Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Desert Island Discs
Presented by Roy Plomley
Australian composer and Master of the Queen's Music.
Eight records
Sir Adrian Boult / London Philharmonic Orchestra
For very special reasons, the Ninth Symphony of Vaughan Williams, I think perhaps the least known, is an incredibly youthful work, enormous virility and energy, and is a forward-looking work conducted by Sir Adrian Bolt, somewhat um Vaughan Williams's junior, but nonetheless the energy and the life force and the hope. ... Also Vaughan Williams was a formative influence. In Australia I used to have by my bed a record player and I used to wake up and before anything I'd put Vaughan Williams very frequently on the record player.
Yehudi Menuhin / Sir Adrian Boult
I would not, and this is not false modesty, like to be on my island exclusively with my own music. I can live on the memories of it. But in this particular case, um my own violin concerto was recorded by Yehudi Menoun with Sir Adrian Bolt, that formidable ... conductor. And I was in America, I wasn't at the recording sessions, and the scherze, which is in the middle of the work, is very, very fast. ... I got back to England to hear the test pressing of the record, and it was absolutely faster than light. And in my opinion, a faultless performance with enormous fire.
Messe de la Pentecôte (movement)
Olivier Messiaen (assumed performer)
Partly because I'd love to have the sound of a French organ, and partly because I'd like to have the music of this greatest master of our time in the organ repertoire with me, so I thought I'd choose a movement from the Mass for Pentecost. Also, because I'm a committed Christian, I would like a reminder of this intensely personal, spiritual, Catholic world, which is Messian's natural habitat.
Ernest Ansermet / Orchestre de la Suisse Romande
I simply have to have the sound of a chorus, as well as having sounds of solo voices. And I chose the Symphony of Psalms largely because it seems to have durability. Also Stravinsky is very much another god of mine. And the barbaric, noble quality that one finds in this period of Stravinsky's music is something that appeals to me very, very deeply.
Symphony No. 40 in G minor, K. 550 (slow movement)
Life would be incomplete without something of Mozart. And I chose Benjamin Bitten's recording of the G minor symphony. ... I can remember in my teens hearing this G minus symphony and experiencing an ordeal of terror through music. I felt very real fear through music. ... It it is one particular moment in the slow movement that we are going to hear, conducted with I think great profundity and and precision by Britain, this terrifying and totally anachronistic chord that comes when you least expect it and you feel Mozart has plunged right outside time, right outside space.
My Bed is a Boat (from 'From a Child's Garden')
From a Child's Garden with words by Robert Louis Stevenson. And this song is called My Bed is a Boat, and it is a marvellous piece of optimism in the face of oncoming death and a belief in immortality.
Symphony No. 2 in D major, Op. 73 — Scherzo (third movement)
Sir Adrian Boult / London Philharmonic Orchestra
I always remember Sir Neville Cardus saying that if he had one composer for his desert island, it would be Brahms. And I suspect sometimes, when nobody's listening, that perhaps Brahms is the greatest, as well as the most complete of all composers. And I would not be able to live without Brahms. The difficulty over this choice was which Brahms work to choose. It was simply in my mind essential that I think our greatest Brahms conductor, Adrian Bolton, should be the conductor. So I chose the beautifully supple, delicate, marvellously calculated performance that Sir Adrian has given of the Schazzo from the Second Symphony.
The keepsakes
The book
The Lyric Dramas of Strindberg
August Strindberg
I would take the lyric dramas of Strindberg for several reasons. One is I have a great love for um Sweden, and I've read um him in the original. And moreover, the um I think one of the great spiritual documents is the great trilogy to Damascus, the three pilgrimage plays, which are a microcosm, if you like, of all the grief, all the wonder of the world, and ultimately of the hope of the celestial city.
The luxury
It's a curious luxury, but it would be a puppet theatre if you would let me have a puppet theatre. Yes, indeed. It's it's a whole world. And the theatre's very dear to me, and To be able to create my own plays, I think I'd sooner be a playwright than a composer.
In conversation
Presenter asks
How well could you endure prolonged loneliness, do you think?
[Composing is] a perfectly lonely path. Nobody can go it with you. So I have inside myself the habit of loneliness.
Presenter asks
Do you come from a musical family?
A very good amateur musical family, I should say, and um having grown up in a vicarage, one finds music, both inside and outside church, very much around one. I always fell asleep hearing either my mother accompanying my father, or my father accompanying my mother, singing. And the tradition I was brought up on on such things as stainless crucifixion, Victorian music. And I have not yet, I'm afraid, reacted against Victorian music.
