Antony Hopkins

Speaker 10:01

BBC Sounds, Music, Radio Podcasts. Hello, I'm Lauren Laverne and this is the Desert Island Discs podcast. For rights reasons, the music is shorter than on the original broadcast. The presenter is Roy Plomley. I hope you enjoy listening.

Presenter0:27

How do you do, ladies and gentlemen?

Presenter0:29

Our castaway this week is a musician.

Presenter0:31

He's a composer, conductor and pianist, and a man who's passed on to many others his own enthusiasm for music in his broadcast talks. It's Anthony Hopkins.

Presenter0:41

Do you think you have the temperament to endure loneliness and exile?

Presenter0:45

I don't think the loneliness and the exile would really worry me very much. Uh I would at least specify, however, a good climate in my island. Climate isn't bad.

Antony Hopkins0:53

Climate is

Presenter0:54

What would you be happiest to have got away from? Crowds. I think there are far too many people in the world to day, and most particularly there are far too many people in England. Have you got away from crowds?

Presenter1:04

Does the grammar phone play a big part in your home life?

Presenter1:08

Only as something that I use as an instrument of work. I never sit down and listen to the gramophone just as pleasure, because if I want music, I sit down and play it.

Presenter1:17

But it is of course very useful if one has to prepare a work or indeed preparing a broadcast talk about something I've never heard before. Did you choose your records according to any plan?

Presenter1:28

Partly for personal reasons, that is to say, they had some association with an event in my life.

Presenter1:34

But mostly because I thought they were supreme examples of a specific type of music, it was much harder to reject than to choose.

Presenter1:43

What's the first one you've chosen?

Presenter1:45

First one I've chosen partly because there's a text on it, a motto, which seemed to me a particularly appetite for life on a desert island. It describes the delicious and unfailing pleasure of a useless occupation.

Presenter2:00

And people who really know a lot about French music will recognize this as the text which comes at the top of Ravel's Vals noble sentimental.

Presenter2:08

Now, my reason for choosing this is not only that I think it's beautiful music, but because it means something special to me.

Presenter2:14

When I was in Canada doing a summer school I met a marvellous pianist called Vlado Perlmutter, who had studied all Ravel's works with the composer and knew him closely as a friend.

Presenter2:24

And hearing Pelmutter play Ravel was for me an absolute revelation. I never realized quite how wonderful this music was. And ever since I've felt a quite different feeling towards Ravel. I feel I know him personally. And I think when you hear Pelmutter playing him, as you're going to now, it's quite something.

Presenter3:41

Vlado Pelmota playing one of Ravel's Vals Noble Santmonta.

Presenter3:45

mister Hopkins, are you a Londoner?

Presenter3:47

I was born in London, but I was brought up in the country. And although I now live in London and have done ever since I was a student, I have a great feeling for the English countryside. Did you hear a lot of music as a child? No, not nearly enough, really. My family, the household in which I was living, were not particularly musical. I was sated with Gilbert and Sullivan, which I think is a good sound tradition to come up on, but I hardly heard an orchestral concert in my life until I was about sixteen. When did you begin to take an interest? Oh, from very early on. I started to play the piano by ear when I was about five, I suppose, and had my first piano lessons at seven.

Presenter4:24

When did you decide that music was to be your career?

Presenter4:27

When I was 15, up to then I had been going to be a doctor and then I saw all the physics that I had to do and I thought this wasn't on. And that was a turning point in my life in many ways because I met a very musical family who took me for a holiday in Austria where I lived entirely amongst musicians. And this was a tremendously exciting time and one which suddenly opened a sort of floodgate of music inside. Had you thought then what you wanted to do in music?

Presenter4:55

No, I think the highest aim I had was to be assistant music master at a public school. This seemed to be a sort of sound basis upon which to work. Certainly I couldn't have been a virtuoso pianist, because I had

Presenter5:06

It started much too late, and nobody took me seriously as a composer.

Presenter5:10

But the thing that I think was a sort of searchlight for me was going to a promenade concert when I was 17 and hearing Cyril Smith play the Third Reckmanoff Piano Concerto. I never realised people could do things like this on the piano. It was a marvellous experience to hear a pianist of this caliber. And as for the work, I'd never heard anything like that before either. I'd just heard the classics and this wonderful, all-engulfing wave of romantic music just swept me off my feet. And as a result of that, when I went to the Royal College of Music, I made it my aim and object ultimately to try and become a pupil of Cyril Smith's. And he was very, very kind to me and gave me a number of lessons privately in his own time before I became an official pupil.

Antony Hopkins5:52

Yeah.

Presenter5:53

Well, let's have your second record now. Well, I think that would certainly be Cyril Smith playing this particular work as third Rachmanov concerto. Which part of it? I think part of the finale. Although, in fact, I suppose I've spent four hundred hours at least working at this concerto myself, so any part of the two.

Presenter7:09

Cyril Smith is soloist in Rachmaninoff's third piano concerto in D minor.

