A L Rowse

Speaker 10:00

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 seventy seven, and the presenter was Roy Plumley.

Presenter0:32

Well this week our castaway is the historian, biographer, poet and essayist doctor A. L. Rouse. Now doctor Rouse, you've been choosing music for your desert island. You taught yourself to play the piano, I believe.

Presenter0:47

I don't know how you discovered that, but it is true. I only wish to goodness I had been taught properly, you know,'cause it really gave me awful difficulty and in the end I rather disillusionedly gave it up for gardening.

Presenter0:59

You don't play records very much. I used to play them uh quite a bit, but I'm afraid gardening has rarely pushed them out. Well, we brought with us to your home in Cornwall the records that you've asked to hear, and you've selected your age, so let's start right away with the first one.

Presenter1:16

Well, since I'm cast away on a desert island, I should need cheering up, shouldn't I? And I can't imagine anything more blithe and joyous and cheerful than Bach's Brandenburg concertos. What about number five, which is positively blithe?

Presenter2:29

The opening of Bach's fifth Brandenburg Concerto, the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra conducted by Karl Münchinger.

Presenter2:36

You were born just a a mile or two from this lovely Regency house overlooking the sea. You knew this house as a child.

Presenter2:44

Yes, I knew it as a schoolboy, rather. I used to come down to it, and in those days it was never wholly occupied. I used to sit on the hedge that's the Cornish word for a great big granite wall, by the way, and wonder why on earth I wasn't really living in it. Well, I have been living in it now for the last quarter of a century.

Presenter3:04

You're the son of a china clay worker who earned, I believe, about a pound a week. There was obviously a deprivation, but how do you look back on your childhood? Was it a happy childhood?

Presenter3:14

I think it was rather a lonely childhood.

Presenter3:18

My people were awfully hard-working. My father, about 1922, I think, got the magnificent wages of two pounds two shillings a week. But he had set on a little shop which helped out, and I used to help in that. So that in fact we were brought up rather better off than the ordinary village people. You began working terribly hard. You began winning scholarships. Did you bother with games and other school activities? I wasn't any good at games, but I loved being at school. I think that must have been a great help, because I found it so much more interesting than being at home. You were a choir boy? Yes, that was the second string, so to say. And I really owed a great deal to the church, because that really gave me my introduction to music. And I really think that it helped me all through life in enunciating fairly clearly.

Speaker 24:14

Yeah, eh?

Presenter4:14

Helped me in lecturing later on, but I adored going to church too, the ritual of the church, you know.

Presenter4:22

And next came a scholarship to Oxford. Now, in that day, this was a very difficult and extraordinary thing to achieve. There was, I believe, only one place for the whole county. Well, that was true. Going to Oxford was a bit of a strain, as you can imagine. On the other hand, rather curiously, even then, quite young as I was, I realized at once that this was my own true nature, and this was where I really ought to be. What's your second record?

Presenter4:53

I think we really must provide on our island, you know, for the inner life of the spirit. And you never could provide for that better than by Byrd, the greatest of all the Elizabethan composers. His five-part Mass is one of the greatest works in English music, and I should like to choose the Agnus Dei from that. And which recording would you like to hear?

Presenter5:18

Don't you think it would be rather nice uh if we had my old college uh of Christchurch and had um the uh singing conducted by its present uh organist, who happens to be a Cambridge man, Simon Preston?

Speaker 25:37

The story

Presenter6:31

The Agnus Dei from William Bird's Mass for Five Voices, The Choir of Christ Church, Oxford, directed by Simon Preston.

Presenter6:40

So, Doctor Rice.

Presenter6:42

A freshman, a very nervous new arrival in Christchurch College, you were to read English, were you not? I had a scholarship in English literature, but the Dons made me do history. I've never really regretted that, because history was really rather a better school at Oxford. On the other hand, it means that my interests have always been both literary and historical. How did you envisage your future at that time, as a writer, as an academic, as a teacher?

Presenter7:11

Oh, I think quite definitely I thought of myself always, really, as a writer. You were already writing verse at that time. Yes, I really had started publishing verse when I was a boy at school, you know, in anthologies called public school verse, though my small Cornish grammar school was not at all a public school. The strain of the work you were putting in meant that you had.

Presenter7:34

Ill health to contend with.

Presenter7:36

Yes, I think that that was partly the result of all the anxiety. You see, there wasn't anybody to help or to advise one. And I must tell you, I was most awfully anxious and worried when I was young. I've continued to be rather a worrier all through life, you know. One gets set in these ways rather early. Despite the handicap, you took a first and then you sat for a fellowship at All Souls. Yes. And very successfully. Let's have your third record. What's that?

Presenter8:03

Well, I think you may be surprised by this, because the background at Oxford was almost entirely masculine.

