Carlo Curley

Speaker 30:00

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

Speaker 30:05

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

Carlo Curley0:31

This week, our Castaway is the organist, Carlo Curley. Carlo, how well could you adjust yourself to loneliness? Completely?

Presenter0:37

Loneliness. Oh, that's a very, very difficult question, actually. I've never been lonely, because just in this past concert season during the year between the States and this country, I've performed over eighty engagements, and I can tell you that's a lot of paw-shaking after the concerts. But I don't know, it would be a little bit difficult. I do like time on my own, and perhaps I fancy it. I would love to do that, actually.

Presenter0:58

Apart from the loss of companionship, what would be the worst thing about it?

Presenter1:02

Oh, I think the wonderful camaraderie that I receive from talking on the telephone. I have a disease called black cord disease, telephonitis, as the GPO can attest. And I I love talking on the phone. All my friends see me coming, and the phone's locked away in the cupboard. All of them, you see. So um this is a slight problem, but I survive. You play discs a lot. I do. I have a very, very large gramophone collection. Near enough 8,000 recordings, yeah.

Carlo Curley1:26

You take some

Presenter1:27

Brown with the Annual travel? Mm, no, cassette tapes mainly for listening, you know, with these new very small uh recorders that you can wear over your ears that blot out society entirely, including people preparing to run you over on the streets, you know.

Carlo Curley1:37

Yeah

Carlo Curley1:40

All right. So when you're skateboarding backwards with

Presenter1:43

How very I'd never fit on a skateboard, my dear. What do you say? How rude

Carlo Curley1:45

What are you s how rude

Carlo Curley1:48

What's your first record?

Presenter1:50

Well, my first record is one recorded by E. Power Biggs. It's a selection by the American composer Charles Ives, entitled The Variations on America. I think it's a good, clean, musical, fun escape from mister Ives.

Carlo Curley3:02

E. Power Biggs, Charles Ives's Variations on My Country Tis of Thee.

Carlo Curley3:07

Now, you are, of course, from the United States.

Carlo Curley3:11

Carlos is

Presenter3:11

Italian. Are you of Italian stock? Not at all, as a matter of fact. The Carlo, of course, is an Italian name, as you well say. The Curly is of Irish extraction. My entire mob came from Dublin, settled in Massachusetts. Members of my family, my past generation, became involved in politics in Massachusetts and so forth. Not any of them were musicians necessarily, but my mother was a concert violinist and played in Florida in a proper symphony orchestra. And my grandmother was a very fine pianist and taught at the New England Conservatory in Boston for many years. And when she retired to North Carolina, that is when I made the great mistake one day of entering the room at four and a half years old, I can tell you, and I sat down at a little baby piano, you know, one of the small five and dime things that has about an octave and a half, and it plays bells instead of hitting strings. And she was playing some box, something from the well-tempered, as I recall, so the story goes. And she was playing along, and I started following her, you know, just from ear. Just instinctively. Just instinctively, and just hearing it. Just the melody, of course, but almost verbatim, she tells me. And that was perhaps the greatest single mistake of my life, because I was immediately delivered into the next room, just chained to the piano bench of a horrible Gulbranson upright, and forced to practice five or six hours for the next three years, you see. When there's a story that you demanded to play the organ. Well, yes, that's actually very true. But I not only demanded, but I was refused. And I didn't like that very well. The church organist was very uppity, horrible chap. We asked him, he refused, and I came back the following Saturday, after having asked the previous Sunday, and took matters into my own hands. I think I was six or so at the time. I took a Coca-Cola bottle or a pop bottle and simply broke out the window in the basement of the fellowship hall of the local Methodist church. It had a very fine pipe organ of the day. I went upstairs. I had managed to cut myself, which took twenty-five stitches to repair. I still have the marks on my body. Can you imagine it? And I went up and pushed the blower on, and when that first surge of wind hit the bellows, I knew I was caught. The organ bug fever had bitten, and I've been playing the king of instruments ever since.

Carlo Curley5:18

Now you started practising. They accepted you as a as a young organist.

