Norman Bailey

Speaker 20:00

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.

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Our castaway this week is the English-born baritone Norman Bailey. Norman, how would you meet the challenge of loneliness? With dread or excitement?

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I think to a certain extent with dread. I'm not a person who likes to be completely cut off on my own. I'm not a a great person for going into crowds, which seems strange because I appear

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in front of of several thousand people each time I sing.

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What would you be happiest to have got away from?

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There's one thing which uh which does disturb me.

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When I'm sitting in a restaurant and I'm all set to uh to eat a delicious trifle.

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and somebody starts to smoke next to me.

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I quite agree. Yes, you're away from all that. Yes, smoking doesn't worry me all that much, but that's the one occasion it does worry me.

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Did you have a plan in choosing your aid record?

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Um well, it's very, very difficult for me because of course my whole life is music. Being limited to eight records is virtually an impossibility. I think to a certain extent memories of the um

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the pieces that I've I've taken part in myself.

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Partly nostalgia.

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What's the first one you've chosen?

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The Yam Siegfried Idiol by Richard Wagner.

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Having spent so much of my life being associated with um Wagnerian music,

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I think it's particularly apt to take this with me on a desert island.

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Wagner's Siegfried Idl

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Otto Klemperer conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra.

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What's your next record?

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Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. This one is conducted by

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Carlo Mario Giulini. Yes, you must have sung in the Ninth Symphony many times. Oh, many, many times indeed, yes. In fact, I d I remember the one occasion

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when I performed it in Lisbon with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra,

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When the the whole audience after we returned and was the tremendous applause they started to sing the the choral section of the uh the symphony. That was splendid. And uh we had to give an encore.

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Are we going to get part of the coral section now?

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No, I would like to have

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the um the start of the final music, but not going into the actual choral part.

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Part of the last movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Carlo Maria Giolini.

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Norman, what part of the country do you come from?

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I was born in Birmingham, but uh I was only there as a a child.

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And I can't really remember all that much.

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I was uh educated in in London.

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In fact, it was East Barnett Grammar School at that time. You come from a musical family? I come from a musical family, yes. My father played the the trombone and and piano.

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And my mother um played the piano and sang. Did you study music as a boy?

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Well, yes, I I did the obligatory piano lesson, but uh it was always a battle between piano and and football, and uh football generally won.

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You went with your family to South Africa. How old were you then? I was fifteen at that time.

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You had always been interested in the theatre.

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Well, yes, I started off in school, both producing and acting. I think it must have been a terrible combination. And

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I think the best thing that can be said for it is it whetted my appetite for the stage. You you went to work as an accountant between the time you left school and the time you you went to university. That's right, yes, I intended becoming a chartered accountant.

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I

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didn't actually take articles. I um I think I decided that uh there's not really for me.

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And I worked in the auditing department of the Rhodesian Government for approximately a year.

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And um

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Then I I went to university to to study to enter the Presbyterian church. What caused the the change of heart and and and the swing over to music?

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Well, basically, when I took

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the singing lessons and my teacher suggested that I should take it up professionally. I think this reawakened the um the taste for the theatre that I'd had before.

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Again I I had uh certain doubts about exclusivity of religion.

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And um this combination really took me to music.

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And after you had graduated at Rhodes University, what was the next step? Well, all my teachers had been from Austria, and so it was a natural step that my continued education should be at uh the Vienna Academy for Music.

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Well at that point let's break off your third record. What's that to be?

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Well, I've I've chosen something which has a completely different uh mood. It's Moon River.

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Why? Well, I suppose I'm a romantic at heart.

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Henry Mancini's Moon River.

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So you went off to study in Vienna. You went to the State Academy, didn't you?

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That's right, yes, I was there for two years. How was your German?

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But I'd studied uh a little German at school in England. I went to a a German course before going to the academy. That was in Vienna.

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Um but I think it took approximately two years before I really began to to get fluent. What was your first professional engagement as a singer?

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My first professional engagement as a singer was uh in a church in South Africa where I sang the Lord's Prayer.

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in Afrikaans.

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Now at that time I had not done uh any singing.

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I knew very, very little of Lick Ants.

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and uh I knew the Mulatti version, and I turned up at the church

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and presented my music to the organist, who did it a double take and says, I don't play this. I can only play another version.

Norman Bailey9:01

I can't remember.

