Robert Tear

Speaker 10:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young and this is a download from the Desert Island Discs archive. This edition may be slightly different from what was actually broadcast, but it's the only version we have. It comes from the British Library's radio collection. It was archived without the music, so although the Castaways choices are introduced, they're not part of this recording. Full details can be found on the Castaways page on the Desert Island Discs website.

Speaker 10:26

The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen eighty.

Speaker 10:30

And the presenter was Roy Plumley.

Presenter0:32

Our castaway this week is a singer, it's the tenor Robert Tyr.

Presenter0:37

Well, won't you be happiest to have got away from on this desert island?

Robert Tear0:41

Quite simply.

Presenter0:42

The text

Robert Tear0:42

telephone. I can't bear the telephone at any price at all.

Presenter0:45

Yeah. I'm sure there will be a day when you'll long for it to be.

Presenter0:50

Did you find it a long job choosing just eight records to last potentially the rest of your life?

Robert Tear0:55

It's not just a long job, it's an impossible job. When you think of the tremendous literature that music is and the great, great pieces there are, I mean it's impossible to choose eight. Of course, one has to, so one does.

Presenter1:07

So one's chosen to day's eight, as it were. To day's eight could be not to morrow's eight. Certainly. What's the first one in to day's eight?

Robert Tear1:14

Well the first one really has to be Bach. I'd I'd like the opening of the Christmas Oratorium because I love Christmas and because it's conducted by a great friend of mine and also my pianist and it's also there because I spent a long time at King's College Chapel. And the name of the pianist? And conducted.

Presenter1:31

Doctor Philippa.

Robert Tear1:31

Sure.

Presenter1:35

The opening of Bach's Christmas Oratorio, the choir of King's College, Cambridge, and the Academy of Saint Martin in the Fields, conducted by Philip Ledger.

Presenter1:44

Now you are indeed, Bob, a Welshman. Yes, indeed.

Robert Tear1:46

From what part of Wales? I'm from Barry, which is, to those who don't know, um, eight miles south of Cardiff. It's the most southern part of Wales and it's on the coast. What was the first impact of music to you? Was it in your home? Oh, certainly, yes. My father used to sing in the choir, he used to take me along. He sang, I think, bass and I sang treble until it stopped. And also my grandfather was a singer, almost a professional, I think. He uh he worked as a blacksmith, but in in the times when he was not working as a blacksmith, he sang at the local cinemas between the films.

Presenter2:21

We were Ser Louis and Nicois.

Robert Tear2:23

Well, when anything came up I used to do it a bit, and I became the mascot of the Barry Ladies' Choir. I was a bit of a soloist for them.

Presenter2:29

That was a bad thing.

Presenter2:30

I had all the old ladies in tears. Bit like that.

Presenter2:35

Now w were you interested in other kinds of music?

Robert Tear2:38

Well, I suppose I liked all the kind of music that young people liked at the time. I liked classical music,'cause I studied the piano from an early age, about four or five, when I started playing the piano.

Presenter2:46

Uh

Robert Tear2:46

Yeah.

Presenter2:46

Yeah.

Robert Tear2:46

Yes. But of course I liked the jazz and the pop music of the time just as much as anybody else. What did you want to be as a school?

Presenter2:52

Cool work.

Robert Tear2:52

Yeah.

Presenter2:52

Yeah.

Robert Tear2:52

Well, in Wales one basically thought in terms of being a teacher. I think it was one of the things that was expected of one if you had any pretensions to intelligence at all. And I think my parents also thought of me in that vein.

Speaker 13:02

Yeah.

Presenter3:05

Yeah. What happened to you? What did you do when you left school?

Robert Tear3:08

Well, I was lucky enough when I was at the grammar school in Barry to have a music master at New about um choral scholarships to the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge. By this time you were at tenor? Yes, I'd slipped down from soprano to alto and I decided to stop at tenor.

Presenter3:22

Uh

Presenter3:24

So you won your scholarship. Now what does being a choral scholar entail? Obviously in Cambridge, in King's College you work in the choir in that wonderful chapel every day.

