Antal Dorati

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.

Presenter0:33

On Idazal Island this week is the celebrated conductor Antal Dorati.

Presenter0:38

Maestro, on what basis have you chosen your eight discs, to to remind you of the past, or is it music for different moods, or great performances?

Antal Dorati0:46

Well, you know, when you asked me the question what I would like to have, I just started to think what would I like to have really with me? And uh so that I would have nothing else and on various days I would

Antal Dorati0:59

In various moods, I would put out these these pieces and and listen to them. I could listen to them for a long time, I could listen to them often enough.

Antal Dorati1:08

And they would either reinforce me in the mood I am or give a contrast.

Presenter1:15

What you going to start with?

Antal Dorati1:16

Now, of course, uh the whole desert island business and the shipwreck business is not so good if I think about it that my wife will not be with me then.

Presenter1:23

We are not.

Antal Dorati1:24

Because that's of course the uh condition.

Presenter1:26

You have to be on your own.

Antal Dorati1:27

I have to be on my own. So I tell you right away, I would not like it.

Presenter1:31

Yeah.

Antal Dorati1:33

But if it has to be, then of course I would like to have a record of her with me. And that was my first choice.

Presenter1:39

Your wife, Ilse von Alpenheim, and what is she playing?

Antal Dorati1:43

And she's playing Mendelsong.

Presenter1:45

The opening of Mendelssohn's Rondo Capricioso, played by Ilse von Alpenheim, who is misses Dorati. You were born in Budapest. I believe both your parents were musicians. Oh, yes. Did you take it for granted that music was to be your life?

Antal Dorati2:00

Yes, I always knew that music is my life.

Presenter2:03

Now Hungary, of course, was on the losing side, if any side was the loser in the first war, and the war was followed by revolution and all sorts of misery. You missed a certain amount of that by going off to Denmark.

Antal Dorati2:16

No, I did not miss that. That was after those revolutions, and I was there for a period of uh three months as one of those underfed children whom the kind Danish people

Antal Dorati2:28

undertook to feed.

Presenter2:31

Yes.

Antal Dorati2:31

But that was after the Lost War and after the Revolution. So I did not escape any of those bad periods, except that I came home after a while into the same bad conditions.

Antal Dorati2:43

A little bit strengthened and refreshed. And I came back as a musician. It happened there that I became a professional musician. How did that happen?

Antal Dorati2:51

It happened by by accident, actually. I was so grateful to these people.

Antal Dorati2:56

who took me in, that I wanted to do something for them, and the only thing I could do and they couldn't was to play the piano.

Antal Dorati3:03

And I did start playing the piano for them and they liked it so much that it gave me the confidence that what I'm doing with my music is useful, is wanted.

Presenter3:12

And after your three months is up you returned to Budapest and started to study seriously.

Antal Dorati3:18

Well, I s I continued studying more seriously than I studied before.

Presenter3:22

And what happened when you graduated?

Antal Dorati3:24

I went to the opera house right away, as a coach.

Presenter3:27

Your father was working there.

Antal Dorati3:28

He my father was a violinist in the orchestra, and he was most astonished when he found one day, unexpectedly, his son on the podium. He didn't he didn't even look up to begin with. Then he saw that

Presenter3:41

You have to

Antal Dorati3:41

You have to do it.

Presenter3:42

Yeah.

Antal Dorati3:43

Because I had to replace someone very quickly.

Presenter3:45

Was it conducting that was interesting you right from the start?

Antal Dorati3:49

Actually my main interest uh is composing.

Presenter3:53

Yes.

Antal Dorati3:53

and always was.

Antal Dorati3:55

And I got side track two conducting.

Antal Dorati3:58

when I was about twenty or twenty one, and that probably was in some degree the consequence of the war and those conditions which put me into a

Antal Dorati4:08

what I now recognize as a state of neurosis which forbade me to do creative work for a while.