Presenter asks
How early did you feel an urge to compose?
Well in the Australian countryside, in a perfectly frightful place, I mean unbelievably hot part of the countryside, there was little to do there, few enough children. I was the first child and the only child. The piano was there. What else was there to do? And I played and I composed, I can remember from the age of three.
The recording
Timestamps play the recording from that turn
Speaker 1
Hello, I'm Kirstie 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 seventy six, and the presenter was Roy Plumley.
Speaker 4
Uh
Presenter
On our desert island this week is the Australian composer and master of the Queen's music, Malcolm Williamson.
Presenter
How well could you endure prolonged loneliness, do you think?
Malcolm Williamson
I would welcome it, I believe. Composing is essentially a very, very lonely path. Nobody can go it with you. So I have inside myself the habit of loneliness. Is there any one thing that you long to leave behind? Taxation Wally, certainly. Yes, VAT. I'd like to leave those things behind.
Malcolm Williamson
What was your plan in choosing your eight records? Partly associations in the past and partly things which would give me optimism for the future.
Malcolm Williamson
Where do we start? What's your first Good one.
Malcolm Williamson
First one is from Benjamin Britton's Des Illuminations, Des Pars, the final movement. I chose that partly because Peter Peirce is certainly my favourite tenor, one of my very favourite singers. And I chose a recording with my teacher from Australia, Sir Eugene Gusson's, conducting.
Malcolm Williamson
It also is one of the works of Britain that I find most near and dear and sympathetic.
Speaker 4
Awesome.
Speaker 4
President
Presenter
Despart from Britain's Les Illuminations, sung by Peter Pearce.
Malcolm Williamson
What's your second record?
Malcolm Williamson
For very special reasons, the Ninth Symphony of Vaughan Williams, I think perhaps the least known, is an incredibly youthful work, enormous virility and energy, and is a forward-looking work conducted by Sir Adrian Bolt, somewhat um Vaughan Williams's junior, but nonetheless the energy and the life force and the hope.
Malcolm Williamson
that I find in both the work and in the performance. Also Vaughan Williams was a formative influence. In Australia I used to have by my bed a record player and I used to wake up and before anything I'd put Vaughan Williams very frequently on the record player.
Presenter
An extract from Vaughan Williams's Ninth Symphony, Sir Adrian Bolt, conducting the London Philharmonic Orchestra.
Presenter
Do you come from a musical family?
Malcolm Williamson
A very good amateur musical family, I should say, and um having grown up in a vicarage, one finds music, both inside and outside church, very much around one. I always fell asleep hearing either my mother accompanying my father, or my father accompanying my mother, singing.
Malcolm Williamson
And the tradition I was brought up on on such things as stainless crucifixion, Victorian music. And I have not yet, I'm afraid, reacted against Victorian music. I still love some of the more tasteless manifestations of the 19th century, both in literature and in music.
Malcolm Williamson
Very early you you played the organ in your father's church? Well there was little alternative. It also helped. I think I got fifteen shillings a year or something of the sort. And hymns ancient and modern got into the blood. Perhaps they're still there. How early did you feel an urge to compose? Well in the Australian countryside, in a perfectly frightful place, I mean unbelievably hot part of the countryside, there was little to do there, few enough children. I was the first child and the only child. The piano was there. What else was there to do? And I played and I composed, I can remember from the age of three.
Malcolm Williamson
You studied at the Sydney Conservatorium, didn't you? Yeah, with Sir Eugene Gusens in composition. But I was his only composition student, and you couldn't at that time in Sydney become a composer principally. Consequently, I was obliged to learn the piano, and at the age of 15, I had, I don't know, a dozen piano concertos under my belt, for example. You came to England very early, when you were in your teens. I was brought when I was 17, then briefly back to Australia, then I came to live. But I, of course, owe England everything.
Malcolm Williamson
When I'm away for long enough, I miss it cruelly, even if it's midwinter.
Malcolm Williamson
When you came here to live, had you any contact? None. I didn't know anybody at all. I was terrified to dial a London telephone number. I was a very shy little boy. I had to scrape around to earn a living, and I had no idea how to do so. And I had a super job as an organist, choirmaster on the Isle of Dogs in Limehouse, which is a lovely part of London to live. right down on the docks where you can look at the Thames angling in various ways. You can look up and down the Thames. And it was a beautiful church and I played nightclubs during the week and played the church organ on Sunday. What was your first published work? It was a piano sonata.
