnes Nicholls4:21

And I was especially attracted by the four little dancers who did this particular thing so extraordinarily well.

Agnes Nicholls4:31

And it was so beautiful to listen to.

Presenter5:39

Anna Tolphus Tullauri conducting the London Symphony Orchestra in that excerpt from Swan Lake.

Presenter5:45

Lady Harty, you said you started your career as a violinist. What made you decide in the first place that music was your vocation?

Agnes Nicholls5:52

I think uh from the fact that my parents were very

Agnes Nicholls5:56

very intent amateur musicians and they had always had a great deal of music in their home.

Agnes Nicholls6:03

And it was the days when you made parlour tricks yourself.

Agnes Nicholls6:07

There were no concerts much to go to, perhaps one now and again, no pictures, nor anything of that sort, so you had to make music if you wanted to eat in your own home.

Speaker 46:16

Yeah.

Agnes Nicholls6:16

And that was how I began. I started

Agnes Nicholls6:19

uh when I was five with a fiddle.

Agnes Nicholls6:23

A little quota fiddle.

Speaker 46:25

Yeah.

Agnes Nicholls6:26

and progressed with that. Well then gradually I began singing one doesn't use your in it you know, just do it. And then I sang in a choral class in my boarding school. And that was really how it began.

Presenter6:37

And then you went to the you you took a scholarship, didn't you, at the Royal College of Music.

Agnes Nicholls6:40

Yes. I did. My father died and I went in for the scholarship. I saw it was advertised and I went and said I was going to try for it. My mother thought I was quite mad. However, I got it.

Presenter6:52

Add the sync.

Agnes Nicholls6:53

As a singer. I wasn't allowed to play the fiddle either.

Presenter6:57

What was your first professional engagement? Do you remember?

Agnes Nicholls6:59

Yes, I do indeed. It was at a chapel or a church rather?

Agnes Nicholls7:03

On an Easter Sunday with a great full service and there was also an orchestra and the organ and we did the mess solonelle and I had to sing all the tenor parts because the tenor couldn't get the high notes. Couldn't get those high notes.

Presenter7:20

When did you make your operatic debut?

Agnes Nicholls7:25

102, I think.

Agnes Nicholls7:27

The Dew Fairy in Hanson and Gretel.

Presenter7:30

At Gottengotten

Agnes Nicholls7:30

Magic golf and card.

Presenter7:31

And you sang at Common Con for a good many years, didn't you?

Agnes Nicholls7:34

On and off until nineteen fourteen.

Presenter7:37

And yeah.

Agnes Nicholls7:37

Yeah.

Agnes Nicholls7:38

Every kind of

Presenter7:39

Yeah.

Agnes Nicholls7:40

Big and little.

Presenter7:41

And apart from that, lots of travels pretty well all over the world.

Agnes Nicholls7:44

Oh, lots of travels. Went up to South Africa to Australia.

Agnes Nicholls7:49

Domeric.

Agnes Nicholls7:50

and also on the continent.

Presenter7:53

You sang several times before Queen Victoria, didn't you?

Agnes Nicholls7:55

I did indeed.

Agnes Nicholls7:56

The first time was at her own diamond jubilee.

Agnes Nicholls8:00

when they gave a performance of the hymn of praise at St George's Chapel, Windsor, under Sir Walter Parrott. Madame Albany was the first soprano, Edward Lloyd the tenor, and I sang the second soprano part. I thought I was the earth.

Presenter8:15

Well, you certainly have some wonderful memories.

Agnes Nicholls8:16

Happens.

Presenter8:17

What's your third record going to be?

Agnes Nicholls8:19

Oh, may I have a nail of farewell, please?

Presenter8:22

Melbourne's farewell at Cobbin Garden when she sang Mimi for the last time.

Agnes Nicholls8:26

Please.

Presenter9:35

The voice of Melbeth.

Presenter9:37

You worked, of course, with all the great singers of what we now know as the golden age of opera, didn't you?

Agnes Nicholls9:42

I did indeed.

Agnes Nicholls9:44

I sang with Caruso.

Agnes Nicholls9:46

And also people like Better Stuni and Scotty.

Agnes Nicholls9:50

And uh Destin and others have that celebrated

Presenter9:54

How bad.

Agnes Nicholls9:56

Time?

Presenter9:56

What was your own favourite role?

Agnes Nicholls9:58

Add blood.

Presenter9:59

Hadn't worked.

Agnes Nicholls9:59

Not

Presenter10:00

Well, let's put it this way, what was your least favorite row?

Agnes Nicholls10:02

Pamina, I didn't like playing her at all.

Presenter10:05

What?

Agnes Nicholls10:06

She had lovely music to sing, but I felt I was utterly unsuited to being a little girl and

Agnes Nicholls10:12

I was enormous and I didn't like playing with a little mother who was about three inches high, the queen of the night.