Presenter4:17

Budapest, of course, was a major opera house.

Presenter4:21

Was that where you first met Strauss?

Antal Dorati4:22

Yes. He came to conduct his operas for a period of one or two weeks. And I had the great luck of being assigned to him.

Presenter4:28

Yeah.

Antal Dorati4:32

as a coach. And that was really unmatchable.

Antal Dorati4:35

experience. I learned then how he wanted his works being played.

Presenter4:39

How how did you find him as as a very young man? Was he genial, or rather forbidding?

Antal Dorati4:44

No, not forbidding at all. Not forbidding at all. It was he was very nice, very non-committal, in fact. You know, he was not.

Antal Dorati4:52

too nice, and he was not too forbidding. He was just very natural, a quiet man who had his own thoughts and did his business very very well, with great authority, without ever raising his voice.

Antal Dorati5:03

Very fine.

Presenter5:04

Let's have your second record. Now, what's that to be?

Antal Dorati5:07

Uh that is going to be Haydn.

Antal Dorati5:10

And it's going to be one part of the seasons which I conducted here, as is my own recording.

Presenter5:15

Reach out.

Speaker 15:15

I

Antal Dorati5:18

uh in London with the Royal Philmoning and the Brighton Festival choir and verified soloists. And of course I must mention that when when I choose this, I made a slight mistake because I was under the impression that I can choose the whole album.

Antal Dorati5:33

Which would be three LPs, but no, I can take only one of the three. Uh well, I will I will take the closing part.

Antal Dorati5:41

Because that i is sort of the conclusion of the whole thing. And and really it does not uh matter very much which part, because it's also beautiful.

Presenter5:51

An excerpt from the closing section of Haydn's The Seasons, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra with the Brighton Festival Chorus, and some distinguished soloists. How long did you stay in the Budapest Opera House?

Antal Dorati6:03

Uh four years.

Antal Dorati6:05

And I went on to Dresden.

Presenter6:07

And then as conductor to to Munster. That that's quite a quite a small opera house.

Antal Dorati6:10

That's quite

Antal Dorati6:12

That's a small place. It's a small city and it's a small opera. But it was a wonderful experience.

Presenter6:17

And then of course you were conductor.

Antal Dorati6:18

I was the chief conductor, yes. Was the custom then to have all the operas in German? Oh yes, definitely. Like in Hungary, we had every o every opera in Hungarian.

Presenter6:25

Like in hunger

Antal Dorati6:28

Oh. We often had polyglot operas. For instance in Tristan, just in Tristan, we had very often guests because we didn't have Hungarian tenors who could sing that. So they came from Vienna or Berlin or from I don't know where, and sang in German, very cheerfully, whilst the Isohose replied to him in Hungarian.

Presenter6:46

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

Presenter6:48

And of course you had the occasional operetta. There's a story of you conducting one of them, and you had never seen the score before.

Antal Dorati6:56

Well, yes, well that that was in Easter when I was called on New Year's Day.

Presenter6:57

Yes.

Antal Dorati7:00

afternoon to conduct an operator by Lehar and I I never heard of I heard the name but I didn't know what it was and I was obliged to do it because I had to save a situation where all the

Antal Dorati7:13

Staff, all the conducting staff was very heavily uh under the New Year's Eve celebration and i not capable to conduct.

Presenter7:19

You

Presenter7:22

That was Federica, if I remember.

Antal Dorati7:24

That was Frederike, yes. It was very funny. And I thought I had the delirium treatments because all of a sudden I saw a sheep on the stage.

Presenter7:31

A sheep. Does that come into the story?

Antal Dorati7:32

Come into the story.

Presenter7:33

Yeah.

Antal Dorati7:36

And I thought it was an equivalent to a pink elephant.

Presenter7:39

Well, you obviously gained plenty of experience in Munster. Where did you move on to?

Antal Dorati7:43

Well, then I went uh to Berlin.

