David Wall

Speaker 10:00

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

Speaker 10:05

For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in 1978 and the presenter was Roy Plumley.

David Wall0:31

On our desert island this week is one of Britain's outstanding dancers, David Wall.

David Wall0:37

Now, David, obviously you must know about music, because you have to count bars and memorise, and you hear several hours of music a day. Does it go further than that? Can you play an instrument?

Presenter0:47

I learnt to play at the recorder when I was a child, but um wasn't terribly successful at it. But my love for music really is as a relaxation. I enjoy l listening to music very much.

David Wall0:59

The pay record to life?

Presenter1:01

Yes, indeed I have a nice collection. In fact, everybody that sees my collection tells me that I'm terribly romantic.

David Wall1:09

Oh, well that we shall see. How did you set about choosing your music for the island? Are i is it nostalgic? Is it great performances?

Presenter1:17

Nostalgic basically. Everything that I've chosen either brings back the memory of a person or a situation or, you know, a time. Where do we start? We start with uh the songs of the Auvergne. What does that take you back to? Actually it takes me back to a Japanese tour, although it's set in the songs are set in France. I first heard the recording when I was in in Tokyo and um it was a nice tour and a tour I'd like to remember.

David Wall1:38

Yeah.

David Wall1:39

Setting France.

Speaker 41:52

Mostly

David Wall2:50

By Lero from the Songs of the Auvergne sung by Victoria Los Angles.

David Wall2:56

What part of the country do you come from, David? I'm a Londoner.

Presenter2:59

Yeah.

David Wall3:00

Any tradition True.

Presenter3:01

For the arts in your family? No, my father um was a technical engineer, my mother a housewife.

Presenter3:09

You began dancing when you were very young indeed.

Presenter3:13

How did it all start? It started at my primary school where in fact I had to do compulsory ballroom classes, the memories of which aren't terribly pleasant. Why? Well I can remember actually waltzing my partner into the grammar phone and cutting her eye open and having great difficulty in doing the foxtrot. But um the teacher who taught this class also taught ballet on a Saturday morning and um saw some talent there for something and asked my mother if she'd like to take me along to the ballet class.

David Wall3:32

Yeah.

David Wall3:52

And you acquiesced? You thought that was quite a good idea yourself?

Presenter3:56

I certainly didn't have any urge to to dance. It filled out a Saturday morning, probably which I'd have spent at the cinema had I not been doing it. It was the encouragement that my teacher gave me and that my parents gave me that kept me on the lines of ballet, rather than an inborn urge to dance.

Speaker 14:04

Good.

David Wall4:04

The

Presenter4:15

And then you'll progress to the

David Wall4:17

Royal Barely School. How old were you then?

Presenter4:19

I started at the Royal Ballet School when I was nine and a half as an associate member. An associate? Yes, that means that you do two classes a week, a Friday evening class and a Saturday morning class.

David Wall4:31

It's rolling.

David Wall4:32

Rather a grand title for a nine-and-a-half-year-old, an associate member.

Presenter4:36

Yes, I think actually they they've dropped the title since.

David Wall4:42

Uh

Presenter4:42

And then you went full time? Then I joined the um Royal Ballet Junior School at the age of uh eleven.

Presenter4:49

Yeah.

David Wall4:49

And they taught you to dance at the school.

Presenter4:51

Yeah.

David Wall4:52

Looking back, do you think they gave you a good general education as well?

Presenter4:56

Oh, definitely. We we studied to O level standard and then anybody that was bright enough went on for their A levels. But we had a full curriculum of um educational education. Did you have practice at the bar every morning? Yes, we used to do an hour and a quarter every morning. How old were you when you went into the company? I was seventeen. Having got your O level?

David Wall5:20

Having taken my O level. Oh, yes, there's a subtle distinction there. Never mind, we won't go into that. So at seventeen, you're a professional dancer. Let's break for your second record. What shall we have?

Presenter5:22

Yes, there's a subtle distinction, isn't it?

Presenter5:32

La Rondine sung by Layantine Price. Where does that take you to? In fact, David Blair, a very eminent dancer with the company, introduced me to the recording. And um it reminds me of those times of my early career. And you started that early career

David Wall5:57

In the touring company that you were talking about.

Presenter5:57

Yeah.

Speaker 46:17

Uh

Speaker 46:51

Please.

David Wall7:02

Leontine Price singing an aria from Puccini's La Rondine. So off round the country in the touring company, in the Cordebelle, eight performances a week, I suppose. Yes, indeed.

