James Loughran

Speaker 20:00

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

Speaker 20:05

For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in 1982, and the presenter was Roy Plumley.

Presenter0:31

This week our castaway is the conductor, James Lochran, having a quieter time now that the proms are over. That last night must be quite an experience, Emily. It's always an experience. It's a sort of evergreen. That was the fourth time that I've uh conducted. And it's still something I look forward to, and it's still stimulating. It's always marvellous how quiet.

James Loughran0:40

Tool.

Presenter0:52

The audiences during the first half, then after the interval all hell pops. I think they have primarily come to hear music. And, of course, being the last night, they like to let their hair down, so it's it's a sort of controlled exuberance.

Presenter1:07

Well, now, we're taking you away from it all and putting you on this desert island.

Presenter1:12

What would you be happiest you got away from?

Presenter1:15

the noise of industrial cities, the musak of restaurants, all that enforced noise, I would love to look forward to silence.

Presenter1:27

Well, you're going to break your silence with the eight records we're allowing you. Would you rather have scores than discs? No, I'd rather have music that I could hear through my ears rather than my eyes. Did you have any plan in choosing your eight discs? Yes. At first it was difficult because there were so many choices, so many avenues one could choose. But I felt that on one hand, in order of priority, I wouldn't need music.

Presenter1:52

That I already had in my head for my the standard repertoire and music that I love very much.

Presenter2:00

I would rather have, as I only could have eight records, music that reflected different moods that we inevitably have in the course of a day or or a week or whatever. Where do we start? What's your first disc?

Presenter2:14

The first disc is a record of the monks of Solem singing some plain song from Easter.

Presenter2:21

And the reason I chose this was really my first experience in making music was singing.

Presenter2:28

plain song and the music of Palestrina Victoria in a choir. And uh it made a a very vivid impression in spite of the fact that I was uh asked to leave the choir for bad behaviour uh when I reached eight years of age. But in those early years I loved it and I would love to have this spiritual side to listen to.

Speaker 33:16

Maybe

Presenter3:51

Some Easter plain song by the monks of Soleim.

Presenter3:55

Now, Jemmy, you're a Scot from what part of Scotland? From Glasgow.

Presenter3:59

Any tradition for music in the family?

Presenter4:02

Apart from the church choir before you was act at the age of eight? Only that there was always music in the family in an amateur way. My father had a most marvellous voice and uh he would take me to the theatre. Um nothing in the line that I'm now involved in insofar as I I never really went to a a symphony concert before the age of thirteen. But I did go to the theatre uh to musicals and pantomime and that sort of thing.

Presenter4:30

Were you an executant yourself? Could you play the piano?

Presenter4:33

I started, yes, because there was a piano at home and I tried to make noises on the piano until I had lessons, in fact. Did you go to music college? No. I was slightly put off going to music college because I did apply for a music scholarship when I was twelve and at the audition had a a flaming row with the principal because he insisted on whistling when I was playing my Beethoven sonata. I'm sure he was quite right. You know, I was probably playing it badly. But I gave him the choice of either whistling or listening to me play. And it it created such a bad impression that I thought academies were places where people were manufactured into musicians. So it psychologically was a black mark on my career. So what happened next?

James Loughran4:59

I'm sure he was.

Presenter5:18

Well, I I had lots of private lessons, of course, but conducting is the sort of profession where you must have, because you've got to continue throughout your your life, to have an a sort of inquisitive mind to learn by yourself. And most of the conductors that I've met have been self-taught, and I certainly feel that I owe a great deal to what I picked up. First of all, through the radio.

Presenter5:43

I can remember one year logging everything I ever heard

Presenter5:48

And it amounted to something like sixteen hours listening a week. And the BBC were was responsible for providing hundreds of pieces of repertoire that I could, in fact, delve into. And my thirst was insatiable, it seemed to be. What was your first appearance in public as a musician, as a pianist, or whatever? I think my first uh appearance was as a pianist, going on holiday, and being asked would anybody like to come up and play something for the summer audience? And I've got half a crown, I remember, for playing Poit and Peasant. They asked if I would do it with cuts, but

James Loughran6:21

They asked if I would

Presenter6:23

I didn't.

Presenter6:25

When did you start studying music full time?

Presenter6:28

That's rather difficult to say. I I think I must have been

Presenter6:32

twenty four by the time I could completely give myself over. What had you been doing before that? Well, before that, uh, you see, I'd been at school and then did my national service and then I intended, really, going into the academy.