Presenter7:46

You'll free Lanceton Bernard.

Antal Dorati7:47

I freelanced for a while and I founded a chamber orchestra for contemporary music, but we actually never got activated, never got uh s going because during the rehearsal period a slight change in world history happened and Hitler came into power and that dis disrupted everything.

Presenter8:04

Yes.

Presenter8:05

Now was this inspired racial hatred that we know about a sudden thing?

Presenter8:11

How did you become aware of it?

Antal Dorati8:14

I personally became aware of it uh because I went to a meeting which happened in what was then the equivalent of the Musicians' Union or something like that. And it was uh such a hateful, horrible event that I went home to my young wife and and said, Look, we go. This is this is not a place.

Antal Dorati8:34

to make music there.

Presenter8:36

Yeah.

Antal Dorati8:36

And to to live here is impossible. Let's go. I didn't know what it amounted to, really. I was not at all.

Antal Dorati8:43

Wise or provident, or didn't see the implications of it at all. I it I was only disgusted.

Presenter8:49

So where did you go?

Antal Dorati8:50

I got went to Paris.

Presenter8:52

Did you speak French?

Antal Dorati8:54

Very little. But I I picked it up very quickly. Then I went pretty soon I came to England for my first time. I didn't speak any English. And I picked that up. And then from England I went to America.

Presenter9:05

Now you came to England as a ballet conductor. How did that start?

Antal Dorati9:08

That started in Paris. That you know, I I was out of a job and I had very little money.

Antal Dorati9:14

and I wanted to have a job. And this this was offered to me, the Balle Rusta Monte Carlo, where I joined them as a conductor for just a brief period.

Presenter9:21

That's

Speaker 19:21

Yeah.

Antal Dorati9:23

And I did not like the idea too much, because in in our um operatic minds the art of ballet was a very second class thing.

Antal Dorati9:32

And

Antal Dorati9:33

Would I not have been in such financial stress, I would never have thought of doing it. But I went, I came over to England, and actually I came to Bournemouth, where this occ company then stayed.

Presenter9:42

Because I

Speaker 19:42

Uh

Antal Dorati9:44

And I conducted and they wanted to take me right away to America. And that was a tremendous lure, and that's how I happened to join them.

Presenter9:51

Right. At this point, let's break off your third record. What shall we have?

Antal Dorati9:55

The next one is my other great love and experience in my life, a piece by Billabartuk, and that will be the concerto for orchestra, of which we will play the beginning.

Presenter10:08

And you are conducting.

Antal Dorati10:10

I am conducting the Hungarian Orchestra. I choose this one because that's my last recording of this piece.

Antal Dorati10:16

And I presume it is better than the previous ones as a musical conception, because if it wouldn't

Antal Dorati10:22

Be a right presumption, I think I would have wasted my life.

Presenter10:25

How many times have you recorded it?

Antal Dorati10:27

Uh this is the fourth.

Presenter10:32

The opening of Bartock's Concerto for Orchestra.

Antal Dorati10:36

Yes, this was the beginning of it, and isn't it like a

Antal Dorati10:39

Symphony of Homesickness actually. The famous Mal Du P.

Antal Dorati10:44

Uh this melody comes like from the old home land and the wind brings it and the wind takes it also away and then the instruments take it up and it goes into our heart and we

Antal Dorati10:57

spin it further with much truculence, as a matter of fact, and also with much suffering.

Presenter11:04

Well, you were to be away from your homeland for for for many years because with the Ballet Ruist de Monte Carlo you you you toured most of the time, don't you? You first came to England, as you said, and and and then to America. What sort of man was de Basile who who

Antal Dorati11:18

Well, he was a very uh funny man, a a crazy man, actually.

Antal Dorati11:24

Um you know, he was ignorant practically of everything which he should have not been ignorant of.

Antal Dorati11:30

But he knew things apparently.