Presenter10:20

Yeah.

Presenter10:21

Where did you first meet your husband?

Agnes Nicholls10:23

I met him in London. Here he was engaged to play for me at a concert.

Presenter10:27

As your accompanist.

Agnes Nicholls10:28

As my company, so I didn't know it all.

Presenter10:30

Yeah.

Presenter10:31

You did a great deal of work together.

Agnes Nicholls10:33

We did an enormous lot lot of work there. He helped me, of course, enormously with all the great roles that I did. And he taught me many things about

Agnes Nicholls10:42

orchestral scores so that I should know where things were especially heavy. and where to reserve myself and such things, because I played roles which in many ways I expect were too big for me, like Risold and things like that. But he helped me all over those things.

Presenter11:00

Yeah.

Presenter11:02

But watch your fourth record.

Agnes Nicholls11:03

On a fair day.

Agnes Nicholls11:05

It's my husband's work. It comes, it's a second movement out of his Irish Symphony.

Agnes Nicholls11:11

And I just adore it and I wanted something in this program that I was doing with his.

Presenter12:13

Sir Hamilton Harty conducting the Halley Orchestra in the schazzo from his own Irish Symphony.

Presenter12:19

Lady Harty, since your retirement you've retained all your enthusiasms for music, haven't you? You hear all you can.

Agnes Nicholls12:25

Indeed I have. I go to everything I possibly can. I don't want to get behind.

Presenter12:29

Do you think the standard of singing is as good now as it was when you started your career?

Agnes Nicholls12:34

Honestly, no.

Agnes Nicholls12:36

I think that is still excellent singing in some ways.

Agnes Nicholls12:41

But what I would call the rank and file is so much more odd.

Presenter12:44

Ordinary than it used to be. Yes. Can you think of any reason for that?

Agnes Nicholls12:49

Yes, I do think that it's possible they all have to work too hard.

Agnes Nicholls12:54

They have to learn quickly, they have to do everything for themselves, they have to cook and housekeep and travel and nothing is very easy today.

Speaker 413:04

Hmm.

Agnes Nicholls13:04

And I really think that has a great deal to do with it.

Agnes Nicholls13:08

I may be wrong, but there it is.

Presenter13:10

And what about the productions?

Agnes Nicholls13:12

Oh, I think you mean the the theatrical production?

Presenter13:14

Cheers.

Agnes Nicholls13:15

Oh, I think some are magnificent.

Presenter13:17

compared with the ones that you wear.

Agnes Nicholls13:18

Oh, many of them are infinitely better.

Agnes Nicholls13:22

I mean take a thing like the Trojans which they did lately at a Cotton Garden Magnificent Show.

Speaker 413:27

Uh

Presenter13:27

Mm-hmm.

Agnes Nicholls13:28

And the new AI that they've done there is excellent too.

Presenter13:32

Well, let's have another record. What's number five?

Agnes Nicholls13:35

Nimrod, please. Nimrog from Sir Edward Elgar's and Nigra Vedication.

Presenter13:40

And why do you choose it?

Agnes Nicholls13:43

Partly because I'm silky.

Agnes Nicholls13:45

Very fond of it, but also because I did a great deal of work with Sir Edward. But the work I have done with him is not really suitable to break up and put on a record.

Agnes Nicholls13:56

on a thing like this. Because they're mostly things that are torius, like the kingdom.

Speaker 414:02

Yeah.

Agnes Nicholls14:03

So I thought if we could have the Nimrod, which is so entirely characteristic of him, and so very lovely, it would be nice.

Presenter15:08

Nimrod from the

Presenter15:10

Enigma Variations conducted by Sir Thomas Beacham. Now what?

Agnes Nicholls15:15

Oh, the spring song from the Valkyra, please.

Presenter15:18

Yeah.

Agnes Nicholls15:19

Sung by Walter Hyde.

Agnes Nicholls15:21

In English.

Presenter15:22

Yes. You all sang in the ring during its first production in English, didn't you?

Agnes Nicholls15:26

The first production in English I sang in. So did he. He was also a fellow student of mine at the Royal College of Music. It's a lovely voice.

Agnes Nicholls15:37

And when he left the college he went to work at once and he went mostly, I think, on the light opera stage. I remember that at the time of the English ring he was playing My Lady Molly.

Agnes Nicholls15:50

And uh mister Percy Pitt, who was arranging all the parts with Doctor Hans Richter, asked me if I thought he would be able to do the segment. I said, There's no one better.

Agnes Nicholls16:02

And they got him to come down and sing. They were just delighted with him.

Agnes Nicholls16:07

And so then he came and sang and of course he was famous in the night.

Agnes Nicholls16:13

And that's why I would love to have a spring song. It sounds beautiful today.