Robert Tear3:35

He used to go in at four o'clock every day, rehearse totally unknown music, sight read and obviously unknown music, for the service which came that evening. And singing settings that were written for that choir 500 years ago. Surely, by people like Gibbons, who was the organist there. It was absolutely marvellous.

Robert Tear3:53

Same play with the different cast, year after year.

Presenter3:55

Yeah.

Robert Tear3:55

Now what about your degree being a coral

Presenter3:58

Scholar, does that mean automatic?

Robert Tear3:59

Matthew New

Presenter3:59

What Yeah.

Robert Tear4:00

Towards a musical degree? Well, it could if you were good at music, and I went there, thinking I probably was, but they soon told me I wasn't, so they kicked me out of the music thing, and I ended up by reading English.

Robert Tear4:10

Were you taking singing lessons? Yes. At the time I I was coming down at the college's expense, God bless them, to a man called Julian Kimball. He used to teach at the London Sketch Club in Dilk Street in Chelsea, and I used to come down once a week.

Speaker 14:22

It's a computer.

Robert Tear4:24

And uh take my lessons there with him. He made me better at singing, but I think I ruined the choir, but we won't talk about that.

Presenter4:30

It was

Robert Tear4:30

And

Presenter4:30

Uh

Robert Tear4:30

involved in other forms of university music.

Robert Tear4:33

Not really. We didn't really have time. It was a very full-time job.

Presenter4:36

Let's have yours.

Robert Tear4:37

Second

Presenter4:37

And record one.

Robert Tear4:37

The second record is going to be Apart from the Creation, Be Fruitful All, sung by the bass. Jose Van Damme, I think in this case.

Presenter4:50

Be fruitful all from Haydn's Creation, sung by Jose Van Damme.

Presenter4:56

Right now, you are taking your degree in English. What did you want to be when you left King's? Yeah.

Robert Tear5:01

I had absolutely no idea at all, because I knew by this time I really didn't want to be um a teacher, and I'd grown out of the idea of being an engine driver.

Robert Tear5:10

And there was nothing I really wanted to do, so I just was left without any idea at all. What, in fact, did you do? What I did was I did the same job as I had been doing at King's for three years. I found a a job at St Paul's Cathedral as a vicar choral, doing exactly the same stuff.

Presenter5:26

Now, this is rather a heavy schedule, isn't it? In a choir rather like St. Paul's Cathedral.

Presenter5:32

Are you allowed to put a deputy in so that you can do outside work, or are you completely shielded from outside work?

Robert Tear5:38

No. One of the best things about St Paul's Cathedral was they had a a very long deputy list, which meant that should anything important come up, you could get away, as long as you could find a deputy, and as there were so many, one could always do it. And of course it was absolutely, totally important that one could get away to do jobs as they appeared.

Presenter5:56

So what sort of freelance work did you start doing? You you were doing Messiahs and St. Matthew Passions and that sort of thing all the countries.

Robert Tear6:02

All up and down the country, never stopping, sort of three in a row. I sang so many Messiahs then, it was unbelievable. But the best thing I remember about that, and it's at least the funniest thing I remember about that, was when I was doing uh St. Matthew Passion in uh Lincoln Cathedral, and for some unknown reason the most lovely boxer dog got into got into the audience, and I saw it right down the end of this nave, long nave, and it opsy saw me standing on my small box singing away, and it took some unholy interest in me.

Robert Tear6:37

And it gradually came quite slowly, it didn't run or anything, it took its time.

Robert Tear6:40

and came along this enormous great nave, and proceeded to stand right in front of me, just under my knees, sort of cocking its head in the most odd manner.

Robert Tear6:53

As I was singing about, you know, Peter going out and all the rest of it. And then suddenly.

Robert Tear6:58

The Verger, instead of leaving this dog to its own devices, which it probably might have gone out or something or gone back to where it came from, suddenly made a dash and a grab for this animal, proceeded to get it by its back leg, and he fell over. And can you imagine all this in this awful, serious bit? Who won? I think the dog definitely won that one. We all lost anyway. An animal's

Presenter7:24

Look so critical, don't they? Now, you were mixed up in the early days of of the Ambrosian singers, Wenchel.

Robert Tear7:31

Yeah.

Presenter7:31

They were very star-started in those early days, some very good names, not quite on the bill.