Antal Dorati11:34

which he did not supposed to know, and with that combination he he made a a very fine uh life and he he was of some service to to the art, which he I think

Antal Dorati11:46

got into by not altruistic reasons, but for his own making of a life. And you went to Australia?

Presenter11:53

With the company? Yeah.

Antal Dorati11:54

I went to Australia, I came yearly to England, which was the highlight always. I went to Spain, I went to France.

Antal Dorati12:01

I went to Germany, I went to Ma M

Presenter12:03

Very many places.

Antal Dorati12:08

Very little.

Antal Dorati12:09

to my knowledge, and I went only twice.

Presenter12:12

How many years in all were you with the company?

Presenter12:15

On and off I would say ten.

Antal Dorati12:16

Uh

Presenter12:16

And when the war broke out, did they keep going?

Antal Dorati12:19

They reorganized pretty soon thereafter. They s spent quite a lot of time off the war in Australia.

Antal Dorati12:26

Then went back to the United States and then the disbanding time came, then they finished.

Presenter12:32

Yeah.

Presenter12:34

Record number four. Watch that.

Antal Dorati12:36

Record number four is My Eternal Love.

Antal Dorati12:42

Which is, I think, the best opera and the most wonderful opera in the world, and that's from Beethoven's Fidelio.

Presenter12:47

And whose recording is this?

Antal Dorati12:49

This is an old time recording. I'm sure that in technique and even vocally it uh and in every way it is being surpassed by today, but I couldn't miss it, and that's the old Fort Wingler recording.

Presenter13:02

And which excerpt shall we hear?

Antal Dorati13:04

This will be the final duet before the finale of the opera. So it's the ending of the first part of the second act.

Presenter13:16

An excerpt from the second act of Beethoven's Fidelio, Furtengler conducting the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, and the voices of Marto Merdel and Wolfgang Windgassen.

Presenter13:28

Now you spent most of the war, I believe, i in America, and at the end you were invited to reform one of the American orchestras that had been disbanded.

Antal Dorati13:37

Uh in Dallas, Texas, in fact, yes.

Presenter13:40

You had to start practically from scratch.

Antal Dorati13:41

Uh

Antal Dorati13:42

It was in

Presenter13:43

New

Antal Dorati13:43

Orchestra.

Presenter13:44

That must have been a very rewarding task.

Antal Dorati13:46

A very exciting task, very wonderful task is.

Presenter13:49

How long did you stay with the orchestra when you had got it together?

Antal Dorati13:52

four years for very fine

Antal Dorati13:55

Sturmundrang heers.

Presenter13:56

And then?

Antal Dorati13:58

And then I went to Minneapolis as a successor to Metropolis, who then went to New York.

Presenter14:03

And a long spell of freelancing, much travelling. When did you first go back to Hungary again after the war?

Antal Dorati14:10

I went back right away after the war.

Presenter14:11

They do.

Antal Dorati14:12

Right away, uh it was in end of nineteen forty five and I went back three times until

Antal Dorati14:18

until the Russians really took over.

Presenter14:20

Was there much musical life starting up again?

Antal Dorati14:22

Starting up again.

Antal Dorati14:28

and I conducted concerts there, with hardly an instrument to play on.

Presenter14:32

That must have been it.

Antal Dorati14:33

It was fantastic, fantastic, and sadly fantastic experience.

Antal Dorati14:38

Humanly it it was most rewarding. It is it is really

Antal Dorati14:42

Again, it's sadly astonishing how people stand up in in emergencies wonderfully and how great failures there are when everything goes right.

Presenter14:53

Those years in Minneapolis and then a long spell of freelancing, much travelling.

Antal Dorati14:57

I was freelancing.

Antal Dorati14:59

Only about three years.

Presenter15:00

You went back to opera again.

Antal Dorati15:02

I went then back to opera, but then I went back to symphonic music, and you know where? In this very house.

Presenter15:09

Yes, you have the BBC symphony.

