Charles Mackerras

Speaker 20:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Disc's archive. For rights' reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen fifty nine.

Presenter0:23

Desert island discs.

Presenter0:32

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?

Presenter0:44

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

Presenter0:48

How do you do, ladies and gentlemen?

Presenter0:50

On our Desert Island this week is a very well known young conductor whom you've heard on the air many, many times. Here is Charles McKellis.

Presenter0:57

Charles, I know you've done a great deal of travelling. Have you ever visited a desert island? Well, I've never actually been on one, but I've seen quite a few of them from a distance, because in Australia there are quite a few of that kind of island round the the coast of Australia. Also on my voyage from Australia to England, I did see several of those kinds of islands.

Presenter1:20

particularly Henderson Island, which was near Pitcairn Island, which I actually visited Pitcairn Island.

Presenter1:26

Henderson Island is an entirely uninhabited island, and I think really it's got so many lovely fruits and all that kind of thing on it that I think I would plump for Henderson Island if I had to choose which kind of desert island I would stay on. You're also choosing one very handy for a shipping route, aren't you? Yes, indeed.

Presenter1:43

Do you play the grammar phone a great deal?

Presenter1:45

Yes, I do. Uh very often. Of course that comes from my uh origins in Australia, where one had to have a large gramophone collection uh in order to know what was going on in the in the musical world outside.

Presenter1:57

What sort of tests did you apply in selecting these eight desert island discs? Well, if I were to uh

Presenter2:04

Choose only for musical reasons.

Presenter2:06

Uh I couldn't possibly just choose eight.

Presenter2:09

Because there are so many of my favourite composers of all different kinds. I'm very Catholic in my musical tastes. So I've had to apply not only the test of whether I like the music particularly or not, but also if it has some personal touch to it. What's the first one you test? Well, a typical example of the personal touch as well as the musical touch. Some of the marriage of Figaro by Mozart. That of course has a lot of personal importance for me because I conducted The Marriage of Figaro quite often at Saddler's Wells. I used to play it on the oboe before I became a conductor. And Sadler's Wells, of course, has a great

Presenter2:48

Um

Presenter2:49

Nostalgia for me because it was really they who gave me my first chance to be a conductor and I like operatic conducting. In addition to that, Mozart of course is my most favourite composer and this sextet which I've chosen from the Marriage of Figaro seems to have everything of Mozart's genius in it altogether. It's got beautiful melodies, it's got the comic opera patter of it and the counterpoint and the superb orchestration. In fact, everything that Mozart has in this one little piece.

Speaker 43:29

Father Enio, Adela Stezo, still further space and our ships are far more shallow.

Charles Mackerras3:46

Exopaneo Singh

Presenter4:09

The opening of the sextet from the Gleinborn production of The Marriage of Figura. What's your second choice, Charles?

Presenter4:15

My second choice is also from an opera, by Verdi this time.

Presenter4:19

Uh naturally to an operatic conductor, Verdi is most dear. In fact, I really think that if I had to to uh conduct only uh say two composers, operatic composers, it would be Mozart and Verdi. Um Verdi's music of course has got so many different uh styles to it that it's very difficult to choose. I think I would uh

Charles Mackerras4:35

Uh

Speaker 24:35

Yeah.

Presenter4:41

Go back to his earliest and most, shall we say, primitive style, and choose something from Nabucco, which is one of his earliest operas, that superb chorus, Va Pensiero.

Presenter4:53

Uh from Nabucco.

Presenter4:55

It's also, this record is conducted by Toscanini, who was Verdi's greatest interpreter, I think. And so it would be very nice to have this on a desert island to remember both Verdi and Toscanini's conducting.

Presenter6:09

Toscanini conducting the NBC Symphony Orchestra and the Westminster Choir in the chorus of the Hebrew Slaves from Nabuca.

Presenter6:17

Charles, were you born in Australia?

Presenter6:19

No, I was actually born in America, but I spent the whole of my childhood in Australia. What made you become a musician?