Presenter5:22

Hmm. Well, my grandmother, of course, she believed that the piano was the more superior instrument. It's amazing, though, that as an organist, I did all of my preparation and all of my work on the piano, you see, to prepare technique-wise and so forth. My talent was built on a very, very good foundation, and now, of course, I have the technical side mastered as well as I feel I can on the organ, and therefore one can deal with only the musical problems. Usually, with the organ, it's in the reverse, you see. Everyone sits for hours and days and years and so forth and tries to conquer the mechanics of the machine. And I would like to think that I've overcome that thanks to her forcing me and chaining me to the Galbranson piano. Ugh, loathsome years, those, I can tell you. Do you remember the first time you played in public?

Presenter6:06

Yes, I was horrified. Oh, it was awful. It was in the town hall in Monroe, North Carolina, which seconded as a recreation center where people shot billiards. And I was more interested in the billiard tables than I was the piano on the stage, you see. And I won the competition, actually, hands down, but I came in with billiard chalk and and powder all over me hands, and I know it made the key the keys very

Carlo Curley6:08

Well was it

Presenter6:28

Very slick, and it seemed that I went from a linto to a presto a little bit too quickly, so God knows why, but in any case, it's not a good idea.

Carlo Curley6:33

Yeah.

Carlo Curley6:36

Now you

Presenter6:37

You were an infant prodigy and a an object of wonder, really. How did you react to that? Well, it never occurred to me because I was made to work so very hard. I entered an arts school at a very young age, which did not necessarily deal in academic things such as your spelling and your math as much as it did in teaching you uh solfege and fugue and counterpoint and composition and etcetera and etcetera. And I'm very glad for that because I went to a school called the North Carolina School of the Arts, which was the very first state supported school in the United States for talented children in the State. And they would fly teachers down from Juilliard in New York City once a week and so forth. And if you lived in the State, there was absolutely no charge to the pupil at all. And I mean for a State like North Carolina, which is considered the South, you know, it was very advanced. I mean it was really it was very well done then. And now many other states have followed suit, but they beat New York at it and everything. I'm very proud to be from the South because I think they they have their head quite on their shoulders quite properly. Great.

Carlo Curley7:35

Let's have your second record. What's that to be?

Presenter7:37

Well, as I think I mentioned to you, I adore to make the organ sing. I'm a real fan of melody, and I've chosen something by Brahms from his lovely Requiem, How Lovely Is Thy Dwelling Place. I think it's a beautiful, beautiful piece.

Speaker 48:10

God men save all

Carlo Curley8:50

How lovely is thy dwelling, Otto Klempere, conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra and Chorus.

Carlo Curley8:56

How old were you, Carla, when you took your first professional post as a church organist?

Presenter9:01

I was hired when I was fourteen, but I actually began after my birthday, which appears on August the 24th. So I was really fifteen when I began at a large Baptist church in Atlanta, Georgia. And you trained the choir? I trained the choir. The Baptist in the South loved to see loads and loads of little choirs and big choirs running up and down the aisles from all sorts of entrance and exit doors. And we had it was really a choral orgy every Sunday morning because the little babies, you know, sort of five and six years old, were very easy because they didn't know what parts were. So that was all in unison. It was the adult choir that I loved the most. And I think that's what made me love melodies so much, is because we did some very, very demanding oratorios and things. And it was a great experience for me. It really was. And then you moved on to a college? Yes, I did. I was hired when I was eighteen years old to be the head of the music department at Gerrard College in Philadelphia, which was a school founded by Stephen Gerrard, a great philanthropist who lived in the 1800s. The school is for fatherless boys and college in the sense of the word as you know it. The chapel's a wonderful edifice. It seats 3,000 people. It's solid marble. It has a 70-foot ceiling off the ground there. And the organ pipes, all six odd thousand of them, are ensconced therein. It's one of the greatest romantic pipe organs in the world, and my teacher Virgil Fox recorded for RCA years ago because, of course, Camden is right across the river in New Jersey from Philadelphia where all the

Carlo Curley10:25

Relay.

Presenter10:26

Uh

Carlo Curley10:26

Uh

Presenter10:26

Did a

Carlo Curley10:26

Dollar

Presenter10:26

And so they just came across, and Virgil's first recording in, I believe it was 1930, 31, something of that nature, was done on the Girard organ. And so he helped me to get the position there. And I was there for two or three years. I studied privately with Dr. Virgil Fox and then came over to London at his advice to work and to be coached by Sir George Thalbin Ball, who is the doyen of the British organ scene. And I believe he's appeared on your program before as a marvelous personality.

Carlo Curley10:56

Yeah.