Presenter7:13

Did you enjoy it? Very much. I didn't have time not to enjoy it actually. We were working so hard. You were very young. I believe you had to be made a

David Wall7:22

Award of Corps In order to tour.

Presenter7:24

Yes. We did a tour to Paris and I was underage, so uh I had to be made a ward of court. When were you first singled out to give a solo?

Presenter7:34

We had a ballet called Napoli in the repertoire. It it's a good grounding for young soloists. Um it's quite difficult technically. That was the first um the first ballet I did a solo in. That must have been quite a big evening.

David Wall7:50

It was a very nerve wracking evening.

David Wall7:53

Now you were fascinated, I believe, by the theatre in general. It it said that you became an interpreter, an actor first before you really polished your technique. Is that right?

Presenter8:02

Well that basically was my director's influence on me. He took me to many plays when we were at Stratford or in London and instilled into me a great love for acting and tried to help me to make my performances more than just technical performances um and you know come alive.

David Wall8:29

So to speak.

Presenter8:30

Okay.

David Wall8:30

Right. From St. Louis the following year you were appointed principal.

David Wall8:36

I think there's another statistic, the youngest principal in the history of the company. Is that true? It is true.

Presenter8:42

But again, that was luck more than more than ability, I'm sure, at that early stage. And Margot Fontaine picked you out to be her partner? Yes, she did. We did a continental tour and the first ballet we danced together was Les Silfied in Oslo. Were you very nervous?

Presenter9:03

By the time the performance came I wasn't. I was nervous of the fact that I had been told that I was going to dance with her three weeks before the first rehearsal. So I was doubting and questioning my ability very much for three weeks. But as soon as I got into the rehearsal room, she put me totally at my ease and we s really started to enjoy working.

Speaker 19:13

So

Presenter9:26

And then at this

David Wall9:27

This first big peak in your career, you had to take a year off. What went wrong?

Presenter9:32

Yeah.

David Wall9:32

I to the

Presenter9:32

I developed um a s stress fracture. I don't know whether that's the correct medical term, a fatigue fracture in my shin and it unfortunately wasn't discovered until it became more serious than a small crack and the diagnosis was either to give up dancing, to continue dancing until it became a complete fracture, to have an operation, or to take a year off. So I plumbed for taking a year off. I think I'd have done the same. How did you fill your time? How did you fill that year?

David Wall10:07

Uh

Speaker 410:07

Hmm.

David Wall10:07

Uh

Presenter10:10

Well the first few weeks of course were terribly frustrating but um I've always been the sort of person that has had a lot of very dear close friends and these people helped me enormously. I went to Scotland where I learnt to shoot and to fish which is something I would never have had time to do in normal circumstances and a lot of the time I spent on the continent visiting the cities I'd already visited as a dancer but had been unable to sort of see them as a tourist. So altogether you didn't have a bad year. No, it wasn't as bad as it could have been. Another record please. Number three, um Jimi Hendrix. This was a record I first heard during that year and uh it just used to get me out of my blues when uh when I was feeling down.

Speaker 411:09

I'm standing next to Mountain

Speaker 411:13

I chop it down with a edge of my hand.

Speaker 411:27

Let's do my

David Wall11:36

The Jimi Hendrix Experience.

David Wall11:39

Now, you got married very early on, didn't you, David? And and that presents

David Wall11:44

Problems for dancers, surely. Now you married Alfreda Tharragood, a principal dancer in the company. Had you been at school with her?

Presenter11:51

Yeah.

David Wall11:51

The head

Presenter11:51

Yes, at White Lodge. At the age of ten I first met her actually. Mm-hmm. There was no love between us then.

David Wall12:00

Uh

David Wall12:01

And you have two children?

David Wall12:03

Well, now, with both of you doing bar practice in the morning, very often rehearsal in the afternoon, perhaps performances in the evening, and you're away a lot.

David Wall12:14

How do you manage?

Presenter12:15

Well, in fact, I think it's a much easier

Presenter12:19

existence than in fact had I been working in an office and Frida been a ballerina, or vice versa.

Presenter12:27

We're fortunate enough in living our lives together and our careers together, and she knows the problems that I have career-wise. She knows what those problems are.

Presenter12:38

And the same with me and her career and

Presenter12:41

we can talk about it and relate to it. And in fact, well for us it's certainly been a very good working pattern. How old are your children? Daniel, my son, is three years old and Anna Lise is six.