Presenter6:44

But during the time that I was in the National Service I had continued to study music where I could, and um lots of people recognised this conducting talent I had and suggested that I should go back to Scotland as an assistant conductor.

Presenter7:01

But there were no funds in those days to even uh suggest that I I I could be taken on the staff. And my parents said, Now you're a young fellow, why don't you go and study something else? And so I studied law and economics for four years. Did you enjoy that? I enjoyed it very much, yes. And it was a very good discipline. At least I was able to work at something that um wasn't necessarily music and and make something of it. What made you change direction?

Presenter7:29

My finals.

Presenter7:31

I was re sitting the finals in company law.

Presenter7:36

And a moment came of truth where I looked at the clock every ten minutes in the Mitchell Library in Glasgow, I remember.

Presenter7:44

And so as a diversion.

Presenter7:47

I thought I would go and explore the music library. I went up, took down a score of Meistersinger, and three hours later I looked at the clock.

Presenter7:57

And uh the rest speaks for itself. I mean, I had had my discipline away from music, finding out whether I could work at something else, and learned a great deal, but there was no point in continuing. Let's break at this point for your second record.

Presenter8:13

After the war I was greatly influenced by the music of Bartok and Ravel and Stravinsky, and of the British composers at that time, Vaughan Williams and Walton especially, I loved, and there was a recording, the very first recording of the Walton Violin Concerto.

Presenter8:31

And that was the composer's first thoughts which he subsequently reorchestrated that I would love to take on this desert island.

Presenter9:37

An excerpt from the last movement of the Walton Violin Concerto, Yasha High Fitz with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Eugene Gussens.

Presenter9:47

Now you went off to study in Germany? Yes. Whereabouts? In Bonn.

Presenter9:52

I had the choice of going to Vienna with Swarovski or to a small opera house and I was advised, I think now very wisely, because I was then twenty-four, twenty-five, that it would be better to go straight into the opera house and learn my craft, so to speak, from the beginning. And I did everything working in the opera house from eight o'clock in the morning until eleven o'clock at night. And that experience was extremely good for me because I was thrown right into the profession. And in Germany, you see, you serve your indentures rather like an accountant or a solicitor student would do in this country. It's quite normal for somebody to want to be a conductor there. Where at that time we only had two opera houses in Britain, Sanders Wales and Coven Garden, and they were a little too big to start. And I enjoyed very much all the experience I got. So you played the piano at rehearsals and prompted and did everything else.

James Loughran10:56

Because

Presenter10:59

Who was in charge at Bonn at that time? The conductor Peter Marg. And was he helpful? Oh, yes, he was very helpful insofar as that he knew what I needed to do and directed the practical side. The conducting side was very limited. I mean, I only got to conduct a dress rehearsal of Idomineo in the first year, but then I only expected that. I was landed with being responsible for producing the musical side of an operetta that hasn't quite reached these shores and probably never will. What was it? The name of the opera was Schwarzwald Medel by a man called Jessel, the Black Forest Maiden. And that has remained indelible in my mind ever since. And she still hasn't arrived yet? No, she hasn't. How long did you stay in Bonn? For a year. And then Marg moved to Amsterdam and wanted me to be his assistant there in the opera house. But he decided to leave Amsterdam by about the November. I prepared Cosy for the festival and went back and did other operas in Amsterdam and then moved on to Milan with my uh travelling scholarship because the one part of me that I found was um had very little experience was Italian opera and I wanted to actually live in Italy and get the feeling of just how it was to make music there and coach singers and so on. Were you working at La Scala? No, I would have loved to have worked at La Scala, but they wouldn't accept

James Loughran12:25

No.

Presenter12:30

students, even Italian students and certainly not foreign students in those days. So I just I used to go round to La Scala to collect my post because uh everyone uh who knew where I stayed would just send my mail to the opera house and the opera house in Milan happens to be La Scala, but I didn't work there, no. Your third record, what's that?

Presenter12:51

The third record is a reflection of my student years in Amsterdam, because although it's not connected with the Opera House, the music in the streets of Amsterdam always intrigued me, and I would love to hear some of the hurdy gurdy organ music that is so common there.

Presenter14:09

A marvellous Dutch street organ.

Presenter14:12

Playing the entrance march from Johann Strauss's The Gypsy Baron.

Presenter14:16

Right back in Britain

Presenter14:18

Was there a job waiting for you? Back in Britain there was no job at all. I arrived in the summer and had just a few pounds left from my scholarship.