Malcolm Williamson
which was um very favourably reviewed. I gave the first performance at Alborough, and um I thought I was made. I soon discovered that one swallow doesn't make a summer, and um I had to write other pieces.
Presenter
Let's break off for your third record. I know you're going to choose one of your own pieces. This seems a good place to put it up.
Malcolm Williamson
If I may be allowed to do so, um I would not, and this is not false modesty, like to be on my island exclusively with my own music. I can live on the memories of it. But in this particular case, um my own violin concerto was recorded by Yehudi Menoun with Sir Adrian Bolt, that formidable
Malcolm Williamson
Unbelievable conductor. And I was in America, I wasn't at the recording sessions, and the scherze, which is in the middle of the work, is very, very fast. And I wondered if Sir Adrian or Yehudi, because it's a very, very difficult piece, might take it under tempo. I got back to England to hear the test pressing of the record, and it was absolutely faster than light. And in my opinion, a faultless performance with enormous fire. And you wonder, quite apart from the spectacular playing of Yehudi, who the young guy is who's conducting.
Presenter
The schedzer from your violin concerto, Jehudio Mandwin and Sir Adrian Bolt.
Presenter
You talked about the influence of Vaughan Williams. Which other gods influenced your work as a young comp
Malcolm Williamson
But
Malcolm Williamson
Stravinsky very much. Latterly, Messian, he was very poorly treated in this country. The organ works were largely ignored. And I'd like to have, partly because I'd love to have the sound of a French organ, and partly because I'd like to have the music of this greatest master of our time in the organ repertoire with me, so I thought I'd choose a movement from the Mass for Pentecost. Also, because I'm a committed Christian, I would like a reminder of this intensely personal, spiritual, Catholic world, which is Messian's natural habitat.
Presenter
Nothing I'm playing
Presenter
part of his own Mass for Pentecost.
Presenter
You have a very wide range of
Presenter
composition, have you not? Church music, keyboard music, symphonies, stage musicals, opera, you name it, and and and you've written it in in a number of styles.
Malcolm Williamson
I would have said a number of different densities, if I may, because I um well, write styles if you like. Since composition is so difficult, you cannot falsify your personality and what you are you must be.
Malcolm Williamson
And it is perfectly pointless writing a piece like Stockhausen if you're commissioned by Canterbury Cathedral, for example, to write a requiem.
Malcolm Williamson
Yeah.
Presenter
In your early years as a composer, you appeared as soloist in your own first piano concerto, also in your organ concerto. How important?
Presenter
Yes.
Malcolm Williamson
It's something that I don't care to do, principally because I have heard so many other people play my works better than I do myself. Also, I can't relax. Also, I feel that I'm on trial both as a composer and as a performer. You don't conduct very much? I won't conduct. I had a choir in Australia when I was in my teens, and there was no platform. The audience and the choir were on the same level. And I thought to effect a pianissimo, I was doing this quite automatically, I was walking backwards while cautioning the choir to sing more and more softly, and I trod on the instep of a lady sitting in the front row. So I thought that was the termination of my career as a conductor. Also, when I have had to lift the baton, I'm invariably behind the beat.
Malcolm Williamson
Yes, I see.
Presenter
What do you mean?
Presenter
You began before you wrote operas, you wrote musicals, No Bird for Bacon, for example. Was that to you part of the same
Malcolm Williamson
Was that
Presenter
The same thing.
Malcolm Williamson
Yeah.
Malcolm Williamson
It I felt that it was a way towards learning the craft of writing for the theatre. I now no longer believe it to be so. I think you have to plunge straight in and write opera. Your first opera?
Presenter
Opera, A Man in Havana, was a a singularly successful one. And it was a good old-fashioned opera with duets and arias and
Malcolm Williamson
Choruses? Oh, certainly that. Verde was very much the model. But when you get into the world of opera and you get into the world of music, drama, and you see this fascinating, wonderful physical, intellectual, spiritual cooperation of voice, body, movement, the wonderful smell of grease paint, you want your children to love it, and opera can be very, very difficult. And so I began to write operas, weeny little operas, for my own children, so that they would learn to love them. What are you working on now?
Malcolm Williamson
I've just finished a song cycle for Schosten Meyer, the wonderful Swedish mezzo-soprano, with string orchestra on Henri de Montarmand's poems called Les Onpique, the Olympics. And I'm writing for Marisa Robles, the harpist, a harp concerto, called At the Tomb of the Unknown Jewish Martyr. And then I have the honour to have been allowed by Her Majesty to dedicate to her two works for the Silver Jubilee.