Presenter6:26

It's difficult to say. My family is musical and always they were interested in it. But there's never been a professional musician in the family before, but I've always really been only interested in music ever since I was a very small child. Where did you study? I studied first at the Sydney Conservatorium in Australia. I studied the oboe and also composition and a little bit of conducting. Was it your original ambition to conduct? First of all, I thought I'd be a composer and then I thought, well, it's far more i interesting to be a conductor. It's better to be a good conductor or arranger than to be a second rate composer. What was your first professional engagement?

Presenter7:03

My first professional engagement actually was playing in Gilbert and Sullivan in the Theatre Royal Sydney.

Presenter7:08

Playing on the oboe.

Presenter7:10

And after that?

Presenter7:11

Uh after that I got a job as um oboe player and arranger.

Presenter7:17

in a commercial radio orchestra. And uh there I got a great deal of experience of arranging all kinds of music from the ha most highbrow to the most lowbrow, I used to do jazz arrangements and all kinds of things, as well as playing the oboe in the orchestra.

Presenter7:31

And then? After that I um went into a symphony orchestra into the ABC's, the broadcasting symphony orchestra in Sydney. I was principal oboe there for some time and I also used to do a bit of conducting of that orchestra in broadcasts. What brought you to Britain?

Presenter7:47

Well, uh I think every musician must um come to Europe to study or to

Presenter7:55

um you know, feel the environment of the musical life of Europe. What did you do when you were right? Uh well uh at that time there was uh a vast amount of freelance work uh in the orchestral field, playing in orchestras, and I used to play the oboe in various orchestras as a freelance. And um

Presenter8:14

I've played in all the best orchestras in very minor capacities, but I eventually went into the Saddlers Wells Orchestra and there I became also a coach because I had always intended to try to become a conductor and the accepted way to become a conductor, to learn your job as a conductor, is to become a coach in an opera house so I could earn my living as an oboe player at the same time as learning my job as a conductor. In that way I learnt very many operas from the coaching point of view. I used to conduct offstage and that kind of thing.

Presenter8:50

And then I got a scholarship to go and study in Prague. Well now this of course was a great chance for me because in a way the musical life of the continent is even more fascinating than it is in England, especially for a young colonial, you know. So I had this scholarship to study conducting with Václav Talis, who was a very great Czech conductor. At that time it was shortly after the war and Germany and Italy and various other great musical countries had not been completely rehabilitated. So Czechoslovakia was really ahead in many

Presenter9:25

field. Um I also uh when I was at Sadler's Wells, before going to Czechoslovakia, I married the the principal clarinet of the orchestra and she came with me and we both studied music in Prague. And so my next record that I'd like to have on my desert island

Presenter9:41

is uh a clarinet concerto by Mozart.

Presenter9:45

which is not only one of Mozart's most superb compositions, but it would remind me of my wife as a a clarinet player, and also it's played by my wife's teacher, Vladimir Zhiha, clarinetist, and conducted by my teacher, Václav Tans.

Presenter11:06

Getting back to your career, Charles, you had that scholarship to go and study in Prague. Did you speak the language? Yes, I eventually learned to speak it. It's a very interesting language. It's rather difficult, of course. Which is what? Why I was going to suggest that perhaps you'll be kind enough to give us the credits on that record rather than me. Well, it's rather lucky that the name of the clarinet soloist has one of the most difficult sounds to pronounce, a particularly Czech sound, rziha, which is r with a little hook on the top of it.

Speaker 211:15

Yeah, and we've got what

Presenter11:33

The conductor, of course, of this Mozart concerto has no problems to his name, Václav Talis. Yes, and I'll read out the easy bit, which is the Mozart concerto for clarinet and A major.

Presenter11:44

How long were you in Prague? Just slightly under a year. Then you came back here? Then I came back to England and became an assistant conductor and coach at Sadler's Wells Theatre. And I conducted a vast number of operas there, first taking them over from other more senior conductors and eventually doing the first nights myself of the various new productions of operas.