Presenter10:56

Hmm.

Presenter10:57

Let's break for your third record. I was given this recording about a year ago. A dear friend of mine, Ralph Mace, was the conductor of the orchestra. He was responsible for my securing my record contract with RCA. And he's conducting the orchestra. And it's Robert White, a new tenor on the scene, singing from an album called Songs My Father Taught Me. And the name of the song is Whispering Hope.

Presenter11:21

which is a lovely song which I knew from my grandmother and was taught it and sang it in the church choir as a solo when I was only six years old, as a bit of a budding boy soprano. I'm afraid things have changed since then.

Speaker 411:34

Soft as the voice of angel, breathing a lesson

Speaker 411:48

With a gentle pursuit on, Whispers her comforting word

Speaker 412:01

Wait till the darkness is o'er Wait till the tempest is dawn

Speaker 412:17

For the sunshine tomorrow after the shower is gone.

Carlo Curley12:29

Robert White singing Whispering Hope.

Carlo Curley12:32

Carlo, you began touring in the United States at the organ quite early.

Presenter12:36

I started when I was seventeen, doing a great number of concerts there, and it's developed right until I came over to England in nineteen seventy seven and became the first resident organist at the Alexandra Palace since 1939. And I brought with me my massive computer organ. You had bought that very early, at the age of twenty-four. That's right. Yes, indeed. It was with help from a certain great patroness of the arts, a Mrs. Candler.

Carlo Curley13:03

It had of course to be

Carlo Curley13:05

an electronic organ. Now surely a proper using the word you used just now a proper pipe organist loathes such things as as

Presenter13:13

Well, may I say to you, one would never say that the computer organ or the electronic organ industry and so forth can duplicate verbatim, absolutely 100% spot-on, the sound of a magnificent cathedral organ. But I'll tell you something, the organists who do not embrace or at least investigate the electronic organ and the computer organ mainly to see how it works and to see its very fine musical function, within 15 to 20 years they won't be able to have a job because that's going to be all there is because of the economy, Roy, really. I mean, an instrument of 38 stops you can buy for sort of 10,000 pounds, whereas an instrument of the same in pipes is 200,000 pounds, you see?

Carlo Curley13:55

It has to be a compromise.

Presenter13:56

Well, I'm afraid life is a compromise, but I would rather give to my audiences an eighty to eighty five percent effect of a cathedral organ rather than to give them nothing, you see. And there are so few buildings in this country which house proper concert pipe organs that having the computer organ is absolutely it's not second best. I consider it to be just the same way. I feel very comfortable at it, and its sound is quite stunning. If you were to hear it, you would be very impressed by it, I think.

Carlo Curley14:21

Now we do have some organs here, some very fine organs, of course, and I think you played most of them. Most of our cathedral organs are pretty good.

Presenter14:24

And to both night.

Presenter14:27

Yes, I've just had a had a great go at Peterborough Cathedral, which has one of the finest cathedral organs in the country, just rebuilt. I was down at Wells recently, and uh I've played at St. Paul's on the marvelous organ there, and yes, quite a few of the cathedrals, most of them, as a matter of fact. You have a stunning concert organ in the Royal Festival Hall. I it was installed in the year of my birth, nineteen and fifty two. But um the one I look forward to hearing the most is when the Alexandra Palace great Willis, the Father Willis organ, is restored and put back into its proper acoustic and made to sing once again.

Carlo Curley14:57

Yeah

Carlo Curley15:00

It was of course burned.

Presenter15:01

Yes, well, most of the innards of the organ were all stored in Petersfield, south of London, at Willis's shop. But um the great thirty-two-foot pipes which constitute the marvelous case, I'm afraid they all melted. Uh it was awful because a BBC producer friend of mine, Roger Tucker, was telling me that he walked past the hole as it was burning, the end of the hole where the great organ stood, and the heat was passing through the pipes and made the most hellacious chorus. The pipes were screaming, you know, and it could be heard literally for like a half a mile away. Can you imagine?

Speaker 415:22

Yeah.

Carlo Curley15:33

That's an eerie story. In any case, you believed the palace was haunted, didn't you?

Presenter15:38

Well, I've heard many things, you know. During my two or three years there I saw and heard things that people would never believe, really. I mean, I also had great friends, all the Pally Moggies, you know, the cats used to come and sit up on the plinth of the organ console, not really looking for food I'm quite sure they were well fed by the staff there, but they they would come up in a little a little box good for the soul, and I mean they just, you know, rolled around.

