Liberace

Speaker 40:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive.

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For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in 1960.

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This is a recording as it was being broadcast, rather than the studio recording. For that reason you may hear some interference, and some degradation in the sound quality.

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This is the BBC Hem Series.

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Desert Island Desert

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Each week we ask a well-known person the question, if you were to be cast away alone on a desert island, which eight gramophone records would you choose to have with you?

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As usual, the castaway is introduced by Roy Plumling.

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How do you do, ladies and gentlemen?

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Our castaway this week is an international star, the pianist and entertainer Lib Barace.

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Well, mister Liberace, if you were indeed cast away on a desert island, could you endure complete loneliness? Are you reasonably self-sufficient, or are you lost without people around you?

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Well, I've often thought that if I could uh have my music

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I would never really be lonely. Yes, you haven't got all that much music, only eight records. Can you think of any one thing which it would be a a consolation to know that you've left behind?

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Well, I think um this might come as a surprise, but all the fancy clothes and all that sort of thing, because basically I h I hate to dress.

Liberace1:44

Mm-hmm.

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Is there any one thing you would be particularly scared of on a desert island? Have you any any phobia, any unreasoning fear of anything?

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Well, I I think I'm mostly uh afraid of bugs. Uh mo much more so than wild animals. I hate spiders and

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and flies and mosquitoes and

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And I think one reason I do hate them so much is because I do a lot of outdoor

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Uh, concerts. Mm. What was your plan of campaign in choosing your eight records? Is it for personal nostalgia or the emotional value of the music or what?

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Well, I would say it was probably a combination of both. What's the first one you've chosen?

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Well, the first is the um eighteenth variation.

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from the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini,

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Played by Rachmananoff.

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I've chosen it because

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I heard Rachmaninov.

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uh perform this

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in the Hollywood Bowls some years ago.

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And uh it's a number that I've played many times.

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And uh I associate it with uh

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Some of the best piano music that has ever been written.

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The eighteenth variation from Rachmanindoff's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, played by the composer.

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What's your second choice?

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My second choice is a part of the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto, played by Heifert.

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I like it because it reminds me of all the violin playing that surrounded me as a child. My brother George is

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I was studying violin at the time and later taught violin. This was one of the numbers he played and in all fairness to my brother he didn't play it as well as Hypetz. But nevertheless I loved the music. Yes. Which part of the world would you like to hear?

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Well, it's part of the first movement.

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the development of a theme that seems to soar into new heights of emotion.

Liberace5:28

Yeah.

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Part of the first movement of Tchaikovsky's violin concerto in D, played by Jascha Heifitz.

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Mr. Liberati, what part of the United States are you from?

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I'm from uh Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I was born there and lived there for twenty one years. Of what stock do your parents come from? Which country? My uh father was born in Naples. My mother was American born in a small town in Upper Wisconsin. of Polish, uh German extraction. Yes. Now, you talked about hearing your brother George practising the violin. Apart from that, did you hear a lot of music as a child? Well, I was born into a very musical family. My mother played the piano.

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And uh my father was a professional French horn player and then my brother played the violin, and my sister played the piano.

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So when I came along and took an interest in music, it didn't startle anyone. How early in life did you decide that music was going to be your career?

Liberace6:20

If I were

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Well, actually, I can't remember a time when I didn't play the piano. Yes. Was music your first job when you left school? It was my first job even while I was going to school. My early recollection of working for any sort of a fee was in grade school when I used to play for silent motion pictures. They were old motion pictures when we got them in school, but I used to supply the soundtrack, so to speak.

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When you started working professionally, where was it?

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My first professional engagement was uh for the Fanchin and Marco Vaudeville uh Traveling Theatre.

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And I appeared sort of as a child prodigy. I

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did an act which consisted of piano playing, dancing, and singing.

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And it was what you might say a typical vaudeville engagement. You toured? Or was this engineering? I toured with the unit throughout the Middle Western state.