Presenter8:12

But in point of fact, I really do prefer women's voices, especially, I think, sopranos.

Presenter8:20

Now, of all women's voices, there's the most wonderful, nostalgic voice of a Scottish singer, Maggie Tate, who had all her training in France, and nobody has really sung De Bussy and Du Parc as she has done. You know, she was chosen by De Bussy to be the original Maillisande in Pelias in Maissende. It's one of my favourite operas. But I should like to hear her singing this wonderful song to those no less wonderful words of the greatest of modern French poets, Baudelaire, L'Invitation au voyage.

Speaker 29:06

Just say all this free for Ashman.

Speaker 29:22

Birthday forever.

Presenter9:49

Dupac's L'Anvitation au voyage sung by Dame Maggie Tate. Now, you were a fellow of all souls at

Presenter9:56

Only twenty one, I believe.

Presenter9:59

Yes, I was elected um before I reached uh well to generate my twenty-first birthday. How long were you in residence?

Presenter10:07

Oh, I think I've been there for near nearly fifty years. They very kindly renewed my fellowship when I was over age, you know, reached the retiring age. To stay on at one's university so long, isn't it rather like staying in the womb? You're you're sheltered from the the stormy blast to a considerable extent.

Presenter10:25

Well, I think you're right about that. I think I owed an enormous amount to all souls, you know. I hope you'll think, on the other hand, as I really frequently did think myself, that I rather justified this position by working very hard and rarely producing the goods as far as I was able. Yes, indeed. A very impressive list of works, some sixty or more. And I think I'd like to talk about some of them now. Three volumes of autobiography.

Presenter10:54

Yes, those don't count, you know, as all souls research. No, hardly. Th they were written down here in Cornwall. But, nevertheless, a a a Cornish childhood has already become a classic. Do you still keep a diary?

Speaker 110:58

Uh

Speaker 210:58

They were they were

Presenter11:06

Uh I still do, when there's anything very interesting to write to know.

Presenter11:10

And your verse, we've mentioned, half a dozen volumes, a lot of local history, Cornish history. Yes, I think I was lucky about that. I didn't really think about it at all deliberately, but I was so interested in everything about Cornwall that my very first All Souls research works were really works about Cornish history in the Tudor period. And from then I really went on and branched out into England and the English Elizabethan age as a whole, followed by a good deal of study of its greatest writer, Shakespeare.

Presenter11:43

Let's have some more music, what now?

Presenter11:46

Well, you were kind enough to mention that I used to try and play the piano, though I was self taught and nothing like good enough. But um I could play some of the slow movements.

Presenter11:57

of Beethoven, and also some of the easier ones, you know, in the preludes and fugues of Bach. But I've never had the chance of hearing enough

Presenter12:08

Uh the particular uh late sonata of Beethoven, the one in um E, oppos 109, they nearly always play the much more dramatic ones, 110 and 111, and I should like to hear very much um a hundred and nine, it would really uh give me happiness on my island.

Presenter13:30

The opening of Beethoven's

Presenter13:32

Sonata

Presenter13:34

Opus 109 in E, played by Schnabel.

Presenter13:37

Now, your biographies, you mentioned Sir Richard Grenville. There's been Raleigh, Swift, Matthew Arnold, Marlowe, half a dozen volumes on Shakespeare. You've done a vast amount of research in contemporary documents, and you claim to have discovered the identity of the Dark Lady of the Sonnets and unwrapped one of the mysteries of the last 400 years. Well, it's not very surprising, after all, since I've spent the whole of my life researching into the Elizabethan age, but nothing was really known about her until I really got down to the manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, the very place where, if anything was to be found about her, she would be. And this woman turned out to be the discarded mistress of the Lord Chamberlain himself, the patron of Shakespeare's company. The quantity of unsorted documentation available to the historian must be enormous. There is an enormous amount, and especially in the records of the legal courts. You see, there must be scores of thousands of unpublished documents from all the Elizabethan courts, so that you really can't exclude the possibility of finding out more, you see. I mean, these subjects are by no means absolutely closed.

Presenter14:53

Record number five.

Presenter14:55

Well, I think we uh certainly must have a dance on my island. Uh I can't claim to be an expert on dance music, but I adore the dance music, the ballet music of Tchaikovsky, I think. Uh Johann Strauss I like very much too, but somehow Tchaikovsky's dances specially appealed to me for their combination of rhythm with extreme charm.

Presenter16:18

The polynes from Tchaikovsky's Organi Onegin.

Presenter16:22

Leonard Bernstein conducting the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. What is your best time for working, doctor Russ? For writing?

Presenter16:29

Well, I think I have two times in the day. I think in the morning, though I like to be pepped up by coffee in the middle of the morning. And I adore the tea hour and writing from, say, about 4.30 to 7 or 7.30. What is your work in progress?