Malcolm Williamson
Well spaced across nineteen seventy seven. Splendid.
Malcolm Williamson
Which brings us to record number five.
Malcolm Williamson
which is Stravinsky.
Malcolm Williamson
I simply have to have the sound of a chorus, as well as having sounds of solo voices. And I chose the Symphony of Psalms largely because it seems to have durability. Also Stravinsky is very much another god of mine. And the barbaric, noble quality that one finds in this period of Stravinsky's music is something that appeals to me very, very deeply.
Presenter
An excerpt from Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms, En Serme with the Swiss Romand Orchestra.
Presenter
You said earlier on that you never stop working. You are a singularly hard working composer. Your your output is is very impressive. Do you work regular hours? Have you that sort of dis
Malcolm Williamson
Yes, but I don't find it difficult. I mean, I want to work and I love working. Um my favorite time of day is the ten minutes when the birds start before the dawn comes, which is beautiful. And then with grapefruit and coffee
Malcolm Williamson
Off I go until I um feel exhausted.
Malcolm Williamson
middle of the afternoon I sleep for an hour or so, which breaks the day into two. Then you get another fresh start and so you get through a lot of work.
Malcolm Williamson
Come on.
Presenter
Last year you were honored by being appointed Master of the Queen's Music.
Presenter
How far does that office date back?
Presenter
What's the history?
Malcolm Williamson
1626 and the 19th Master and the youngest this century and the first Australian. After the appointment was announced, the correspondence was absolutely enormous. The obligations, which Her Majesty does not impose, are absolutely formidable, and these are things that Sir Arthur Bliss, my predecessor, carried out with fantastic conscientiousness. And it's very, very hard to follow, Arthur. One thing I would like to do is to see that patronage is extended more, not by Her Majesty personally, but generally officially, to British jazz, which I believe is splendid and is growing in richness and diversity.
Speaker 1
Second.
Malcolm Williamson
And has suffered in the past, I think, somewhat from lack of credibility on the part of serious music lovers. We've come up now to record number six.
Malcolm Williamson
Life would be incomplete without something of Mozart. And I chose Benjamin Bitten's recording of the G minor symphony.
Malcolm Williamson
largely because I can remember in my teens hearing this G minus symphony and experiencing an ordeal of terror through music. I felt very real fear through music.
Malcolm Williamson
It it is one particular moment in the slow movement that we are going to hear, conducted with I think great profundity and and precision by Britain, this terrifying and
Malcolm Williamson
totally anachronistic chord that comes when you least expect it and you feel Mozart has plunged right outside time, right outside space.
Presenter
Part of the slow movement of Mozart's Fortieth Symphony conducted by Benjamin Britton.
Presenter
Now, have you had any experience of camping out?
Presenter
No.
Malcolm Williamson
Oh.
Presenter
Yeah.
Malcolm Williamson
I I hate being out of doors. Is it agoraphobia, it's called? Yes. To compose, to work, to think, I need to um have walls round me. I'm perfectly certain on my island I shall um sleep in the sand. I shall cover myself with sand. Can you cook?
Malcolm Williamson
Magnificently, yes. Would you
Presenter
Try to escape. This this presents problems if you if you don't want to
Malcolm Williamson
Oh no, no, no, no, no. With these records I'd be only too happy to stay there and and and and make the best of it.
Presenter
Lip.
Malcolm Williamson
Good. of that subject back to music.
Malcolm Williamson
Well, the um next choice is from a song cycle called From a Child's Garden with words by Robert Louis Stevenson. And this song is called My Bed is a Boat, and it is a marvellous piece of optimism in the face of oncoming death and a belief in immortality.
Speaker 4
And some times things for bed I take.
Speaker 4
I scrub and saint as a hofton.
Speaker 4
Farps are slice of away the cave.
Speaker 4
On Maita Cross La Cheer
Presenter
April Cantelo and your setting of Robert Louis Stevenson's My Bed is a Boat.
Presenter
Yeah.
Malcolm Williamson
Which brings us now to your last record.
Malcolm Williamson
I always remember Sir Neville Cardus saying that if he had one composer for his desert island, it would be Brahms. And I suspect sometimes, when nobody's listening, that perhaps Brahms is the greatest, as well as the most complete of all composers. And I would not be able to live without Brahms. The difficulty over this choice was which Brahms work to choose. It was simply in my mind essential that I think our greatest Brahms conductor, Adrian Bolton, should be the conductor. So I chose the beautifully supple, delicate, marvellously calculated performance that Sir Adrian has given of the Schazzo from the Second Symphony.