Robert Tear7:37

Yes. Well, not quite at my time, but we had Dame Janet Baker, Heather Harper, Helen Watts, and many others. This was mainly a recording, was it? Mostly recording, but also concerts. It was it was the beginning of the professional chorus, a lot of opera recording.

Presenter7:53

A lot of opera recordings, yes.

Presenter7:55

Can you look back on any particular freelance job which gave you a special opportunity?

Robert Tear8:03

Now that's a hard one.

Robert Tear8:05

I think basically every freelance job I did gave me a special opportunity, but later there was one very special one, and that was when

Robert Tear8:14

Ronald Dowd couldn't sing in the Missa Solemnis with Carla Maria Giulini at St. Paul's Cathedral. And I knew it, and I went and did it, and I've worked with him ever since. But also, when I was singing Messiah with Meredith Davis at Birmingham, this was before the Giulini thing, when he told me that the English Opera Group, which was Benjamin Britton's opera group, were auditioning. for people to sing certain of his roles. And he asked me if I'd go along, which I did. And of course, that was totally formative. Now this was for a tour in Russia, wasn't it? A tour of Russia, yes. We were auditioning for people to sing in the Rape of Lucretia and The Turn of the Screw. But before that, they were also looking for somebody to cover Peter Peirce in Curdy River, which was a new venture for Britain. And you got that job? I got there, I was lucky, got that.

Presenter8:53

Tor

Presenter9:11

That English opera group tour of Russia led to you being a regular member of the Alderburgh Festival Group, and also led, of course, to a lot of other tours.

Robert Tear9:20

Oh, yes, we went to well, we went to Canada, we went to Expo in Montreal, and there was one of the funniest things happened there, I'll never forget it. We What was that? Well, we used to dress on stage. We used to change from monks into our characters in a kind of rugby scrum on stage. It must have been quite clever, but on this occasion, instead of

Presenter9:28

When

Speaker 19:28

Out

Robert Tear9:38

getting my my head through the head hole of my costume, I got it through the arm hole. And so I walked around, doubled up for the whole thing, and tried to put my hat on, which Luxon promptly knocked off. And it it was horrendous, but I mean, we almost died laughing up there.

Presenter9:54

Yeah.

Robert Tear9:55

Yeah, this is web.

Presenter9:55

Yeah, it's Benjamin Luxembourg.

Robert Tear9:56

Yes, he was with us. Oh, yes. He's always been around, I think.

Presenter9:59

Please

Robert Tear10:02

Let's have your third record.

Presenter10:04

Yeah.

Robert Tear10:05

Third record is going to be Don Giovanni, conducted by uh Colin Sir Colin Davies. And I want the last bit before Don Giovanni gets taken down to hell by the Commendatore. Why do you choose this one? Because it's the most frightening bit of music I think has ever been written.

Presenter10:25

An excerpt from the penultimate scene of Mozart's Don Giovanni, conducted by Sir Colin Davies, the commendatory Calls for Repentance. Now that English opera company tour led you to be a regular member of the Aldborough Festival.

Robert Tear10:42

Yes, I sang at Aubrey for about ten years after that.

Presenter10:42

Yes, I sang it.

Presenter10:45

The privilege of working with Britain. Indeed, absolutely. Now, you mentioned his Curlew River briefly, doesn't it?

Robert Tear10:47

Yeah.

Presenter10:53

I believe that Benjamin Britton wasn't always an easy man. There's a story of you singing that first performance of Curlew River.

Robert Tear11:01

Yes, in London, when he was uh

Robert Tear11:03

Obviously dissatisfied with the way I was doing my work, and he was obviously probably totally correct when he suddenly said, You're not actually.

Robert Tear11:12

Believing what you're doing. You're using my music merely as a vocal exercise. How long before the performance was this? Oh, it wasn't very long, I suppose, very short, in fact, about I suppose ten minutes or so. But he obviously read my character fairly well, because it spurred me on. And from that moment, if I may say, I thought about work differently. I suddenly began to think in terms of of words and meaning, and not in terms of singing. Yes. So I think he was absolutely f uh fundamentally important there to me.

Presenter11:46

He was, in a way, he was very sure of his judgment of character he could, in in a weaker man, have broken him up just before the performance.