Presenter16:48

Well, you won't be surprised if I tell you that it has a certain Cornish interest. Most people don't realise, you know, that the poet Byron was descended from the Cornish Trevannians who are just next door to me here. And once more, curiosity and inquisitiveness, I'm engaged in tracking all this down in the Trevannions, who are fascinating Cornish family. Wish I belonged to them, I must say.

Speaker 117:14

Wish I

Presenter17:17

Let's get back to music. Now, record number six.

Presenter17:20

Well, we must, since I've got to provide for various moods, haven't I, on this desert island, I think we must provide for the mood of melancholy and nostalgia. And I have a particular feeling for Elgar. I love him. You know, once I saw in Worcester Cathedral on the prayer board there a message of thanksgiving to Elgar for the help that his spirit had been to some poor woman or other in trouble. And I feel a bit like that about Elgar, and especially about this wonderful work, the cello concerto.

Presenter18:42

Casals as soloist in the opening of the Elgar Cello Concerto How well could you endure isolation on this island?

Speaker 118:47

How

Presenter18:51

Well, I should have to cheat a bit, you know, because I'm awfully dependent on books.

Presenter18:56

But I am fairly uh self-sufficient. How would you manage in a practical sense? I know you're a good gardener. You could cultivate. Are you a fisherman?

Presenter19:06

No, and I'm absolutely as a result of all that college life in Oxford, I'm hopeless as a cook. Would you try to escape?

Presenter19:13

I don't think so. I think because I'm so self sufficient, and indeed a little bit of a solitary, I think I should rather qualify for your island rather better than most, you know. I think I could promise you not to go completely dotty.

Presenter19:27

Right. Number seven. What's that?

Presenter19:31

Well, I should very much like to hear the voice of my old friend, uh TS Eliot, the poet, reading something from the most famous of his poems, uh, The Waste Land. You know, Eliot was awfully kind to me in my young years. He was the person who first published my poems, and actually wrote the blurbs of the first two or three volumes. I think he quite liked my poetry.

Presenter19:57

Yeah.

A L Rowse19:57

Lebus definition A fortnight dead.

A L Rowse20:01

forgot the cry of gulls and the deep sea swell and the profit and loss.

A L Rowse20:08

A current under sea picked his bones in whispers.

A L Rowse20:12

As he rose and fell he passed the stages of his age and youth.

A L Rowse20:17

Entering the Whirlpool.

A L Rowse20:20

Gentile or Jew, O you who turn the wheel and look to windward,

A L Rowse20:27

Consider Phlebus, who was once handsome and tall as you.

A L Rowse20:33

T. S. Eliot

Presenter20:34

Yeah.

Presenter20:34

reading Death by Water from his own poem, The Wasteland.

Presenter20:39

And now we come to your last record. What's that?

Presenter20:43

Well, do you think it would be appropriate for uh someone who has been mainly a historian to take the most historic figure in our time, in this country? Um and um I found it the greatest privilege of my life to have known him for a little in his last years that is Winston Churchill.

Presenter21:02

I rarely met him over my writing the family history of the Churchills but I should like to hear that marvellous voice again at the greatest crisis in our history in nineteen forty.

Speaker 121:14

For rights reasons, we are unable to bring you this choice.

Presenter21:19

SIR WINSTON Churchill.

Presenter21:20

If you could choose.

Presenter21:22

Just one disc and instead of the H you've been given, which would it be?

Presenter21:27

It would have to be the Bird five part mass.

Presenter21:30

And you're allowed to take one luxury object of no practical use. I opt for one of the greatest pictures in the modern world, Seurat's picture in the Chicago Art Institute of Sunday afternoon on the island of La Grande Jacques. It specially speaks to me as it used to speak to Tom Elliott. Every time he was in Chicago, he used to go and stand there for twenty minutes or so looking at it, and so also do I.

Presenter22:03

Somehow we'll get it to you on your island. And you're allowed to take one book.

Presenter22:08

Apart from the obvious choices of the Bible, the works of Shakespeare, and big encyclopedias.

Presenter22:15

Well, I feel it may be cheating, because I'm going to opt for the greatest of all modern novels, which is in a dozen or fourteen volumes, Proust's'A la Recherche du Tent Perdieu. Which is one work, so that's quite permissible. It has the whole world in it. It has humour, it has poetry, it has botany, it has uh criticism, both social and literary. I think that it would stand me in very good stead.

Presenter22:42

Prousts a la recherche du Temp Perdue.

Presenter22:45

Time remembered. And thank you, doctor A. L. Rouse, for letting us hear your Desert Island Discs. Well, thank you very much for taking the trouble to come all the way down here. It's been a very enjoyable visit.

Presenter22:58

And thank you very much. Goodbye, everyone.

Speaker 123:10

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