Presenter14:28

and did a a few jobs in the meantime. What's oh well uh working in a travel agent and a typing pool and playing the piano for a very funny film where the film showed the person playing the piano at the wrong end of where the music should have been.

James Loughran14:32

What sort?

Speaker 314:37

Yeah.

Presenter14:47

coming out. Yeah. And otherwise it would be in the basic when I was supposed to be playing the treble.

Presenter14:52

And subsequently saw that there was a competition uh for young conductors and entered for that with the Philharmonia. And you won it? Yes, I won it. That was.

Presenter15:02

In nineteen sixty-one, I think.

Presenter15:06

It led to being appointed to Bournemouth as an assistant conductor, where I worked with uh Konstantin Silvestri.

James Loughran15:14

You have

James Loughran15:17

Yeah.

Presenter15:19

So, assistant to Silvestri, the next step was to get your own orchestra.

Presenter15:25

Be in charge yourself. Where did that happen? Well, that happened just over three years later when a post came vacant with the BBC in Scotland. And having been away for some time, and this was an orchestra that nursed me when I was in kilts and went up to the the studio on Ian White's Day.

Speaker 315:25

Yeah, so

Speaker 315:26

Where does that

Presenter15:47

I was absolutely thrilled to go back to Glasgow and spent six very, very happy years with this uh wonderful orchestra. Was there much travelling involved? No, not at all. I lived exactly six minutes' walk away from the studio and caused many a producer heart attack because I used to leave my house seven minutes before the broadcast.

Presenter16:09

This was in Glasgow. Yes, I hate waiting around for performances. I would rather just walk in and and turn my mind to the music then.

James Loughran16:10

Yes, and I hate

Presenter16:17

All right, providing you had a reliable watch. Yes, yes, a slight exaggeration. Record number four.

Presenter16:25

Well, the one composer I feel that I could not be without on a desert island w would be Schubert, which may be a surprise to many listeners associated with Brahms and Beethoven, etc. But Schubert to me is is the most natural composer. He's not trying to establish himself in any particular way. He's just it just flows

Presenter16:46

For his friends and those who love music. And I'd love to hear the second movement of his trio in B-flat, the first one.

Presenter17:54

Part of the second movement, the Andante, from Schubert's Trio Number One in B flat major, played by Corto, Thibault and Casals.

Presenter18:03

Now there was a very important appointment waiting for you round the corner after your six years in Glasgow.

Presenter18:10

Oh, yes, that was quite a surprise because I hadn't even considered this appointment and suddenly

Presenter18:17

I was invited to conduct the Halley Orchestra as a guest conductor.

Presenter18:22

in the following season.

Presenter18:24

and it was a most enjoyable prom.

Presenter18:27

And from that things seemed to flow that the they wanted me to join the orchestra as their principal conductor. Which must have been rather a challenge taking over after such a beloved figure as Sir John Barbie Rowley.

Presenter18:40

Yes, it was a challenge, but if you've got something in common.

Presenter18:45

with someone you admire, like as I did with Sir John, I felt that I was the fellow that really should follow. And I must say I I loved immediately the sound of the orchestra because although the BBC orchestra was also a great love of mine, we we had to play in a studio and the Halley Orchestra was used to playing to the public and it wasn't ashamed to play to the public, it enjoyed doing so. One reason why it's it's it's a very loved orchestra.

Speaker 319:08

Uh

Presenter19:12

And you began making a lot of records with the Halle. It's true to say that you're most atonement in the German repertoire, is it, Jimmy? People feel this about me, although I I I I'd like to f feel I've got a Catholic appreciation. I love conducting French music and and British music and Russian music and so on. But I do have, I think, an affinity with the Teutonic repertoire.

Presenter19:36

What have we got to record number five? What's that to be? Record five is an unusual record in so far as I felt that on a desert island with no instruments I would like to do as they do in the Western Islands.

Presenter19:48

where if there are no instruments around, they have mouth music. This is music that's not necessarily connected with any specific words. It's the syllables that make the rhythm. And you can make up your own syllables in your own words and your own particular rhythmic pattern. And uh having this would I think spurn me on to make my own particular mouth music and uh I thought this would be a very useful record on a desert island.