Presenter12:58

How often do you and Alfreda dance together? Since we joined the Turing company, we've done performances together quite regularly, usually outside of the company's curriculum.

Presenter13:10

Which roles do you like dancing together most? The roles that first come to mind are The Two Pigeons, which in fact we danced on the evening of our engagement. Did you? Um and Sir Frederick Ashton made a very nice speech in front of the audience saying that his two favourite pigeons had finally taken the plunge and were going to get married.

David Wall13:21

It

Presenter13:32

After that I think a ballet that sticks in my mind very much was a ballet that Frieda and I had created for us by Geoffrey Cawley called In the Beginning. But there have been numerous roles that we've danced together and I've enjoyed every one of them.

Presenter13:48

Yeah.

David Wall13:48

Record number four.

Presenter13:50

I'd like the fourth song from Mahler's Das Lied von der Erd.

David Wall13:54

Yeah.

David Wall13:54

There is a a a ballet of this. Has this got a balletic significance i in you choosing it?

Presenter14:01

Indeed, it's one of my very favourite ballets, but also the Mahler work itself is very deep and meaningful.

Speaker 414:46

Welcome to Passie.

Speaker 414:58

John's mission together

Speaker 114:59

Yeah.

Speaker 415:01

Oh yeah.

David Wall15:10

Kathleen Ferrier singing Von der Schoenheit from Mahler's The Song of the Earth.

David Wall15:16

Now getting back to your career, after you had that year off, you didn't go back to the Turing Company, you went to the the Senior Company at the Royal Opera House.

David Wall15:24

I think you've danced all the major classical roles, is that right? Are there any missing?

Presenter15:27

Are there any losing so um at the moment?

Presenter15:32

We're waiting for new new ones.

David Wall15:34

to be created all the time.

Presenter15:35

Yeah.

David Wall15:36

And of course you've.

David Wall15:37

I've danced most of the modern ballads. The ones that come to my mind are your splendid swaggering Petruccio in Cranco's The Taming of the Shrew, and both Romeo and Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet.

David Wall15:49

You created the role of Lesko in Kenneth Macmillan's Manor, is that right?

Presenter15:53

Yeah.

David Wall15:54

Yes, that's right.

David Wall15:56

Now which modern roles come to your mind? I I've I've named my three or four.

Presenter16:00

Well, certainly the role of Lesko was a very important stage in my career. It gave me a chance to create a very real character, slightly devious and nasty, which is always enjoyable. Um Petruccio is uh is a very nice role. I th I think on the whole I enjoyed most of all dancing roles that do portray real characters and have real personalities attached to them.

Presenter16:32

Although one gets a great deal of satisfaction out of dancing the princes in the classics.

David Wall16:38

How many overseas tours have you been on the

Presenter16:41

With the touring company we virtually scanned the whole of Europe um in one way or another. The major tours that I've done with the resident company have been to America, to Brazil and to

David Wall16:54

Japan. Now you've been to Japan as a as a guest with with the Japanese company, I believe. Yes, that's right. How did you find that? How well could you integrate? Did there have to be Adjustment on both sides.

Presenter17:08

Yes, they did indeed. I was dancing The Prince in Swan Lake. I found that what was more rewarding actually than dancing The Prince in Swan Lake was helping them to understand Swan Lake and hence I almost directed the production, which was very rewarding. They had some rather odd ideas about it.

Speaker 417:26

Yeah.

David Wall17:30

Yeah.

Presenter17:30

Yeah.

Presenter17:31

Um, yes, odd ideas, but ideas that were only there through enthusiasm. Record number five.

Presenter17:40

Sebelius's Caleva is my fifth choice. Why? I just love it as a piece of music. And actually, on my desert island, I feel that I could work to make it into a ballet.

David Wall18:53

An excerpt from the Culervo Symphony by Sebelius, the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra conducted by Parvo Berglund with the Helsinki University Mail Voice Choir.

David Wall19:04

We haven't talked yet about your recent great success, another full-length Kenneth McMillan Bally Miling. Now this isn't the sentimental story of the film versions, is it? Indeed not. It's very factual. And

David Wall19:19

Unromantic. And you dance Rudolph. Ballet used to be a a woman's business, insomuch that most of the leading roles were devised for the ball arena, but Rudolph is a tremendous role. You're hardly off the stage. It's a very long ballet.

David Wall19:34

I've never seen any role so physically demanding. Um in the story you take on three ballerinas in turn and and dance exhausting pardon with them.