Antal Dorati15:09

So you have the B B C Symphony? I was the chief conductor of the V B C Symphony for four years. Then and from then on I o again had always

Presenter15:18

Orchestras.

Antal Dorati15:20

Stockholm, uh, Washington and Detroit in this order, and of course in between always another one, there came the Royal Philharmonic.

Presenter15:27

and with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra you are conductor laureate.

Antal Dorati15:31

Yes. And that will that will last as long as I live. And I'm very gratified about it.

Presenter15:36

How much time can you spend with them during the year?

Antal Dorati15:39

Well, uh uh the time varies, you know, because we do m several things. We do records and we do uh concerts. Altogether in London I'm conducting about eight concerts per year.

Presenter15:51

Well we got as far as record number five. What shall we hear now?

Antal Dorati15:54

Now comes Mozart and now comes the string quartet, which is the purest and probably most beautiful form of absolute music.

Presenter16:04

Is this one that you used to play uh a as a youngster?

Antal Dorati16:07

Amongst others, oh yes, I played all of them. I played all the Mozarts, all the Haydns at home with with my parents. I was the I was the rather weak cellist of the quartet.

Presenter16:12

It might not be.

Presenter16:15

Fortunate.

Presenter16:17

Who is playing on this recording?

Antal Dorati16:19

The Italiano.

Presenter16:23

The slow movement of Mozart's String Quartet, Number twenty one, Kirkel five seven five You've never specialized, have you, mister Dorati? You you like to conduct a wide range of music. Oh, yes.

Presenter16:36

Uh

Antal Dorati16:36

I now

Presenter16:36

Uh

Antal Dorati16:36

Hold in. Somewhat

Presenter16:38

Yeah.

Antal Dorati16:38

retracted my

Antal Dorati16:40

traces a little bit because I don't want to do so much anymore.

Antal Dorati16:44

I am now of that age, I think, that it is expected of me by others and by myself to produce less experimental things, but produce

Antal Dorati16:54

What I know best.

Antal Dorati16:56

produced that better.

Presenter16:57

Now, in your time, you've given the first performances of of a number of very distinguished modern works. Which ones do you value most?

Antal Dorati17:03

One

Antal Dorati17:06

Well, uh let's think back of my B B C times maybe because there would be too many to enumerate, but there were very interesting uh things then. For instance, the Plague by Roberto Gerhard and also the Concerto for Orchestra by Roberto Gerhard, the first performance of which actually was not in England, but in Boston.

Presenter17:23

Yeah.

Antal Dorati17:24

And the English premiere came later.

Presenter17:27

What about your own compositions? Uh do you still find time to to work as a composer?

Antal Dorati17:31

Boyous.

Antal Dorati17:32

I don't

Presenter17:32

Uh

Antal Dorati17:32

Uh

Presenter17:33

Always composed. Yes, he wrote every

Antal Dorati17:34

Yeah.

Presenter17:36

You have composed a a symphony and a magician.

Antal Dorati17:37

I composed a symphony, I composed uh Mr. Brevist, then I have

Antal Dorati17:42

Several other orchestral pieces. I've got a piano concerto, a cello concerto, an oboe concerto, a flute concerto.

Antal Dorati17:50

Right now I'm working on a string quartet.

Presenter17:52

You have got through a fantastic amount of work. It's said that you've made more records than any other conductor. Have you any idea how many?

Antal Dorati17:59

Well yes, I have a big idea. It's between five and six hundred records, but I don't know whether it is more or less than any other conductor.

Presenter18:05

I doubt if anybody can match that. You you had that mammoth project of recording all the Haydn symphonies. How many is it? A hundred and

Antal Dorati18:12

These are actually material of 110 symphonies. It's interestingly put together 106 symphonies. Then there's

Antal Dorati18:22

A symphony concertante with four solo instruments that would be one hundred seven and there is uh

Antal Dorati18:29

Two symphonies in two versions, that would be 109. And then he's got four extra finales, which

Presenter18:36

Yeah.