Robert Tear11:53

Yes, he might well have done that, but he was an awfully clever man and I think he w probably knew who he was talking to.

Robert Tear11:58

You have a great professional advantage. You're a quick study.

Robert Tear12:01

I'm a quick studier, but not a quick learner. I mean, I can sight-read well, but it takes an awful long time for me to memorize, does it? Well, I find it awfully boring.

Presenter12:10

How do you memorize? Is this a visual sense? Do you visualize the pain?

Robert Tear12:13

Page

Robert Tear12:14

No, no, I by sheer repetition, boring repetition. So I do twenty minutes and then go away for ten, then come back for twenty, then go away for fifteen, that sort of thing. Yes. Really tedious. And get up very early in the morning,'cause I find I can take things in mu much better about seven in the morning than

Speaker 112:28

Yeah.

Robert Tear12:33

My day sort of finishes at eleven, really, as far as learning goes.

Presenter12:36

How well do you retain the learning with an old work that comes up? Have you got it ready or have you got to go back again?

Robert Tear12:42

No, Roy, it's absolutely marvellous. It comes back very, very fast. I just press the button and and the ticker tape starts coming up with basically the right stuff. So once I've learnt it, I know it. But it takes one heck of a time to learn.

Speaker 112:47

I'm gonna

Robert Tear12:56

Record number four. I would like very much to have um the Emperor Concerto of Beethoven Klempere conducting Daniel Barenborn. And I would like that simply because Klemper was very, very

Robert Tear13:06

kind to me as a very young singer at one point.

Presenter13:10

Tell me the story of of how, in particular, he was kind to you.

Robert Tear13:13

Well, I was absolutely Mr. Noble's singer with the Ambrosian chorus, and the big singers couldn't get to this rehearsal that Tempera was conducting. And we were sent along just to fill in. Well, instead of filling in, he decided he was going to teach us the piece from beginning to end. So he ignored the chorus and taught we four, Joe Blogsy's, everything he knew about the Mrs. Salemnis, which I thought was so kind and wonderful. Yes, indeed.

Presenter13:42

Well, here's part of the Beethoven Emperor Concerto.

Presenter13:51

The beginning of the second movement of Beethoven's Emperor Concerto, Otto Klemperer conducting the Neophilharmonia Orchestra with Daniel Barembohm as soloist.

Presenter14:01

When with the prestige of your Aldborough work you became exceedingly busy, there was one occasion, Bob, when you had to choose between two first performances of operas by very distinguished composers.

Robert Tear14:13

Yes, that was uh

Robert Tear14:15

between Owen Wingrave, which Benjamin Britton had written, and The Knot Garden, which Michael Tippett had written. And I chose The Michael Tippett simply because I had already done ten years at all, and I was s seeking an individual voice, and also because it was at Covent Garden, a place obviously where everybody wants to sing.

Presenter14:34

In recent years you've done a lot of

Presenter14:36

Work at Covent Garden.

Robert Tear14:37

Yes, I think about two productions a year. That

Presenter14:40

You've sung Peter Grimes? Yes. Stravinsky is The Rake's Progress. What else?

Robert Tear14:45

Oh, I've sang um I've sang Covention, I've sang Arabella, I've sang oh, it g it goes on, it goes a long way back, flying Dutchman. Lots of things actually.

Presenter14:55

And you were in that very exciting production, the the completed production of Berg's Lulu in Paris. Oh yes, that that was ex

Robert Tear15:00

Exciting. It took about three months of my life, and for the first first month of it I loathed every second of it. But

Robert Tear15:08

Almost conversion. I suddenly thought this is a great piece overnight. It was the most amazing change of opinion. I don't know how it happened, but it did. Now I think it's a masterpiece. You've done a lot of contemporary work in opera, haven't you? Yes, I have. I'm cutting it down at the moment. I'm doing um one new one a year. I feel I ought. Yes. But I mean, we've had some of the most marvellous, funny bits from contemporary pieces to must be honest, and never forget uh.