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The the result was it was a catastrophe with with the whole congregation looking at me. I think I got two guineas for that. Oh, well done. And in Vienna, what was your first professional engagement?

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My first professional engagement in Vienna was with the Vienna Kamma Opa, the small um

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opera group that uh existed there.

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And uh oh it was

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Uh Tobias Mill in Cambial di Matrimonio.

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By uh Chimorosa.

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I can't even remember what the opera was about now. How long did you stay in Vienna? Two years.

Norman Bailey9:36

Go.

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And then you went to the Linz company. That's right, yes, I I spent uh three years in Linz. I built up uh quite a considerable repertoire.

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moved on to Buppertal in in Germany. In in Germany i it's standard that all operas are given in German. Well, that used to be, yes. And at uh the time I was singing in uh in the German speaking house that was more so. Nowadays you get quite a a bit of uh Italian.

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Sung, but I did all my Italian roles, for example, in German at that time. All the Verde roles and that sort of thing. That's right, yes. Mm-hmm.

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You went on from Lindz you said you went on to to Buppetau. Yes, just in the Ruhr. That's right, yes, on the the edge of the Ruhr. The whole point of uh going to these these houses was to to go to smaller houses.

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And build up my repertoire. Small houses, big rolls, rather than a big house singing small rolls.

Norman Bailey10:30

Small house

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What do you look back on as um the first opportunity you had, the first big opportunity? I've really had a systematic build up of of my career. So each particular event was uh

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Just one step up the ladder, but I suppose in 1967 when I sang at La Scala Milan for the first time, that was my real international break. It was a modern opera.

Norman Bailey10:53

Modeled my real name.

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by Um Dallopicolin, which was the story of Job.

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Let's have record number four. What's that?

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That is Debussy's Claire Delune.

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The busy is Claire de Lune.

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The Swiss Romand Orchestra conducted by Anseme.

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Now, you had worked on the continent for ten years and built up a considerable reputation, but you still hadn't sung a note in your own country. That's right. Yes, I'd been away approximately twenty years. Including South Africa. That's right.

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And then you came here to Saddler's Wells. Now, was that an invitation from Saddler's Wells or did you decide it was time to come home and you took steps about it? By that time I had um three children and wanted to have them educated in uh in Great Britain. Um I had this invitation to to sing at Sadler's Wells and I thought, well this was the ideal opportunity of uh

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Presenting myself to the British audiences and

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to have my children educated in this country. Did they want you for certain roles or ought to or to join the company? Well, yes, first of all there was a a suggestion of my singing Matis in Matis de Mala.

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Um but uh later on it the the the main role that I was required for was uh Hansach's in Die Meistersinger von Neonberg. This was a new production they were doing. In fact it was interesting because in nineteen sixty six I did my first um Wotan and on the strength of that I'd I was asked to to do Hans Sachs and by way of experiment I said you know well I would uh would do Hansach. Yes. And then i in a year or two later you sang Hansache i in in Bayreuth.

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A rather daunting shrine for for an English singer to

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Yes, it uh it was. I think looking back in in retrospect, I was the first British singer ever to to sing the role. In fact, I think I was almost the first non-German singer to to do the role. I found that uh I was the the second youngest Hansach ever.

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And I really didn't have any um building up in uh in Bayreuth. You know, if I'd gone there and I'd done smaller rows and built up to d to Hansach's.

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I'd have possibly felt uh more equal to the the task. You were in fact in Bayreuth for for three seasons. That's right, yes, I did three roles there, Hansachs, Amfortas and Gunther.

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You've been recording most of your Wagnerian roles. Well, yes, recorded the um complete role of Votan in the English national opera recording conducted by um Reginald Goodall. And um I've recently um recorded The Flying Dutchman conducted by um Sir Georg Scholte and uh just released been the Meisterfestinger von Nienberg in which I did uh Hansach and uh with uh

Norman Bailey14:50

In which I did

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So Georg conducting. Mm. About what? Eighty percent of your work nowadays, Norman, i i is Wagner. Did you find this constricting?

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Well, I must say that it's at times it's uh it's a little tiring because um you get home so late after the performances.

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Because the operas are so long, the rehearsals are so long as well. But uh recently I over the the last four or five years I've returned again to to singing quite a number of the um

Norman Bailey15:15

Yeah.