Antal Dorati18:38

is the material of another symphony for a woman, so

Presenter18:39

Former

Presenter18:40

And you're finished all right.

Antal Dorati18:41

And these are older, oh yes, long time ago.

Presenter18:45

Another record. Number six we've got to.

Antal Dorati18:49

This would be Brahms.

Antal Dorati18:51

And this will be the also chamber music, the clarinet quintet, which is also.

Antal Dorati18:55

uh going way back to my childhood.

Antal Dorati18:58

And has accompanied me ever since.

Presenter19:03

The opening of the Brahms Clarinet Quintet in B minor, the Amadeir string quartet with Karl Leister.

Presenter19:10

Now you've recently published your autobiography, Notes of Seven Decades, a very entertaining book.

Presenter19:17

My favorite among many good stories is is is one of Toscanini on a transatlantic ship called The Vulcania that you were on together. I I wish you'd tell us that story.

Antal Dorati19:28

That was a very interesting time. That was the only time I really was together with Toscanini for ten days in a row. And it it was in many ways very, very interesting to talk to him every day.

Antal Dorati19:39

The the anecdote you are referring to is concerning the Ship's Band, which was a very modest band.

Antal Dorati19:47

and playing rather poorly for the passengers at tea time, at after dinner time, etcetera.

Presenter19:53

How many in the band?

Antal Dorati19:54

Oh, there were about five, you know, small and small band. The chief was the pianist.

Presenter19:55

Not a small

Antal Dorati19:59

I I ne I never really went in to listen to them because I was too much an outdoor fellow at that time. But I had my walks around the deck and I heard when I passed by, I heard how they played.

Antal Dorati20:11

And that didn't entice me really to hear them nearer. But one day,

Antal Dorati20:16

I heard them playing much worse than any other day.

Antal Dorati20:20

In fact, so much worse that I was interested what happened to them. Did they have the plague or did they what happened?

Antal Dorati20:26

And indeed something very curious happened to them in that hall when I

Antal Dorati20:32

entered it, I saw the normal setting, the people having their tea and drinking, and on the podium there was this band of five people playing, trembling, pale, white, like sheets.

Antal Dorati20:45

and about five paces from them was one single chair, and on that chair sat with folded arms and sternly looking, biting his moustache, Toscanin, listening to the band.

Speaker 120:56

Unto them.

Antal Dorati20:58

And of course nobody of these poor people, nobody could play a

Presenter20:58

Hello, God.

Antal Dorati21:03

Note.

Antal Dorati21:05

That was the beginning of a very great friendship between the pianist and Toscanini, the pianist of the band and Toscanini, because in a subsequent meeting they discovered that they were both from Parma and that made them brothers. And from that time Toscanini always talked to me about the maestro, and he said he very respectfully said the maestro and he he had a conversation with me and said now will you excuse me because I promised the maestro that I will talk to him just now and then he left.

Presenter21:32

This was Toscanini talking about the leader of the past.

Antal Dorati21:33

Ganini, talking about the pianists or the band as demise. Yeah, that was very sweet.

Antal Dorati21:39

And once I went by and hear a tremendous shouting in this room, and I look in and there's Toscanini with the band somehow.

Antal Dorati21:47

rehearsing, shouting at them, and of course he was always very rude when he rehearsed that he shouted them, idiots Cretnas, what are you doing? No, no, this way, no, Madonna

Antal Dorati22:00

Later on he told me

Antal Dorati22:02

Do you know what I did this morning?

Antal Dorati22:04

And I said, No, maestro, tell me wh what did you do? And he says, I was showing new cuts in the normal fantasy to the maestro.

Presenter22:13

But he said

Antal Dorati22:14

But he said it so proudly, as if that would been the chief achievement of his life.

Presenter22:15

Has he

Presenter22:19

And you really got them going. Yeah. Splendid. Let's have another record.