Liberace7:17

I tour

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Yeah, including my own. And after that? And after that I settled down to more serious music. I made my professional debut when I was sixteen.

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uh with the uh Chicago Symphony Orchestra as soloists.

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And I played then the list A major concerto, and it seemed that from then on that I was going to follow a strictly classical path in music. But our daily income was such that it forced me into the commercial aspect of show business, which I'm happy to say has turned out very well for me. Very well indeed.

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Well, let's break off there and have your third record. What's that, Mr. Labaroch? Well, the third record is certainly one that reminds me of my childhood because it is sort of a fairy tale set to music.

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As a child I think Shaherazadi uh

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opened up a whole new world for me. I remember hearing it at a concert.

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In which my father was one of the members of the Symphony Orchestra.

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The opening of the fourth movement of Rimsky Korsikovscheherazad, played by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Sir Thomas Beecham.

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Well picking up on your career, Mr. LeBracci, or working in the commercial field, what did that mean? Cafes and nightclubs and that sort of thing? Uh supper clubs and theaters.

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And concerts in between, strangely enough. Whose idea was it to adopt these very individual trademarks, the glittering soups, the candelabra, and so forth? Well, actually, those trademarks didn't come about until much later. Each time I did a television appearance, it seemed my audience and my following grew, and with it, everything else became exaggerated. I had to sort of top myself at each one of my performances. And one way I could do that was in an exterior fashion, by dressing up more flamboyantly, and the white suit of tails replaced the black suit of tails, and then that soon was studded with brilliance, and finally with diamonds. I don't know where I'm going next.

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W was there any one event that seemed the the big break, the big opportunity that marked the beginning of the Liberace legend? Well, actually, the man on the street didn't know me until

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I went into television and my first big break was the summer replacement for eight weeks on a Dinah Shore show. And after that I made a nationwide tour and found myself playing to fourteen, fifteen, twenty thousand people a night.

Liberace10:48

Yeah.

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And uh this was really the turning point of my career.

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In the last few years, in the last ten years, you've become a very rich and successful man, Mr. Labracchi. Have you also become a happier man?

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Well, uh I am very happy with with my success, but I also look back at some former times when I enjoyed uh simple pleasures that I can't seem to enjoy now. Yes, indeed. You pay the price.

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Let's have record number four.

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Well, record number four is reminiscent of uh

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some of my uh starting days in show business back in the late thirties and the early forties when the name band was the thing and certainly the biggest name band of the time was Glenn Miller.

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and I have always loved his music.

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It's so expressive of the era.

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that I lived and grew in.

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And I particularly like his treatment of hallelujah.

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Glenn Miller and his orchestra sang Hallelujah, a recording taken off the air in January 1940.

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Mr. Liberace, you you've run into a lot of wrath in in musical circles from your habit of in getting through works like Tchaikovsky's first piano concerto in four minutes. Do you think potting of the classics is is is justified?

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Well, I certainly do because I feel that uh half a loaf of bread is better than none. This is a practice that's uh employed by many artists and one of them is uh

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A dear friend of mine, uh Montavani.

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And here's my uh

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choice for my next recording. The uh theme from

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The Knickerbocker Holiday Show September Song.

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And uh I like this number for uh

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Several reasons. First, because it's very beautifully done by Mattevani. And secondly, I knew Walter Houston.

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Who once told me a beautiful story about the September song? He sang it in the original show. Yes, he did.

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He told me it was about an elderly gentleman who was

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uh seeking happiness in the winter of life.

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who falls in love with a very young lady just in the spring of life.

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And he describes his love as something rare like vintage wine.

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Mantovani in his orchestra playing

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September song.

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mister Labradi, is there any major ambition you have that's still unfulfilled?

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Well, the longer I stay in show business, the less I realize I've accomplished. Well, I've never done a

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a Broadway play or a Broadway show. I would like to do that. I'd like to make my name in films. I would like to uh fulfill the desire to become an actor.