Presenter7:14

What was your first job when you left the Royal College of Music?

Presenter7:17

scrapping round, as every one does, for all sorts of odd bits of musical employment, conducting choirs in the south of London, and teaching piano at Morley College, where I came very much under the influence of Michael Tippett.

Presenter7:29

He was a figure who

Presenter7:31

Has perhaps influenced me musically more than anyone else, Stephen Solsmith, and most particularly in his extraordinary understanding of music, which.

Presenter7:41

He revealed to me in a way that nobody else had ever done. What was the first composition that you you'll like to remember?

Presenter7:49

But I like to remember. That's a rather difficult phrase, isn't it? Well, I mean, my first, I suppose, significant job musically as a composition was writing incidental music for a Liverpool Old Vic production of Dr. Faustus, and that opened the way to the tremendous amount of incidental music that I've written since for theatres and radios and films and so on. I believe you were only 25 or 26 when you had your first opera presented at Sadler's World. Yes, that was a great moment, a very exciting thing to do, and I rehearsed the opera entirely myself for six weeks in the theatre, which was invaluable experience, working with professional singers and learning how the thing was done. It was one act opera. One act opera, yes, a bit operatic fast. It wasn't really an opera. A lot of laughs. You've shared the bill with Puccini. Yes, but I never got around to seeing the Puccini opera until the last performance of my own, because I was always busy working myself up into a laugh at the fourth.

Presenter8:42

Well, on that first peak of your career, let's talk for another record. What next?

Presenter8:46

Well, certainly something of Michael Tippetts, because I do admire him tremendously as a composer, and I have such an affection for him as a person. I think something from the last movement of his concerto for double string orchestra, for he has a wonderful swinging tune which has got a quality of very English music, but English music at its best, I think.

Presenter9:52

The finale of

Presenter9:54

Tippets concerto for double string orchestra. Walter Gerr conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra.

Presenter10:00

How many operas have you written since that first one act fast at Saddler's Wales?

Presenter10:05

They've all been one actors, really. Um I've written about half a dozen. One for the Choristers of Canterbury Cathedral, which was written for the Festival of Britain.

Presenter10:14

And which was subsequently done by them and a number of other choir schools. And then

Presenter10:20

Five for the intimate opera company of which I'm uh the director. Yes. You weren't the founder of this company. Oh no, they've been in existence for over thirty years.

Presenter10:29

I was asked to take them over when Frederick Woodhouse, the original founder, retired. Now, how intimate is this company? Well, as intimate as you can guess in operas, doesn't mean to say we only play love scenes, but that we never have more than three singers, soprano, tenor, and baritone. And those are very large repertoires, but we can do about over twenty operas for this combination, yes. How many of those are modern, contemporary?

Presenter10:52

About 10. We try and present a balanced bill with 18th century, 19th century, probably Offenbach, and the 20th century.

Antony Hopkins11:00

Yeah.

Presenter11:01

He also wrote in ballet.

Presenter11:03

Yes, I did a couple of ballets for the Saddlers Wells Theatre ballet.

Presenter11:06

I must be about the only person I think who's had a ballet performed over two hundred times and never seen it, because one of them had its premiere in South Africa and then I never had time to go and see it when it came back to London.

Antony Hopkins11:16

Yeah.

Presenter11:16

And one musical you've written for the West End Theatre? Yes, that was a sad chapter because I had great hopes of it and put a lot into it, but um didn't quite come off somehow. Of this vast amount of incidental music for radio and the theatre um that you talked about earlier on, which do you like to remember, which have been your favorite tasks there?

Presenter11:35

Initially, some programmes with Louis McNeese in the heyday of radio broadcasting before television really existed, as far as the general public was concerned. And then a magnificent adaptation of Moby Dick, which Henry Reid did, and I think a series of programmes on insects with Nestor Payne, which are being revived at the moment, which have been great fun. And you've written the background music to a number of films, including the new one of Peter Eustenhouse, Billy Budd. Yes, which I think I must say is the most serious and the most worthwhile thing that I've ever done, musically speaking, as incidental music, because it's such a magnificent story.

Presenter12:08

What's your greatest ambition as a composer? To write a full-length dramatic opera. I've got a wonderful plot which I've been carrying in my mind for.

Presenter12:16

Well, I think twelve or thirteen years now.

Presenter12:19

I hope you'll soon find time to put it down on paper. Let's have record number four now.

Presenter12:24

For record number four must represent my favourite composer of all, and this was the hardest to choose simply because I just couldn't decide what I didn't want to take of Mozart's, and particularly Mozart opera.

Presenter12:37

I thought of Idomineo, and I thought of Don Giovanni, but in the end I decided on The Marriage of Figaro, and most particularly one of the marvellous examples of Mozart's writing for the soprano voice. And if one's going to have that, you can't do better than the letter duet from The Marriage of Figaro.

Antony Hopkins12:59

Stand on your

Antony Hopkins13:20

Oh, rest the See of Spirit war.