James Loughran20:18

Shaino hooded taleshino hurt, shan yo hood taleshinu huda talaro, shinyo hood at the shinyo hurtl, shine your hood at the shiny hoodo, he can feel it and knocks gabina he knock and porch, he can feel it and knock and oak, he can feel it, shine your hooded till a shiny or hurt, shine your hood at the shano hood atlaro, shine your hood at the shine yo hurtl, shine your hood at tell the shiny hood atloro, and a mercamahiri hana sir, gamahiri hanemer, gamahiri hagamish tilet, shine yo hood at taleshino hurt, shine your hood at the shano hood atlaro, shine your hood at the shino hurtle, shine your hood at tell, shine hurt at the ro, hick me no larna now, hitch me now at an owl hickmino let an old coyote and tile, shine your hood at the shiny hurt, shine your hood at the shano hood atlaro, shine your hood at on, shine your hood at till a shine or talaro

Presenter21:09

Some Scottish mouth music in that example was by Norman Kennedy.

Presenter21:14

While you were with the Halle, you also took the post of principal conductor with the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra. Not one of the best known in this country, but very old established, I believe. Yes, it's not really all that very well known, although it has toured Britain before with the Rudolph Kempe. Where exactly is Bamberg?

Presenter21:33

Well, it's northern Bavaria. You have to think of uh north of Munich and Nuremberg on the way to Bayreuth. It's between Nuremberg and Bayreuth. And uh what sort of repertoire? It's uh very much uh a German Czech repertoire.

Presenter21:53

I've introduced a great deal of British works, Elga Symphonies and so on. And we had a concert in Bayreuth recently where the first half was Unknown Bartock and the second half was Elga's First Symphony. And that was quite enough, I think, for Bayreuth for a long time to come. So it's it's yes, quite a restricted repertoire. I believe they do Bruckner Eight every other week. Sort of thing. What sort of uh conditions are? Do you get more rehearsal time there than you do in Britain? Oh, yes. The pace of life is entirely different.

Speaker 322:19

Yeah.

Speaker 322:20

Uh

Presenter22:27

I get three times more rehearsal than I would with any British orchestra. Three times as much. Oh, yes, I could be rehearsing. I have rehearsed before now for eight days before I've actually done the concert. Uh which is too much. And over the years I've been there I have reduced it because it tells in the style of an orchestra if you give it too much. It also tells if you give it too little. And there's a happy medium and and it's easier to work.

Presenter22:51

to reduce rehearsal is to ask for more sometimes.

Presenter22:55

One fascinating experience in your career. You were commissioned by the BBC to record all nine Beethoven symphonies. Which year was this, by the way? This was nineteen sixty nine. Before you went to the Halley. Yes, it was uh for the Bicentenary.

James Loughran23:06

Before you

James Loughran23:07

Yeah.

Presenter23:10

And you went to the original manuscripts? We went with uh Robert Simpson to as many manuscripts as we could lay our hands on. We were guided by the archives in Bonn by this, and we exchanged a great deal of um information. It was a time when there was a great deal of musical scholarship in in Britain, and I scraped off all the tradition, all the wallpaper, and presented them as we thought they would be heard

James Loughran23:18

Yeah.

Speaker 323:18

Well guys

James Loughran23:18

Uh

Presenter23:38

to an audience that had not heard Brahms and Mahler and Strauss, that had only heard Mozart and Bach and Hendel, which is a different kind of sound, and that in itself was a very interesting experiment to do for for someone like the B B C.

Speaker 323:41

But

Presenter23:53

But when I then found that I had to work again at them, the Romanticism and the Classicism began to mix much more, and I find now that I put a lot of wallpaper back on those performances, and that my performances have become more romantic and got a little more red blood in them than those um studied ones that we did in nineteen sixty nine.

Presenter24:19

What's your sixth record?

Presenter24:21

The sixth record then follows that I would love to have something of Beethoven and thinking about it, the one piece that I would love is the quartet from Fidelio, because this would certainly satisfy moments of reflection and deeper thought that one o occasionally needs time to time.

Speaker 324:55

I might be shown last time.

Presenter25:42

The quartet from the first act of Beethoven's Fidelio sung by Christa Ludwig, Gottlob Frick, Ingeborg Hallstein, and Gerhard Unge, and conducted, of course, by Klampere.

Presenter25:55

Recently, Jemmy, you've resigned from both the Halle and the Bamberg Orchestra. Why?

Presenter26:02

I'm resigning from the end of next season because I felt that it was a time in my life, I'd been 12 years with the Halley Orchestra, which I felt. That was all I could do, certainly, with this particular post, and the orchestra's playing so splendidly just now that it's much better to take a back seat when they are so good.