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Uh it takes just as much imagination to portray an acting role as it does to portray a musical composition.

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Let's have record number six.

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Our record number six is uh

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Death and Transfiguration of Richard Strauss

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I associate this with uh

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Several things. First of all,

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Uh I associate it with uh something very holy, with a wonderful, wonderful painting.

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which is displayed in Forest Lawn Cemetery in uh

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Los Angeles

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It's a painting that was commissioned by Paderewski, who was my idol as a pianist.

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This painting of the crucifixion of Christ is 120 feet long.

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And it's a magnificent masterpiece during the narrator's description of this painting. The music that is interpolated is the Death and Transfiguration of Richard Strauss. I love the music because of its very descriptive power, and I associate it with that beautiful painting.

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Part of Richard Streuss's Death and Transfiguration, played by the Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra of New York, conducted by Bruno Walter.

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Now, mister Liberace, how would you be able to look after yourself on a desert island?

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Can you build things? Have you ever done any camping out? You go to your hands? Yes, I uh I think I would rather enjoy that aspect of it because I'm very creative at making things. Uh I've always had a talent for creating things out of

Liberace17:25

Uh

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Nothing. What are you going to eat? Ever done any fishing?

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Well, I love fish, so I I think I would uh be able to survive on that alone and whatever.

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uh bird life uh I could uh hunt.

Liberace17:48

Mm-hmm.

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and uh fruits and berries and

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Uh perhaps vegetables if they were growing on this island. Do you cultivate? Are you a gardener? Yes, I have a garden at home that I uh take care of personally.

Liberace18:02

A lady.

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I love to uh plant things and watch them grow. You're almost looking forward to this desert island, aren't you? Well, I think in many respects it would give me the solace that uh sometimes my career doesn't afford. Let's have another record that you're taking with you. Well, uh my next choice is from La Bo Aim, the first opera I ever saw.

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And uh

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This particular uh scene is Mimi's death scene.

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where, uh, interspersed between memories of the past, she uh has a few last happy moments and then finally succumbs in the arms of her

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Beloved, I always hear this music with a sort of tear within. I think if I had to select one particular scene, this would be the most touching and most moving scene of all.

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Part of Mimi's Death Scene from La Boem Fernata Tibaldi is Mimi.

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Now, mister Liberace, your last record.

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My last record is uh reminiscent of

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of the Broadway show

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uh, Lost in the Stars, which, uh

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I saw in New York with Todd Duncan

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Singing the song that is sung on this record by Frank Sinatra.

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I've chosen this record because

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I like the song, I like the memory of Todd Duncan.

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doing it in the original Broadway play and also because

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I like Sinatra. I think he's uh one of the finest exponents of popular singing.

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that uh our generation has to offer.

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I also like the song because it's written by Kurt Weill, who also wrote the September song.

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And we're lost out here in the stars.

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Little Star

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Right.

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Glowing through the night

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Frank Sinatra singing the title song from Lost in the Stars.

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We've heard your eight records, mister LeBracci. Now if you could only take one, narrowing it right down, which would it be?

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I think the uh

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The eighteenth variation of Rachmaninoff. Mm. And you're allowed one luxury to take with you, nothing of any practical use, but something that w w nice to have.

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Well, I'd like to have a piano. And one book apart from the Bible and Shakespeare.

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Well, there's one book that I think I've referred to in my lifetime more than uh

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any other in recent years since it's been written, I should say.

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It's called The Magic of Believing by Claude Bristol.

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It greatly influenced my uh career and my life.

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And it's a book that helps you to find happiness.

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And I think this is the kind of book that I could pick up many, many times. You shall have it. And thank you, Liberace, for letting us hear your choice of Desert Island Disc. It's been a pleasure. Goodbye, everyone.

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The guest in today's recorded programme was Liberace, the interviewer Roy Plumley and the producer Monica Chapman.

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