Robert Tear15:35

We Come to the River by Hans Werner Henser, which she did at Covent Garden, and it's awful, as you well know, for those who are facing downstage when somebody else is facing upstage and can't be seen. And we used to sit down, a load of soldiers of which I was one, I was called a deserter, and they were playing cards, and I, as I say before, I was facing upstage, and what I used to do when they weren't looking, I used to tie their laces together which created havoc when they tried to stand up.

Presenter16:02

Very popular lad you were.

Robert Tear16:04

Didn't like

Presenter16:04

They didn't, no. Uh what else have you lined up?

Robert Tear16:08

Oh, coming up there I've got some nice new productions. So I'm doing the production of Al Cest at Coffin Garden, which I'm singing at Metos. I'm doing production of Semede, which I'm singing Jupiter. I'm singing Diabedon, Meister Singer, and a lot more things like that.

Presenter16:23

If the telephone were to ring now and say, Bob, would you like to sing so-and-so? A work or a part? What would you like that to be?

Robert Tear16:34

That's a hard one. I've never actually thought in those terms of wanting to have anything I really want to do.

Presenter16:40

Isn't there something at the back of your mind saying that I could slay them as something?

Robert Tear16:46

No, I love singing. I mean I love singing. There are various works which I think suit me down to the ground, which which I think could have been written. One is Reikesbergers, which I've done. The second is Loga, Das Rheingeld, which which I've done. And the third, I think, is Don Ottavio, which also I've done. I'd quite like to sing that in London. You've never done it in London? No, I haven't. But I've done it. Well, perhaps the telephone will ring. Yes, we'll see.

Presenter16:54

Yeah.

Presenter17:06

Perhaps the telephone will ring to light.

Robert Tear17:09

Disc number five. Disc number five, I would like to have some Schubert because I couldn't exist without Schubert. And I'd very much like to have the fantasy in F minor for two pianos. And basically because it's the most wonderful bit of music, but we also try and play it at home, which would remind me of that.

Speaker 117:23

Wonderful.

Presenter17:29

The beginning of the Schubert Fantasia and F minor, played by Alfred Brendel and Evelyn Crochy. You say you play that at term. Your wife is a musician.

Robert Tear17:38

Oh well no, she likes music and she plays a little bit, but I practice a bit also with my younger daughter and people like John Conservative when they come to uh play the piano for me or feel your pleasure. I inveigle them into playing either the top or the bottom part of these duets. You live in London, I know, but you're also a countryman. Yes, got a bit of a mill down in um down in Devon, which which I enjoy very much'cause it's uh it's all cutting grass and and physical.

Presenter18:00

Which I

Robert Tear18:03

bits of physical work and pulling reeds out of ponds and things like that. So that's a nice relaxing pond. Oh that sounds great fun. Well ponds are lovely if you can keep them full of water and ours tends to silt up a bit so that's a bit of a worry.

Speaker 118:06

So that's a nice re

Presenter18:07

That's him.

Presenter18:14

However, it is lovely though. That's more work, isn't it?

Presenter18:17

Have you worked out how many records you've made through the years?

Robert Tear18:20

Well, people keep saying that I'm the second most recorded tender in history, but I'd like to know how that's proved,'cause I haven't counted them yet. But it must must be well into the hundreds. They're trying to work out who was the first. Well, I'd like to know too, but uh some people no doubt tell us.

Presenter18:31

Well I'd like

Presenter18:34

Yes, indeed. There must be a statistician listening.

Presenter18:39

And I hope you're going to do many more of those evenings of Victorian ballads which you do with Benjamin Luxon.

Robert Tear18:45

Those are absolutely enchanting. Oh, they're good fun. They're marvellous fun. We always get the place absolutely packed. People come there without wishing to criticise. They come there knowing what they're going to get and we try and give it to them. And it's good. It's really, really good fun. Where do you find the material? Do people send you sheet music? They tend to come through the letter box like leaves in autumn.

Robert Tear19:05

But we also get asked, you know, for these for these pieces. People write to us, where can we get so and so, so and so? And I and of course they can't get them. So we've brought out I mean, I've just edited a book about things, which is about to come out for those who need it.

Robert Tear19:18

Right, record number six. I'd like to have the Sanctus from the uh the Requiem Mass of Verde, uh simply because I think it's the most unusual and the most truthful bit of Holy Holy in the world. It's it's it's fun and fast.