Presenter16:00

My dear fellow, I'll never forget the day. I was playing a very soft Bach Carl prelude, and there was a very lusty pigeon, a large one, who was up about eighty feet off the floor. It was holes in the glazing. You see, we had about three thousand people that Sunday afternoon. It was a concert sponsored by the GLC when they owned the palace. And I'll never forget a woman who had spent three quarters of her fortune on her hair, bless her heart. She had been in the chair in the coiffure. She had been there at least for five days, and they had built bird nest and everything in her hair. It was all stacked up about three feet off the top of her head. To make a short story longer, suddenly in the softest piece, this pigeon delivered a packet.

Carlo Curley16:12

So we

Presenter16:39

And it landed like any bomber would adore. Bomber Harris could never have had such accuracy. And she ran screaming from the hole in the middle of this piece and was never seen in Muswell Hill in 10 again, I could tell you. People said she really was quite horrified. I'm sure the pigeon had a nice laugh. I know I did.

Carlo Curley16:56

I know I did.

Presenter16:58

Right. I've um I've chosen a great work by Brahms again. He's one of my favorite composers. Uh the Symphony No. Four, uh the beginning of the third movement, I think is some of the most powerful writing in all the Romantic repertoire. It's one of my favorite pieces to listen to.

Carlo Curley18:16

The beginning of the third movement of the Brahms' Fourth Symphony, James Levine conducting the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

Carlo Curley18:24

Yeah.

Presenter18:24

You have a miss

Carlo Curley18:24

Missionary feeling about the organ dentukal.

Presenter18:27

Yes. I feel that the organ has been hiding its light under the bushels of many parish churches and cinemas and cathedrals for really the last one hundred and fifty years. The organ is the greatest of all the concert instruments. I mean many leading composers Schumann, Beethoven, etc. have said that the organ is the king of instruments, which I'm sure many of your listeners will disagree with. But in any event, I mean, I really think it is. And I'd love to see in some way in my lifetime the organ placed directly on the concert stage. I mean, I'm so tired of having to go up stairways, especially those which I don't fit into particularly well because of my girth. And uh you know, I'd love to see the organ console smack dead in the center of a cathedral so that you can see the person playing, so you can have the communion of the vision. It's so important. I mean, I always say, would Heifetz fiddle from behind a potted palm? Well, not likely. So, I mean, it's about time that organists came out of the dusty lofts and came downstairs and showed people what they have.

Carlo Curley19:24

Now you're a serious classical musician, but the posters you you put out are circus posters. The battle of the organs, a sonic extravaganza, all that stuff.

Presenter19:33

I have a great belief, Roy, that it is that until the classical musicians of this world

Presenter19:40

go into direct competition with the rock side of things. They will never be able to compete. And I would like to see in my lifetime the classic music established as not just an elitist thing, but something as it was conceived for for everybody. And so if it means coming down out of the tree in the black and white Royal Festival Hall approach, and if it means putting a battle of the organs into the Royal Albert Hall and putting five or six thousand people in to hear it.

Carlo Curley19:56

And

Presenter20:08

Wonderful. You know, I don't care how we do it, as long as we do it. The method doesn't concern me really. So it's a little glitz. I mean, I love a bit of Hollywood.

Carlo Curley20:16

Now you've got your computerized organ over here at the moment.

Presenter20:19

Yes, I have two of them actually. One one an American one here, yes. How much does it weigh?

Carlo Curley20:23

Hey, how easy is it to transport?

Presenter20:25

Well, this second one, of course, is far lighter. It it moves around now on about an 18 or a 20-foot larry. It takes five men, oh, approximately half a day, to set it up, and perhaps less on a flat stage if there's not too much lugging to do. But it all plays instantly and it can be tuned in five places. It has five digital computers which produce the sound. And you can tune to any orchestra. The instrument has been used with the Berlin Phil, it's been in Paris, it's been touring all over the place. It has about 200 odd thousand miles on it. And it can produce as much sound as a big pipe orchestra. Absolutely, I can assure you of that. We have rock and roll power without the pain.

Carlo Curley21:02

Now, you're going to use the Pink Floyd quadraphonic amplification system with your Turing organ in the near future. What's that about?