Presenter12:04

You were there several years? Yes, I was there about six years. I did mainly opera, occasionally ballet. And after Saddler's Wells? After Saddler's Wells, I went to the BBC and became the conductor of the BBC Concert Orchestra, which was where we first met, of course. That's right, we did quite a lot of work together. On those Nights of Gladness programmes. which I enjoyed very much. I've always been interested in uh theatre music of all kinds and that applies to the Nights of Gladness kind of uh music as well as opera.

Presenter12:35

Volita Record No. 4.

Presenter12:37

Well, my next record is uh still an operatic record, this time uh from Norma by Bellini.

Presenter12:46

Uh I think on a desert island one wouldn't be able to uh have too much choice as to how many singers. It would be a pity to waste a record with just one singer. So I've chosen the duet Mira o'Norma sung by Maria Callis and Aba Stignani.

Charles Mackerras13:02

Si kiro lo espreme.

Presenter13:03

But

Presenter13:24

Oh boy, I'll see you.

Charles Mackerras13:27

Maybe you're falling, baby, see.

Presenter13:58

The voices of Ebestignani and Maria Callas in a duet from Bellini's Norma.

Presenter14:04

Well, Charles, I know you left the B B C Concert Orchestra in nineteen fifty six. What have you been doing since?

Presenter14:09

Well, I've been doing all kinds of things, conducting ballet and concerts and broadcasts and lots of recordings and operas and festivals and doing quite a lot of arranging as well.

Presenter14:20

It's taken me all over the place. I went to Canada twice and I've been to South Africa.

Presenter14:26

I toured all over the continent and of course I keep going to all different kinds of places in England itself. Now we've been talking a lot about your career as a conductor. What about your compositions and arrangements?

Presenter14:39

Well, I do compose a little, uh but it's chiefly as an arranger that uh I consider myself to be uh reasonably good. We know of course Pineapple Poll, your ballet to the music of Solomon.

Speaker 214:49

I heard it.

Presenter14:52

And Lady and the Fool to the music of Verdi? Yes. Well, it's that kind of arranging which I particularly enjoy doing. In other words, taking tunes from composers and turning them into a completely different kind of composition. I don't really like arranging music which has already been written for the orchestra. There are lots of people who like to arrange old music, for instance, because they think that the composers didn't know what they were doing, that if they'd have had the benefit of modern orchestration, that they would have of course orchestrated it this way. I don't hold with that at all. In fact, my next record that I would like to have on the Desert Island is one which I made myself, but by Handel and in his original orchestration, it's the Royal Fireworks music.

Charles Mackerras15:40

Uh

Presenter15:40

Which has rather an extraordinary orchestration. Very extraordinary. It has as many as 26 oboes in it and 14 bassoons, an extraordinarily large band of wind instruments. Where did you find 26 oboe players? Well, to begin with, we did this session very late at night so that no other orchestra could be playing at the same time.

Presenter16:00

But uh there are really far more than twenty six over players in London, you know. We think that there are about fifty. Well, let's hear twenty six of them, anyway.

Presenter17:09

The opening of your own recording of Handel's Music for the Royal Fireworks.

Presenter17:14

What's in the book, Charles? What are your future plans?

Presenter17:17

Well, I'm going to stay here in England for the next few months. I've got various uh concerts and broadcasts and a vast amount of recording which I have to do. And at the end of the year I'm going for an another tour. I'm going first to South Africa.

Presenter17:32

And then to Australia, where I have to tour the whole country, conducting various orchestras there. Taking a l a long term view, you you've come a long way in quite a few years. You're still in your early thirties. Have you any special ambitions for the future?

Presenter17:45

Well I should think would be to uh conduct in an opera house, either to be um a sort of high up conductor in one of the best opera houses

Presenter17:53

Or in fact why not have one's own opera house where one could do exactly what one liked, the operas that one likes. I especially like chamber operas so I'm not uh even wouldn't even cost all that much. While you're saving up, let's hear another record of the desert island. Yes.