Presenter19:33

And this will indeed be the Giulini recording. Yeah, of course. It must be that.

Robert Tear19:35

Yeah.

Presenter19:42

Part of the sanctus from Verdi's Requiem, Giulini conducting the Philharmonia chorus and the Philharmonia Orchestra.

Presenter19:51

Let's move on straight away to record number seven. What shall that be?

Robert Tear19:54

Record number seven, I'd like to be Das Rheingold, simply because I loved the opera tremendously and knew it really quite well. Are we going to have a piece of Logo? And we're not. We're going to have the final great triumphal march to Valhalla.

Presenter20:12

The Final Great Triumphant March to Valhalla from Wagner's Das Rheingold, a recording conducted by Schulte. What are your other occupations apart from pulling up reeds and unsilting your pond?

Robert Tear20:26

Well, I've I've played tennis now an awful lot because we've moved in London and outside our house now there are some public tennis courts.

Presenter20:33

Yeah.

Robert Tear20:33

which I tend to play on most of the time.

Robert Tear20:36

And I enjoy it tremendously.

Robert Tear20:38

What about fishing?

Robert Tear20:40

No, I don't fish.

Presenter20:41

What a pity. I'm trying to see how well you'd do as as a castaway. Could you look after yourself?

Robert Tear20:45

Could you

Robert Tear20:46

Well, I think I'd have to look after myself. I mean, I'm absolutely useless at building things. I mean, I I can't can't do anything like that. But I I could put up a rough shelter, I think, if I had to, and I'm sure I'd

Presenter20:56

And I

Robert Tear20:57

Be able to look after myself.

Presenter20:58

Do you know anything about small boats? I mean when you were living in Barrie did you uh have a boat? No. Navigation? No.

Robert Tear21:04

No, absolutely hopeless. Would you try to escape? No, I'd have to wait until somebody came for me, I think.

Robert Tear21:14

Cool.

Presenter21:15

Right, record number eight. What's your last one?

Robert Tear21:16

Oh, well I must have, simply because I think it's the most wonderful evocation of England and the kind of philosophy I like, I must have Michael Tippett's concerto for double string orchestra and the slow movement please conducted, I think, by Neville Mariner.

Presenter21:34

Part of the slow movement of Tippett's Concerto for Double String Orchestra, Neville Mariner with the Academy of Saint Martin in the Field. If you would take just one disc out of the eight, if you were deprived of the other seven, which one would you hang on to?

Robert Tear21:49

Well, I think I'd have to take the um the tippet.

Presenter21:53

The one we've just heard.

Presenter21:55

And you're allowed to take one luxury to the island with

Robert Tear21:58

Well, I don't know what to do about luxuries because there are a couple of things which are totally wrong. I think they don't go together. First of all, I'd like all my favourite

Presenter22:04

Professor

Robert Tear22:07

paintings on postcard like the things you get in museums, on postcard sizes. But on the back I would like all my favourite poems. But on the other hand I would quite like an everlasting glass of beer.

Robert Tear22:18

Yeah.

Presenter22:18

So I have to choose between those, I think. Do I think well let us do that we can easily fake it, that that your postcards have have got poems on the back of the so let us make this a straight decision between the everlasting glass of beer and art.

Speaker 122:27

Yeah.

Robert Tear22:27

Yeah.

Speaker 122:27

Yeah.

Speaker 122:30

Yeah. Yeah.

Presenter22:38

Hmm.

Robert Tear22:39

Yes, well, perhaps as I've faked it and I can't really get an everlasting glass of beer, I'll have to take the art.

Presenter22:44

Well, it's your decision. And one book apart from the Bible and Shakespeare, and we don't encourage big encyclopedias.

Robert Tear22:53

Well, there was one book which has has always been very important to me, and it's a book which I don't suppose is terribly well known, but it's called The Wisdom of Insecurity by Alan Watts.

Presenter23:02

The Wisdom of Insecurity by Alan Waltz. He writes books on Buddhism, doesn't he? That's right.

Robert Tear23:06

Yeah.

Presenter23:06

Right. And thank you, Robert Tyr, for letting us hear your Desert Island Disc. Thank you, Robert. It's been lovely being here. Goodbye, everyone.