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The Verdi uh baritone roles. Of course the sing verdi in Italian is a novelty for you, isn't it? You wa uh all the sung him either in German or in English. Well, yes, I must admit that most of my um Italian roles I have done in non uh Italian languages.

Norman Bailey15:36

Language

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I think I've I've sung six or seven roles in Italian, the most recent one being uh Macbeth with the uh the Scottish Opera at the Edinburgh Festival this um last summer.

Norman Bailey15:47

Yeah.

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Now what are your engagements for the rest of this season? You're off to the Met. That's right. Yes, I uh I do Hans Sachs Die Meistersinger von Nuremberg. I then do um Macbeth.

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and uh Hans Sachs with the Scottish National Opera and um then back to the Met for Botan. Let's have your next record. The next record is is Frank Sinatra singing My Way. I've always been a very very great admirer of uh of Frank Sinatra and feel that you know in his era he was a very very great artist.

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I've blowed, I've laughed and cried.

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I've had my fill.

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My share of losing.

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And now, as tears subside, I find it all so amusing.

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Thing

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Frank Sinatra. Let's go straight into your next list.

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I said I was romantic, so here we have another one, Rachmaninoff's second piano concerto, played by uh Vladimir Ashkenazi.

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The opening of Brachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2, Ashkenazi with the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra.

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All those years in Africa should have given you some idea on how to fend for yourself in the tropics. I don't think I'd have much difficulty in coping, provided.

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that I could survive the first four or five days without poisoning myself with some evil roots or or leaves or fruits.

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Would you try to escape?

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Yes, I think I would. I w I'd limit myself, however, I think to the the s the standard um bonfire.

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or uh waving a shirt for a passing aircraft.

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I don't think I would be foolhardy enough to uh build a boat and try to sail out into into unknown uh waters.

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You gave up your religious studies at university. Do you still have a religious faith that would help you in such an ordeal as

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Trying to escape. I've been a Baha'i.

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For approximately twenty years. Yes. Was you came across the Baha'i Faith in South Africa?

Norman Bailey19:02

You

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That's right, yes. Uh my pianist, my companist was a a Baha'i.

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The concept of progressive revelation, that each of the the great messengers of the past, the religious messengers, um brings a message for mankind at a certain time.

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And because society changes, then the challenge made amen.

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is uh

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is different, and the answers are given in according to his needs.

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Uh there are certain spiritual laws, of course, um such as the relationship of man to his his fellow man, which are eternal. But the the social laws, they change according to the the circumstances.

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Let's have record number seven.

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Well, record number seven deals exactly with this uh principle of progressive revelation, and it's Hears and Crofts singing and playing Year of Sunday.

Norman Bailey20:07

And then time passed.

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Soon the dark clouds.

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Came and covered up Mohammed's son.

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But the young Bob

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Down in Persia Land.

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Came to tell us of the promised one.

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Seals and crofts. And now your last record.

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The one concession that I'm I'm making to my own singing

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is um the recording which I just made with uh Sergei Ok Sholty.

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Die Meistersinge von Leonberg. It's the close of the opera, Hansach's monologue.

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For Artemi Demaister.

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Said he's thy test for life.

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Mechan my estate, thine fierce bald mares I fall cursed.

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Until the days of the world,

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Past toy

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Mm

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Your recording of the Hans Sacht monologue with Sir George Schulte and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. If you could take only one disc of your eight, which would you hang on to? I think possibly the Die Meistersinger von Neuenberg. Not to hear myself singing.

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But so much of my um my life has been associated with this particular opera.

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And one luxury to take with you. I would like to take a a pocket calculator with me. Yes, what do you put a calculator?

Norman Bailey22:14

What do you mean?

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Well, I love mathematics. They always say that music and mathematics, the parts of the brain, are closely linked. Indeed. And uh, you know, I'm quite likely to sit there and and calculate how many grains of sand there are on the beach. Right. And one book apart from the Bible and Shakespeare and big encyclopedias.

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Well, I'd like to take uh a book which is a compilation of uh the writings of

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Uh Baha'u'llah.

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and Abdul Baha, who are two central figures in the Baha'i Revelation, and that in fact is the name of the book, The Baha'i Revelation. The Baha'i Revelation.

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And thank you, Norman Bailey, for letting us hear your Desert Island Discs. Thank you very much indeed. Goodbye, everyone.

Speaker 223:05

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