Presenter
Part of the third movement of the Brahm Second Symphony, Sir Adrian Bolt and the London Philharmonic Orchestra. If you could take just one disc out of your eight, which would it be?
Malcolm Williamson
Yeah.
Malcolm Williamson
It would have to be the Mozart symphony.
Malcolm Williamson
Um, that goes right against what I said about Brahms, but it would be the Mozart Fortieth Symphony. And your one luxury?
Malcolm Williamson
It's a curious luxury, but it would be a puppet theatre if you would let me have a puppet theatre. Yes, indeed. It's it's a whole world.
Malcolm Williamson
And the theatre's very dear to me, and
Malcolm Williamson
To be able to create my own plays, I think I'd sooner be a playwright than a composer.
Presenter
and one book apart from the Bible, Shakespeare, and big encyclopedias.
Malcolm Williamson
Um I would take the lyric dramas of Strindberg for several reasons. One is I have a great love for um Sweden, and I've read um him in the original. And moreover, the um I think one of the great spiritual documents is the great trilogy to Damascus, the three
Malcolm Williamson
pilgrimage plays, which are a microcosm, if you like, of all the grief, all the wonder of the world, and ultimately of the hope of the celestial city.
Malcolm Williamson
So if you would allow me to take um that collected volume.
Presenter
Big dramas of Strindberg. Yes. And thank you, Malcolm Williamson, for letting us hear your desert island discs. Thank you.
Presenter
Goodbye, everyone.
Speaker 1
You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Islandists Archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk/slash radio four.
Presenter asks
When you came here to live, had you any contact [in London]?
None. I didn't know anybody at all. I was terrified to dial a London telephone number. I was a very shy little boy. I had to scrape around to earn a living, and I had no idea how to do so. And I had a super job as an organist, choirmaster on the Isle of Dogs in Limehouse, which is a lovely part of London to live. right down on the docks where you can look at the Thames angling in various ways. You can look up and down the Thames. And it was a beautiful church and I played nightclubs during the week and played the church organ on Sunday.
Presenter asks
You began before you wrote operas, you wrote musicals, No Bird for Bacon, for example. Was that to you part of the same thing?
It I felt that it was a way towards learning the craft of writing for the theatre. I now no longer believe it to be so. I think you have to plunge straight in and write opera. ... Verdi was very much the model. ... When you get into the world of opera and you get into the world of music, drama, and you see this fascinating, wonderful physical, intellectual, spiritual cooperation of voice, body, movement, the wonderful smell of grease paint, you want your children to love it, and opera can be very, very difficult. And so I began to write operas, weeny little operas, for my own children, so that they would learn to love them.
Presenter asks
Last year you were honoured by being appointed Master of the Queen's Music. How far does that office date back? What's the history?
1626 and the 19th Master and the youngest this century and the first Australian. After the appointment was announced, the correspondence was absolutely enormous. The obligations, which Her Majesty does not impose, are absolutely formidable, and these are things that Sir Arthur Bliss, my predecessor, carried out with fantastic conscientiousness. And it's very, very hard to follow, Arthur. One thing I would like to do is to see that patronage is extended more, not by Her Majesty personally, but generally officially, to British jazz, which I believe is splendid and is growing in richness and diversity.
“Composing is essentially a very, very lonely path. Nobody can go it with you. So I have inside myself the habit of loneliness.”
“Well in the Australian countryside, in a perfectly frightful place, I mean unbelievably hot part of the countryside, there was little to do there, few enough children. I was the first child and the only child. The piano was there. What else was there to do? And I played and I composed, I can remember from the age of three.”
“I won't conduct. I had a choir in Australia when I was in my teens, and there was no platform. The audience and the choir were on the same level. And I thought to effect a pianissimo, I was doing this quite automatically, I was walking backwards while cautioning the choir to sing more and more softly, and I trod on the instep of a lady sitting in the front row. So I thought that was the termination of my career as a conductor.”
“I want to work and I love working. Um my favorite time of day is the ten minutes when the birds start before the dawn comes, which is beautiful. And then with grapefruit and coffee off I go until I um feel exhausted.”
“I can remember in my teens hearing this G minus symphony and experiencing an ordeal of terror through music. I felt very real fear through music. ... It is one particular moment in the slow movement ... this terrifying and totally anachronistic chord that comes when you least expect it and you feel Mozart has plunged right outside time, right outside space.”