Antal Dorati22:21

Yeah.

Antal Dorati22:24

Now comes Schubert, and this will be a part of the winterizer.

Presenter22:28

And which of the songs would you like to hear, and who shall sing it?

Antal Dorati22:32

Well, we will hear the Tai Shong and it will be sung for us by Fischer Diskow, who sings it incomparably actually.

Presenter22:40

Dietrich Fischer Diska singing Teuschung from Schubert's song title, Winter Reiser, and Gerald Moore was at the piano. How well equipped do you think you are to look after yourself?

Presenter22:51

Are you good?

Presenter22:53

As a handyman, could you rig up a shelter somewhere to live?

Antal Dorati22:57

Oh yes, I think I could do that. I it it would be much worse with cooking. I think I would eat only raw food what I can find on the trees.

Presenter23:04

What about fishing? Have you done any? No.

Antal Dorati23:06

Never.

Presenter23:06

Uh-huh.

Antal Dorati23:07

I I would not catch an animal, I would not wound an animal, I would abhor to do that.

Presenter23:12

Right. Would you try to escape?

Antal Dorati23:14

Oh yes. The first building job would be a raft.

Presenter23:17

Do you know anything about t navigating? No.

Antal Dorati23:20

Boom.

Antal Dorati23:21

But I I began with not knowing anything about anything, so why shouldn't I try that?

Presenter23:24

Why not? Your last record. What's that to be?

Antal Dorati23:28

That will be speech, because I don't think I would like to be without a spoken word.

Antal Dorati23:33

And that should be English speech, and it should be Shakespeare's text.

Antal Dorati23:37

And I have chosen something which I love to hear and I heard in my life as often as I possibly could, and that was Olivia's performance of Richard the Third.

Presenter23:50

Laurence Olivier as Richard the Third, that was taken from the soundtrack of his film.

Presenter23:56

Well, there are your eight records. If you could take only one of the eight you've played us, which would it be?

Antal Dorati24:02

But definitely the one which my wife plays. Because I like to be with her, as I told you before. I I'm not not at all for this shipwrecking if she wouldn't be along, but at least this one record would be with me, and that would be the one I would play.

Presenter24:15

All right, that nice piece of Mendelsohn. And one luxury to take to the island?

Antal Dorati24:20

The luxury piece would be one of my old master drawing collections probably. And also in collection with uh

Presenter24:26

And it was

Antal Dorati24:30

my wife, because that would be the page which she gave me on my seventieth birthday.

Antal Dorati24:35

And it's a very nice Italian landscape by Van Cleve, the Dutch artist.

Presenter24:39

You are fond of drawing yourself, aren't you?

Antal Dorati24:40

Oh yes, yes. As a diligent I draw quite a lot.

Presenter24:44

and one book to take apart from the Bible and Shakespeare and big encyclopedias.

Antal Dorati24:48

Well, uh that would be in my mother tongue, that would be in Hungarian.

Antal Dorati24:53

And it would not be a contemporary book and not too old, and it would be an entertaining book by a very fine.

Antal Dorati24:59

Novelist, his name is Yokoi.

Antal Dorati25:02

He wrote very much. He wrote about seventy or eighty novels and really wonderful. He's the Hungarian Duma, as a matter of fact.

Antal Dorati25:12

Probably I would choose one which is called as Oranyamer and it means the Golden Man.

Presenter25:17

Right, the Golden Man. And thank you, Antal Dorati, for letting us hear your Desert Island Discs.

Antal Dorati25:23

Well, thank you for having me shipwrecked with you again.

Presenter25:26

You are

Antal Dorati25:26

You are the great expert on shipwrecking. You have been shipwrecked many thousand times. Me only the second time.

Presenter25:32

I hope there will be a third maestro.

Antal Dorati25:34

Thank you very much.

Presenter25:35

Goodbye, everyone.