Presenter21:07

Whippy off

Presenter21:09

In the name of the city.

Presenter21:10

Well, let me just explain. It is just to have a big sound, an encompassing, engulfing sound, to play music of, let's say, from Bach to Wagner. I'm doing a big bash at the Alexandra Palace, and I understand there's approximately 3 million cubic feet of airspace in this new pavilion, this temporary tent that they've built, which is only temporary, I understand. But it has six or seven seconds of cathedral ambience. It's quite stunning, actually. And the idea is to do a quadraphonic surround-a-sound sort of program. It would be lovely to begin a Bach fugue, you know, da-da-dum bum bum, da-da-da-da-dum bum, have the first voice start over on the right side, have the second voice enter, played on the left, and so forth, and do a four-voice fugue, especially with someone who can have it technically done, you know, on the technique side of things, and then have it completely encompassing. And I mean, it's a bit of a prototype concert for me, because if something like this were to work and we were to attract an audience of four odd thousand to the palace, we would plan to tour with it with summer festivals and outdoor things and go on to the rock circuit with it.

Carlo Curley22:14

Without using the full big sound treatment, you have taken your Turing organ into the White House.

Presenter22:18

Yes, absolutely, a smaller version, because the big one wouldn't go through the doors, I'm afraid to say. And um I played what is believed to be the very first full-length classical organ concert there at the invitation of President and Mrs. Carter, who were very sweet, to four hundred invited guests. It was an ecclesiastical conference, and uh as a matter of fact, believe it or not, the next selection was one of his favourites.

Carlo Curley22:40

Which Uh

Presenter22:40

Uh

Carlo Curley22:41

That

Presenter22:41

It's the Procophia March from the Love of Three Oranges, in this rendition played by Artur Rubinstein on the piano. It's where I discovered it.

Carlo Curley23:49

Arthur Rubenstein playing his piano transcription of The March from The Love of Three Oranges by Prokofiev.

Carlo Curley23:56

Now, records. You've made quite a number of records. Now, on which organs have you made them?

Presenter24:01

Yeah.

Presenter24:02

I've recorded on the great organ of the Royal Albert Hall, London, which is in one way your premier concert room in its own way because I think the Albert Hall is known via the proms round the world. It's a household word. The organ needs an absolute fortune spending on it, because it is starting to wear out. It's such a national institution.

Carlo Curley24:20

I wish it

Presenter24:20

The instrument, well, it was put in for the opening by Queen Victoria. It was originally a Father Willis's and it was restored by the firm of Harrison's in 1926, I believe. And the organ was 1851. Absolutely. It makes an extraordinary sound. I like to call it the full organ as the second coming in Panavision. It's a lovely sound. I've done many, many concerts at the Albert Hall, but I recorded the recording of French organ music there, which works very beautifully. The second, most recent recording was done at the Alexandra Palace, the last one done just before the Great Fire, you know, of 1980. Done on the touring organ. It was a bit of a lollipop. So it was a clever title. It's called Carlo Curley Concert Curios, CCCC. Don't ask me who thought of that. Some bright spark rounded RCA thought of that, I'm sure. And then the most recent recordings are done on probably the most beautiful pipe organ I've ever played, built by a firm called Frobenius in Copenhagen in Denmark. The proper mechanical action pipe organ of 40 registers on three manuals and pedal, and it's digital Bach recordings.

Carlo Curley24:38

I've

Carlo Curley25:19

Let's have your sixth record. What's that to be?

Presenter25:21

Well, I'm uh thinking to choose the Bach double concerto in D minor as played by uh Josha Heifitz, the slow movement in particular and on that

Carlo Curley25:30

And on this recording HighFits plays both parts, doesn't it?

Presenter25:33

Yes, absolutely. This is Franz Waxman conducting the RCA Chamber Orchestra. And this is the one where he's doing it with himself there.

Carlo Curley26:45

The opening of the second movement of the Bach double concerto in D minor, with Jascha Heifitz playing both parts.

Carlo Curley26:53

Do you have any particular plan? Do you plan your career?

Presenter26:58

Yes, particularly when you're involving agents and record companies and accountants, etc., etc. You must really sit down and have a master plan. You can't let it just run haywire. The master plan really is to eventually be able to accept perhaps only twenty or thirty major engagements in a year. I loathe the travel involved in a concert career, Roy. I just I wish I had a magic carpet and that by osmosis I could wish myself anywhere in the world, instantly appear on the console with a towel on which to sit and have a great practice. Such is not the case, you know.