Charles Mackerras18:04

What?

Presenter18:08

Thy next record is sung by Elizabeth Schwarzkopf.

Presenter18:12

Which I conducted for and which I did the arrangements for. It was a recording of Christmas songs.

Presenter18:19

And I think that one ought to have some popular light music away on the desert island so as not to depress oneself too much with serious music. And this particular song out of this record is from Himmel Hoch, which is not the big chorale which is so well known, but a little children's song about the music in heaven, which would also remind me very much of my children because they are particularly fond of this tune.

Charles Mackerras18:46

Well who when I come?

Charles Mackerras18:50

Oh yeah, oh yeah.

Presenter18:51

Yeah.

Charles Mackerras19:00

Come sing the clint, come forth the trout, Alleluia, Alleluia, For he sing with the valley of the Lord

Presenter19:00

Uh

Charles Mackerras19:21

Humble and can meet I am

Charles Mackerras19:30

Suzanne, Susan, Susan, Bring thou and hardening honey.

Presenter19:47

Von Himmelhoch, sung by Elizabeth Schwatzkopf.

Presenter19:51

Charles, how good a castaway do you think you'll be? Oh, utterly ghastly, I should think. It surprises me. Australians are usually rather resourceful people of that sort of thing. Yes, but although I lived a great part of my earlier life in Australia, I was always in the cities, and I only went into the country or to the seaside just as a tourist. I don't think I'd be in the least good. I used to do a lot of yachting and sailing and swimming when I was in Australia. And so perhaps if it was a small desert island, I wouldn't be too bad. I could possibly, just possibly build a boat to go around in. But I think that anything to do with the practical side of life would completely defeat me. I'm sure I should die within a very few weeks. You'd better build that boat. That's have record number seven.

Presenter20:36

Well, uh this is a very nostalgic record for a a desert island. This is part of the Song of the Earth by Mahler, The Last Movement.

Presenter20:43

The first one is the same.

Presenter20:44

which the text I'm sure would fit in very well with one's feelings uh on this frightful situation of being on a desert island alone.

Presenter20:51

And it's sung by Kathleen Ferrier and conducted by Bruno Walter with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.

Presenter21:57

Part of the Abshid from Mahler's The Song of the Earth. Now we come to your last one, Charles. What's that going to be? That's going to be the Sinfonietta by Lejos Janacek, who's a modern Czech composer. I've always been particularly fascinated by this composer's music.

Presenter22:12

And I think that I would have to take one of his compositions to A Desert Island with me. And this Sinfonietta is perhaps the most spectacular and the most interesting to listen to of all his works. It's got a vast number of trumpets in it and a tremendous orchestra. And its primitiveness and barbaric quality, I think, would go very well with a desert island.

Presenter23:37

The closing passage of Janacek Sinfonietta, played by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Rafael Kubalik.

Presenter23:44

There are your eight records, Charles. Now, of course, you're allowed one luxury on the island. What are you going to take? This, of course, is much more difficult than choosing eight records. But I think that a luxury of a very ephemeral nature would be the best thing, because after all, I wouldn't last very long on the desert island. So I think I shall take a large case of wine. Which is your favourite wine? I should think something from the Rhine or the Moselle districts. All right, and if you could take one book apart from the Bible or Shakespeare.

Presenter24:13

Well, I think I'd take a very long novel, but written in another language that is an English novel written in, let us say, Czech or German or even Italian, so that I could be working out the the words I didn't know as well as reading the book.

Charles Mackerras24:28

Mm-hmm.

Presenter24:29

All right. And thank you, Charles McEllis, for letting us hear your choice of Desert Island Disc. Thank you.

Presenter24:35

Goodbye, everyone. Goodbye.

Speaker 224:44

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk/slash radio four.