Presenter26:22

And after fifty I felt I would like to be stimulated to do lots of other things, because for the last years I've been so busy with two orchestras that I haven't had time to do lots of things that I'm keen to do before I've finished my career. Like things like, for example, I've only conducted, I was saying just one opera in in twelve years and I adore working with singers. And you really need seven weeks to be able to do this, a good opera with production rehearsals and so on.

James Loughran26:39

What things in particular?

Presenter26:55

And I'd like also to visit other orchestras that have been inviting me and are getting rather tired of s of saying, No, I haven't got any time and be stimulated by other sounds. There are other mountains to climb, I feel.

Presenter27:09

Another record.

Presenter27:11

One great regret in my life was that I was never able to play a stringed instrument. I wanted very, very much to do so. And there's the story of when I was at school,

Presenter27:21

I went to my headmaster and said I desperately want to learn the violin.

Presenter27:26

And the classic answer I received was, Have you mastered the piano?

Presenter27:31

So there was no response to that. I found that I w th I just had to buy a violin and secretly try to get uh lessons in them. But I was never good enough to be able to play w to my satisfaction, certainly, so I don't regard myself as being able to play the violin at all.

Presenter27:46

And therefore I must have some string music. And one piece I'm very fond of is the Devorch Serenade.

Presenter28:54

The opening of the Borschak Serenade for Strings in E major, the English Chamber Orchestra conducted by Raphael Kubelik.

Presenter29:01

What are your hobbies outside music, Jimmy?

Presenter29:04

Recently the joke has been that I've been taking up golf, which I have done reasonably seriously. But I love walking. I love travelling. Yes. Thank goodness. Just as well. I may not do much of it once I get to the desert island, but at least I like exploring new places. So I look forward to that. Have you any skills that might be useful to you in the way of constructing a shelter? Fishing. I have absolutely no skills that would be useful to me except a willingness to try.

Presenter29:39

All right. What about small boats? You like travelling. Would you try and get away?

Presenter29:44

Well, it really depends how comfortable I am on this desert island, but uh

Presenter29:49

I wouldn't consider myself a very brave person from that point of view, but I may see what's round the other side of the island uh uh first of all to see

Presenter29:57

A little caution. A little caution to begin with.

Speaker 229:58

A little

Speaker 329:58

Caution to begin with, yeah.

Presenter30:01

Your last record.

Presenter30:04

is really to reflect on the marvellous sense of British tongue in cheek humour that I think I would miss very much on on the island. And one of my heroes in my early days was Sir Thomas Beacham.

Presenter30:18

who gave me the impression that he did everything very well without taking life too seriously.

Presenter30:24

And he arranged some music of Handel, and one of those pieces, which is from his ballet music to Love in Bath, is has been a long favourite of mine, which I would love to chuckle over, and that's the hornpipe.

Presenter31:37

The Hornpipe, from Love in Bath, Sir Thomas Beacham conducting the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

Presenter31:43

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

Presenter31:48

It would be the quartet from Fidelio.

Presenter31:51

And one luxury to take to the island, one object of no practical use? It's the no practical use that I find very difficult to satisfy. I mean, I've thought of all sorts of things like mermaids and sand clubs for playing golf and so on, but uh no doubt they could be put to practical use. What I think I would like to do is, with the time I have, go back

Presenter32:13

to one of my first loves, and that is drawing and painting. So if I could have some paints and um some charcoal and paper, is that allowed? Is that too much? No, that's perfectly all right. Perfectly all right. I'm sorry we can't allow the mermaid.

James Loughran32:22

Robot.

Presenter32:27

And one book apart from the Bible and Shakespeare, which are already there. Well, this is going to sound very, very dull because I thought of anthologies and all sorts of things. But the one book I would really like to have

James Loughran32:31

Yeah.

Presenter32:39

is

Presenter32:40

a world airways comprehensive timetable. Because in the last twenty years, I have been so furious at the way these timetables are organized that I always miss my connection by half an hour or there's not enough time for the baggage to go around. I would like to spend

Presenter32:58

My time constructively making out the perfect timetable to suit everybody's connection. And that would keep me, I think, busy for a few weeks. A few years, I should think. Right, and thank you, James Loughland, for letting us hear your Desert Island Discs. Oh, that's been a pleasure. Thank you. Goodbye, everyone.

Speaker 233:23

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