Presenter27:34

I would love to deal more and more and delve more and more into recordings because I think the artist who has the recording career married very closely with the performing career is the one who will really go places. Do you compose? I do not at all. I only play what has been conceived before. Have you no ambition to compose? None at all. I do have ambition to conduct, though. I adore the thought of conducting, and I would love to stand in front of a hundred musicians and say, This is what I want. Of course, they'd probably pay no attention to me because they think I'd quite mad. Most of them don't pay any attention to the conductors anyway, so there you are. But isn't that the truth? Right, record number seven. Lovely. I've chosen a piece of organ music by the famous French composer Alexandre Guillemand. It is his Noel Polonaise played by Odile Pierre on a marvellous Cavaille call organ.

Carlo Curley29:25

Odile Pierre playing Noel Polonais by Alexandre Guillemand.

Carlo Curley29:31

Now, to say the least, you're a husky lad, Carlo. Could you look after yourself on a desert island? Oh, I rather tend to think so. Yes, I love nature, you know. I suppose you always had to protect your hands. You you've never really done any manual

Presenter29:44

Well, I wouldn't be so horribly sure of that. The thing is, I think the minute that you begin thinking about protecting them, such as putting gloves on and shoving them down in your trouser pockets and so, you know, to keep cab doors from slamming on them and so, the minute you get overly protective, you're going to break your arm, you know, instantly. So I really don't take great care. I just bustle along. If it happens, it happens. That's fate, you know. You could build.

Carlo Curley30:06

The shelter.

Presenter30:06

Uh

Carlo Curley30:06

Yeah.

Presenter30:07

Oh, I'm quite sure I could do.

Carlo Curley30:10

Oh, yes, adore it, actually. Ready? Mmm. Well, that's handy.

Presenter30:12

BIOP

Carlo Curley30:14

Would you try to escape? Do you know anything about small craft?

Carlo Curley30:19

Not at all.

Presenter30:19

Not too small, but they

Presenter30:22

No, I I really don't think I would be clever enough to escape, no. You'd stay where you are. Yes, I think so. Yes, I might find it very nice. It might be a fragrant spot, you know.

Carlo Curley30:31

Last record.

Presenter30:32

I've chosen The Rhine of the Valkyries as arranged for the organ by the great English organist Edwin H. LeMaire, for many years the organist at St. Margaret's Westminster, as played on the old wonderful organ of the Alexandra Palace, the original Father Willis, by a dear friend of mine, George Thalbin Ball, Sir George Thalbin Ball. It's a wonderful, wonderful piece. This many people don't play transcriptions on the organ any more. They say it's oh, it's it's not apropos, it's absolutely awful. It's not the way there's enough classic material written for the organ, but I I rather tend to think if it's musical and melodic, play it. I mean, who's to say, you know?

Carlo Curley32:08

Sir George Thorburn Ball, playing an organ transcription of Wagner's The Ride of the Valkyries, recorded on the old Alexandra Palace organ in nineteen twenty nine. Carlo, if you could take only one disc out of the eight you played us, which would you hang on to?

Presenter32:23

I do believe it would be the selection from the Brahm's Requiem The How Lovely Is Thy Dwelling Place.

Carlo Curley32:28

And one luxury to take to the island, any one object of no practical use.

Presenter32:33

Gracious Well, if I had the choice I would

Presenter32:37

Perhaps have my Danish friends build me a very small little portotif pipe organ to practise on while I was there. Wouldn't that be lovely, playing to the gulls and the sea?

Carlo Curley32:43

Other than that.

Carlo Curley32:47

Yes. And one book. You've already got the complete works of Shakespeare and the Bible on the island. Choose another book.

Presenter32:52

Well, I think I'd fancy a cookery book, really something that I could look through to see all the wonderful food I'm missing and the marvellous dishes I had created theretofore. I mean, it'd be lovely. Perhaps the one by Julia Child, since it's such a scream, I could always have a good laugh while looking at the trout on the page, you know. Uh

Carlo Curley33:10

Right. And thank you, Carlo Curley, for letting us hear your Desert Island Disc.

Presenter33:14

Indeed, thank you very much for inviting me.

Carlo Curley33:17

Goodbye, everyone.

Speaker 333:25

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