David Wall19:44

Do you find it

David Wall19:46

A a pretty exhausting evening.

Presenter19:47

It is exhausting, but one isn't conscious of one's exhaustion because one is trying to convey a very real character on the stage. Hence the situations aren't superfluous to the plot and it's that that really

Speaker 420:02

Mm-hmm.

Presenter20:05

Gets one through the evening.

Presenter20:08

Yeah.

David Wall20:08

MacMillan's devised some video.

David Wall20:10

Unusual choreography.

David Wall20:13

Some very difficult lifts and catches

Presenter20:15

He's landed you with indeed, but uh he's a master at that. And um certainly the the pada deux in the first act with my wife Stephanie, who I don't like, is very athletic, but in its athleticism it portrays great brutality and virtually hatred.

David Wall20:39

How long did you work on the ballet?

Presenter20:42

I think it was probably in the in the region of ten months from the moment of the first rehearsal to the moment of the first night.

David Wall20:51

That's a a good long stretch. To what extent had Kenneth Macmillan visualized the steps?

David Wall20:58

Obviously he had the basics clearly in his mind.

David Wall21:01

But as far as the working out the steps are concerned, are are you experimenting and changing and

David Wall21:07

working together on it, filling in the whole time.

Presenter21:10

It's a combined effort. Of course Kenneth has the form totally in his mind, but it's rather like an artist with a palette of paint and he's mixing to get the required shade. The dances are his paints. And therefore he will use them in the way that he he finally wants the end product to look.

David Wall21:33

Uh

David Wall21:34

There are, of course, two other curse, two other sets of principles that are now playing my Eling as well. So you as creator coached the principles. Yo you're si

Presenter21:43

Indeed, and I myself by doing that learnt a great deal about the role. Um but I I did spend a lot of time with the two casts, especially with the boys, because I had first-hand information of how Kenneth wanted it to be performed.

David Wall23:10

Rachmaninoff's The Isle of the Dead Andre Previn conducting the London Symphony Orchestra.

David Wall23:16

Now on your desert island, what would you be happiest you got away from?

Presenter23:20

Yeah.

Presenter23:21

I think

Presenter23:22

The pace of life, although I enjoy the pace of life in a big city.

Presenter23:28

I do enjoy.

Presenter23:30

the quiet life, country and

David Wall23:32

Back to nature. You said you'd done a lot of fishing in Scotland. That's good. That's going to be very useful. Shooting.

David Wall23:40

Could you transfer your skills with a gun to a bow and arrow, do you think? Yes, I think so. Could you build shelters?

Presenter23:46

Yes, I've had reasonable experience as an O-level carpenter.

David Wall23:53

Oh, fine. An O-level carpenter. This is splendid stuff. Would you try to escape?

Presenter23:58

I I have an affinity with water, but not um that close an affinity that I would want to get into a boat. No O-level boat building. No, no. Record number seven. Poulonck's organ concerto. Why? It's a piece of music for a long time I've loved and recently Glen Tettley, after the death of John Cranco, created a ballet to it.

Presenter24:25

And this spell is a tribute to John Cranco.

David Wall25:29

Part of Poulanc's concerto in G minor for organ strings and tympany, Maurice Du Roufflet at the organ, and the French National Radio Orchestra conducted by Georges

David Wall25:41

And now we come to your last record.

Presenter25:44

The last record I would like to be Elton John singing a track called Candle in the Wind.

Speaker 425:51

And it seems to me you lived your life like a candle in the wind.

Speaker 425:58

Never knowing who to claim to

Speaker 426:02

When the rain set in

Speaker 426:06

And I would've liked to know you, but I was just

Speaker 426:12

Can to burn out long before the legend ever did.

David Wall26:20

Elton John

David Wall26:22

If you could take only one disc out of the H you've played us, which would it be?

Presenter26:26

I think it would be the Colevo Symphony by Sebelius.

Presenter26:32

And one luxury to take to the island with you.

Presenter26:35

The luxury I'd take with me would be a carbonated drink maker with an exhaust inexhaustible supply of flavors.

David Wall26:46

All right, well, it's your choice. You can have it. And one book apart from the Bible and Shakespeare and big encyclopedias.

Presenter26:46

All right, well it's

Presenter26:54

I'd like a very complete and big, glossy book on the artist monument. Yeah.

David Wall27:00

That's easy. And thank you, David Wall, for letting us hear your Desert Island discs. Thank you. Goodbye, everyone.

Speaker 127:16

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