Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Desert Island Discs
Presented by Roy Plomley
Singer, conductor, impresario, producer of opera and oratorio, and the first centenarian castaway.
Eight records
Ah! je ris de me voir si belle (Jewel Song)
Well, because of its beautiful soul.
The keepsakes
The book
The luxury
In conversation
Presenter asks
What job did you do when you first left school?
I finished my school years in Scotland … I began work by driving a crane. Six shillings a week for driving a crib. Yes, and I'd trapped a week pocket of money and now I was as rich as Croesus.
Presenter asks
Well, what took you from the railways into the world of music?
I was told by my doctor that I have to sing … I went to start the same profession in nineteen hundred.
Presenter asks
The recording
Timestamps play the recording from that turn
Speaker 1
BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts. Hi, I'm Lauren Laverne. Welcome to this archive edition of Desert Island Discs. The programme was broadcast in May 1974. The castaway was the musician and impresario T.C. Fairburn, who was born in 1874 and was, as you'll hear, the first centenarian to be cast away. The presenter was Roy Plumley. What you're about to hear was recorded off-air, so it isn't of broadcast quality. You can find the complete list of tracks chosen on his Castaways page on the Desert Island Discs website. The music has been shortened for rights reasons. We hope you enjoy listening.
Speaker 2
Does it happen?
Speaker 2
As usual, the castaway is introduced by Roy Plundy.
Presenter
Uh
Presenter
Passed away as a musician.
Presenter
A singer, conductor, impresario, producer of opera and oratorio, and the first censorio to take part in this series, T. C. Fairfax.
Presenter
Mr. Fairban, you were 100 in March this year.
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That is quite true.
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Congratulations.
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Whereabouts would you like your island to be?
Presenter
What part of the world? You'll travel about quite a lot.
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Some blow levers for all.
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Anywhere where it warm, yes.
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Surban is a Scots name, of course, were you born in Scotland?
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No.
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My father was, yeah.
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Where do you come from?
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I was born.
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And you?
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Poland.
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Yeah
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Oh
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Where did you get your love of mempty from? Which side of the family?
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My mother.
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He was.
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Very fine.
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Singer, yes, she was also.
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They
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Volga is
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And
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Choirmaster.
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You used to sing in the church choir, of course, I did one time.
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And she taught you to sing and play the piano?
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What
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She taught me how to sing.
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If you can't teach a child.
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I signed duets with her when I was three years of age. Three years of age? Yes. What were the duets? Do you remember one of them? Yes, it was wrong.
Presenter
Oh
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Sounds like
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Prodigal son, here.
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Well now you've got eight records to choose.
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What's the best one?
Presenter
Madam Butterfly.
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Yeah, and the hour is one fine day, sung by Madam Stiles Allen.
Presenter
Madam Style Ballon singing One Fine Day. What's your second record of the terra?
Presenter
A Durham song from
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Gundos Housed here.
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Who says that?
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Million.
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Descent here.
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Why do you choose this song? What does that evoke from your voice?
Presenter
Well, because of its beautiful soul.
Presenter
First of all.
T C Fairbairn
Oh, thanks for.
T C Fairbairn
Oh, I didn't believe it.
T C Fairbairn
No one saved it, he would be the morning.
Presenter
Mary on the set singing the jewel song from Guno's Faust. Now Mr Fairbank, you didn't start out in life as a professional musician. What job did you do when you first left Scudo?
Presenter
I finished my school years in Scotland and there.
Speaker 1
Indeed.
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House of My
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Uncle John, you
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He wanted me to go to her.
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university when I finished my uh elementary schooling here. But
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My mother.
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Wanted me at home I knew.
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And I went home instead, and I began work by driving a crane.
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Five a week. Six shillings a week for driving a crib. Yes, and I'd trapped a week pocket of money and now I was as rich as Croesus.
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And how long did you drive that credit?
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I drove it until my voice broke.
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Then I went into the running sheds of locomotives.
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And I became the cleaner.
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Verifiable?
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And then
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A driver.
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Well, what took you from the railways into the world of music?
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I was
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Told by the my doctor that I have to sing.
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Because they said a T V.
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And I
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Drunk a lot of coffee for oil.
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And such things.
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But one day
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An arm.
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Combined.
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Came wanted to go to a spiritualist painting and
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I thought.
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I'll see what there is in this.
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I know it went.
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In the back row on the right.
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And
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The service was quite good, I thought.
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Good organists, good singers for the hymns, Monkey and Allah, but those are
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A medium there.
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Yeah.
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She said, You're in, aren't you?