Speaker 416:19

Winter storms have waned in the moon of May, with a firm of radiant battles fling on a farmy free that light and lovely, waving wonders on the floor.

Speaker 416:43

O wood and bed, Opsy breathing, widely open and of the door.

Speaker 417:06

Yeah.

Speaker 417:14

What I should swing up by the mouth

Presenter17:20

Lady Hartie, have you any qualifications, do you think, as a castaway? How how would you manage on this island?

Agnes Nicholls17:26

Where?

Agnes Nicholls17:27

I'm a very practical person, which is surprising, I suppose. Being a singer, they always say that if you're an artist, you're not a practical person.

Presenter17:31

They always

Agnes Nicholls17:36

But I think I was, and am, still.

Agnes Nicholls17:40

And I think I'd do all right in most ways.

Presenter17:43

Build a shelter?

Agnes Nicholls17:44

Oh, well I'd try and find rocks to do that.

Agnes Nicholls17:47

So I could get under rocks and draw leaves round for a shelter.

Presenter17:51

Mm. What would you eat?

Agnes Nicholls17:54

Oh, that's another matter. I dunno. It's difficult. But I think there'll be lots of fruit, wouldn't there?

Presenter17:59

Oh, I think so. Ever done any fishing?

Agnes Nicholls18:00

Dumbness

Agnes Nicholls18:01

Oh, I've done lots of fishing in my day. We used to go to Sutherland to fish always every year.

Agnes Nicholls18:07

Once I was nearly pulled out of a boat by a salmon, I may tell you.

Agnes Nicholls18:11

Saved by the Ghilly.

Presenter18:13

Are you a good cook?

Agnes Nicholls18:14

Yes, quite good.

Presenter18:16

You're going to be all right on this island. Let's leave that subject and get back to records.

Agnes Nicholls18:17

Leave that side.

Agnes Nicholls18:20

Oh

Presenter18:20

What next?

Agnes Nicholls18:21

Oh, I want the funeral march from Gitter Demero.

Presenter18:25

Yes. Why?

Agnes Nicholls18:27

Just cause I adore.

Agnes Nicholls18:30

I don't think there's any other reasons. I think it's ma

Presenter19:35

But of Siegfried's funeral march.

Presenter19:37

Conducted once again by Sir Thomas Beacham. And now we come to your last record.

Agnes Nicholls19:41

The hallelujah chorus, please, from Handel's Messiah.

Presenter19:45

Uh What?

Agnes Nicholls19:47

Because Messiah was one of the first oratorios I ever heard.

Agnes Nicholls19:51

It was in Gloucester Cathedral at the musical festival. I don't remember the year, but I was quite young.

Agnes Nicholls19:59

But I was so impressed.

Agnes Nicholls20:01

Bye that chorus. I never forgot it.

Agnes Nicholls20:04

Years later I heard it again sung by the Sheffield.

Agnes Nicholls20:08

Musical Festival Chorus.

Agnes Nicholls20:11

And again, the impact was something colossal.

Presenter20:15

Well, I'm afraid we can't give you either of those performances that you heard, but here's a recording by the Huddersfield Choral Society with the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, and it's conducted by Sir Malcolm Sargent.

Agnes Nicholls20:26

That'll be glorious.

Speaker 421:01

Oh love and brave man.

Agnes Nicholls21:32

Well, you know, I don't think I should do too badly on my island with all those lovely records, do you?

Presenter21:37

Lovely records indeed. And as well as those records, you're allowed, of course, one luxury. What are you choosing to take with you?

Agnes Nicholls21:44

Oh, I want a big dictionary, one of the old-fashioned dictionaries. You see, I'll never be short of reading then.

Agnes Nicholls21:53

Never. Because you know you never can stop when you once look at it.

Presenter21:54

No shit.

Presenter21:57

You mean one word takes you on to another?

Agnes Nicholls21:59

Yes, all the drawings of all the animals and things.

Presenter22:03

Yes.

Agnes Nicholls22:03

All the wonderful things, those old dictionaries.

Presenter22:05

All right, you shall have the biggest and most illustrated one we can find, but

Presenter22:10

Choose something else. If if anyone chooses a book, we usually say something else as well.

Agnes Nicholls22:14

Oh, well, I know what I want.

Agnes Nicholls22:16

A lovely peak.

Presenter22:18

Backup

Agnes Nicholls22:19

A French perfume.

Presenter22:20

All right, the biggest bottle in London.

Presenter22:23

And thank you very much, Lady Hearty, for letting us know your choice of Desert Island discs.

Agnes Nicholls22:27

Oh, thank you, mister Pramley, for my delightful

Agnes Nicholls22:30

afternoon of talking with you about all the things I loved in my youth.

Presenter22:36

Goodbye.

Agnes Nicholls22:36

And still do.

Presenter22:37

Good.

Agnes Nicholls22:38

Goodbye.

Speaker 122:47

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