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I said, Well, they say there's something here. Yes, you said it is here.
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He said, All right.
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Come to me.
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I shall have.
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Some recipes for you, which you must faithfully keep.
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Walk on the sands here.
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And you would be cured.
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And that was true.
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For here I am, yeah.
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I went to start the same profession.
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In nineteen hundred.
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However
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Sing is in the church choir as a bass.
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And the tenor with whom we sang.
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At the sonics and different concerts.
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Roundabout crumbs.
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Together.
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He said to me one day.
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I want you to go to Hull with me.
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Yeah.
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I said, what for?
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He said.
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I'm British House.
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A meeting with Moody Manners, the Modi Manas Oprah, the Moody Manners Oprah Company.
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I said, What do you want with them? He said, I want to join them.
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Good gracious, I said.
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I said, then why do you want me to?
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He said because I'm nervous.
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Oh, I said you want me to hold up your elbow, is that the idea?
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Yes, it should.
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We want to hold.
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He went to the Theatre Royal.
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Near Parrygood Station.
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And that there was man standing near the piano.
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Hello.
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Run to the side.
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So it was long to be seen.
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And he went to manners.
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I'm sorry.
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With the result that Manners said Yes?
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We've got a good tenor voice.
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But he said.
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I'm coming back to Hull in twelve months' time.
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I shall give you a list.
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Of twelve operas.
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And he was flirt the first tenor line.
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At the core.
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And uh if you can sing.
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For my conductor?
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I'll take you.
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No.
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Is that agreeable?
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Mount Ren said yes.
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A move coming away.
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When the Scot came out of me.
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That was the
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I went back.
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I said this to Manny.
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I'm in the same choir.
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Has my friend there?
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Will you tell me?
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He found a voice.
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It's worth cultivating.
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Because I'm uh a pupil of the same masters.
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He said he had something to my opinion, suddenly.
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What is your voice?
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I said that I'm singing based in the church choir.
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Sure, said that.
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Let's be here.
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We took the others.
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Several scales.
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And at several speed.
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That is certainly.
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No not a base.
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I should have on my notes.
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No, he said, you have a beautiful voice.
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But it too.
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A dramatic tenu.
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Oh, I said, I can't think about a tea.
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We should
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Young man.
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Doesn't it occur to you that you don't know how?
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I'll tell you.
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Come into my company.
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And as soon as you can.
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Because I like your voice.
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So straight away, straight away, you began as a service.
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Small part, yeah.
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What a part of Melot!
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In
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Tristan is solder.
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Thy song, my Lord.
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Six weeks after I joined an opera composite chorister.
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Well having got you started, let's break here for another record. What would you like as you've had number three?
Presenter
Siegfried.
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From Bargus.
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Ring, what for you song, and who would you like to sing it?
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Another key on.
T C Fairbairn
I fell to fruit, I mild the flow, and rolled at reason, red and petty, on love to power.
T C Fairbairn
Hi.
Presenter
Mercury is singing the quoting song from Wagner's Siegfried.
Presenter
Now you toured with the Moody Manners Company for some years.
Presenter
in the provinces and sometimes a London season. After some time you walked over to the production side as stage manager and then producing the operas yourself. Yes.
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How long did you stay with that company?
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Until
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Nineteen hundred and nine.
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Yes, nine years altogether, yes, tutorial.
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I was then engaged.
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To produce the ring.
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In Edinburgh.
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Is it the pair?
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English Ring.
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Performances
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In Scotland.
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I believe you are concerned with the first production in this country of
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Richard Strauss is there wasn't Cavalier too, yes.
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That's what we're saying.
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With beach shots.
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In Kong Gaum.
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I was the producer.
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But the chairman were
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And there was the Russian ballet and the Russian opera, and Shalopen was there.
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Another was such a proceeding.
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And I don't think there'll be ever another like it.
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You ran your own company for a while to the Fairbairn Opera Company. Yes.
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I went to the people.
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Who organized?
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Music for the truth.
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And one I knew.
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Fashionably.
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I said look.
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Why not give
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These soldiers who are giving their lives.
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Diffnum performed with the best.
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I said some opera.
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I said, All right, you go ahead.
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And I told it.
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In the outlying camps first.
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All round Britain, you know.
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They're really
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The dice opera complex.
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But
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Let's have your fourth record now, Mr. Telburg. What's that going to be?
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My thoughts are called
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Must be Marbo M?
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Your tiny hand is frozen sound.
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Bye.
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Really?
T C Fairbairn
And when all
T C Fairbairn
It ought to be burned there.
T C Fairbairn
Goodbye,
Presenter
Tenyamino Geele singing Your Tiny Hand Is Frozen from Love Away.
Presenter
After the war, did you keep the opera company going? Yes.
Presenter
And you were the producer and presenter of those Mammoth Productions of Hiawatha at the Albert Hall every year, weren't you? Hiawatha.
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Elijah and the Passionplay.
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I first had the uh
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Royal Coral?
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To sign.
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And uh
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There were eight.
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Hundred and fifty strong.
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And I had a valley of two hundred.
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In addition.
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Under followers.
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That's a gigantic and my conductor was Albert Coch.
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My first conductor. And then uh some album salted lady. Yes, Albert Coates went to Cincinnati.
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To batter himself, of course.
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And Vincent have it.
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And uh
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I have to find another conductor.
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Someone told me about the young man in an opera company.
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And I went to hear this boy, this young man.
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Conducting Pagliacci.
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And it was quite good.
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Let's get on to another record now. What should we choose next?
Presenter
The Browse song from.
Presenter
Demeisch the singer of Wagner, sung by Walter Widow.
T C Fairbairn
My God, the wife.
T C Fairbairn
Neither wonderful meeting.
T C Fairbairn
My blissful living will live the God of World My Lord.
T C Fairbairn
And life, O glory of life, are wounds underwear.
Presenter
The prize song from Wagner's The Meister Singer, sung by Walter Widump.
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For the last 25 or 30 years, I know you've been very busy on a big literary project. Will you tell me about that? Yes.
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Flat place.
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The condition and behaviour of the world.
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General breaking of this.
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Ten command.
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It occurred to me that I must.
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Hell too.
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Put things right.
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And
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I began.
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To dramatize the Bible.
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In the same
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Passion as I dramatize.
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Hi Walker.
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The larger and passionately durable.
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Fourteen.
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Different section.
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To be played on fourteen occasions, fourteen evenings, fourteen evenings.
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Oh.
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Three hours each.
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Yeah.
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Flash.
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A condensed version of the result.
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Hold
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Thank you.
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His rubber marks.
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When did you finish this work?
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The yellow manager.
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But so far they haven't been produced.
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No.
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Well, that's something that we have
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Will take place. And it you will never see, that's f.
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Don't have your sixth record season developed.
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Law on the green.
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Rival Chorus.
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An excerpt from Wagner's Lohengrim recorded at Bayreuth.
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The nineteen thirty-six production was conducted by Hanschnez Ischerstein.
Presenter
Well, we've talked rather a lot, so let's go straight into your next record number.
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I would like
Presenter
Vichilashti Ayida.
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From Aida?
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Some buy.
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Do Civil?
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Domain.
T C Fairbairn
Want more.
Presenter
Celeste Aida sung by Tacido Domingo.
T C Fairbairn
Here we go.
Presenter
And what's your last record to be?
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Another variety.
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Aedus triumphal march and the confected Pascal meeting.
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The triumphal march from Verdi's Aida conducted by Poscanini.
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There was a thousand, if you could take just one record out of your eight, which one would it be?
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I think the mice to see it. Yes, the prize. And choose one luxury that you'd like to have whether you want the desert island.
Presenter
What are these things?
Presenter
A tape recorder. Yes. Would you? Yes. So that you can put down your boards? That's right. All right. A tape recorder, plenty of batteries or a solar battery and plenty of tape. And one book to take with you. You already have the Bible and Shakespeare.
Presenter
Oh
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A complete works of music.
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Right.
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And thank you T C Fairbear for letting us hear your Desert Island Day.
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Thank you.
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Right from it.
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For Listen to Troy.
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Goodbye, Guma.
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Yeah.
Speaker 2
The guest of this evening's programme was T C Fairbair.
Speaker 2
The interviewer was Roy Plumley and the producer Monald Cook. Next Saturday at two minutes past seven, the Castaway will be a star actor of the great days of Hollywood.
Speaker 2
James
How long did you stay with that company [the Moody Manners Company]?
Until nineteen hundred and nine. Yes, nine years altogether, yes, tutorial.
Presenter asks
For the last 25 or 30 years, you've been very busy on a big literary project. Will you tell me about that?
The condition and behaviour of the world … I began to dramatize the Bible in the same passion as I dramatize Hiawatha … fourteen different sections to be played on fourteen evenings, three hours each.
“I signed duets with her when I was three years of age.”
“I drove it until my voice broke.”
“I went to start the same profession in nineteen hundred.”
“I began to dramatize the Bible in the same passion as I dramatize Hiawatha.”