Antony Hopkins13:33

Where's the sea, the speed?

Antony Hopkins13:38

God's Lord I pray in the scrap.

Presenter13:53

Jemgard Zefried and Maria Stade in the letter duet from The Marriage of Figura. We were talking about your compositions just now, but we we didn't mention some of your more unusual works. Concerto for tuning, fork and orchestra was one, I remember. Concerto for motor horn and orchestra another. You like these musical romps?

Presenter14:12

Well, I'm always dragged into them rather reluctantly, in fact. I enjoy them when I'm actually doing it, because it's fun and it's always nice to share laughter with an audience. But the fact remains that I don't regard this as being in any way an important part of my activities, and I'm very glad it's strictly once a year.

Presenter14:32

You have this this forthright approach to music which has made your radio talk so popular, Tony. Wh when when did this start?

Presenter14:38

I honestly don't know. I often get asked this question, but, as I recollect, I did various isolated talks.

Presenter14:45

obviously on music. And then Roger Fiske, who was at that time a producer in the BBC, asked me what ideally speaking I would like to do. And I said, well, I would like to have a half-hour programme every Sunday night in which I talked about a work which is going to be broadcast the following week. Well, you know how one says these things in conversation. You don't think anything's going to happen.

Presenter15:06

And six weeks later I got a letter from him enclosing an invitation to do this very thing for a trial period. And that was now ten years ago, and I'm just starting my tenth season of talking about music. I call it the musical version of the Archers. It seems to go on forever.

Presenter15:22

And you do uh the same job on television too. Uh yes, I am doing now. What's what's for the future? What are you working on at the moment?

Presenter15:29

Well, I'm being chased up by a publisher for a follow-up to a book which came out last year. And sometime I suppose I've got to find time to write that. I've got this television series which I'm dealing with. I've got a number of commission compositions for third programme and so on. Plenty to do, I can assure you. Right. Let's have record number five.

Presenter15:52

Record number five is simply a representative of a wonderful form of music, uh chamber music, and I think I would choose for unending delight on my desert island the Schubert Quintet.

Presenter16:05

And most notably I think the first movement with this wonderful tune.

Presenter17:04

Part of the first movement of Schubert's quintet in C major, which brings us now to your sixth record. What's that going to be?

Presenter17:11

I think the Brahms B flat piano concerto. I had a lot of heart searching over which of the two piano concertos of Brahms I should use, the D minor, as its wonderfully tough and muscly music, or the perhaps more beguiling and grand second piano concerto.

Presenter17:30

But I thought there would be times when I get rather miserable and want to be cheered up a bit, and I can't think of any music which would cheer one up more for sheer delight and happiness than the finale of the Browns B flat.

Presenter18:42

Rubenstein as soloist in the Brahms Second Piano Concerto. Now, here's a very important question: How good a castaway do you think you'll be?

Presenter18:50

I think not bad. I'm very bad with my hands at the moment. I can scarcely mend a fuse, and I'm hopeless at Carpentry. But given the challenge, and no other demands on my time

Presenter19:03

I think I've seen enough films of the right sort to know how to go about it. And I would enjoy the challenge. I'd enjoy the improvisation. I'd love making myself bamboo huts and things.

Speaker 119:07

Uh

Presenter19:13

Could you make yourself a bed? No, I'm quite sure I couldn't, and I think I would be mad to try, because it would certainly sink, and I'm not a very good swimmer. Right, let's leave it at that and have record number seven.

Presenter19:24

Record number seven uh simply makes me believe in miracles, and perhaps that would make me believe I would be rescued from my island. Because this is a fifteen year old boy playing as fifteen year old boys didn't ought to be able to know how to. It is Menohin as a boy playing the El Garval in concerto.

Presenter19:40

And this would take me right out of the island without anybody having to come and rescue me. It's the most English music being played in a.

Presenter19:49

one must almost say a divine way.

Presenter20:51

Yehudi Manhuen, a soloist in the Elgar Violin Concerto, recording made in 1932.

Presenter20:57

Now we come to your last record. What's that going to be?

Presenter21:00

Well, this is really a bit of a uh

Presenter21:03

Shall I say, a personal taste and nothing to do with music whatever, because I know the thing that I would miss most of all, apart from all the conventional things that one says on these occasions, like my wife, whom I would miss dearly. But if I'm talking about an actual perquisite of civilization, I know perfectly well the thing I'd miss most of all, and that would be a car. Not to get me from end to end of the island, but because I adore driving sports cars and I adore the sensation of power which is controlled and all the rest of it. To me, a car is the nearest thing to a living creature that man has ever succeeded in making.

Presenter21:36

I would

Presenter21:37

I think miss the motor racing scene. I would miss those cold dawns at Le Mans watching the twenty four hour race. I would miss the sounds of racing cars more than any other sound except, of course, the sound of music. Well, seven records are looking after the sound of music, so for my eighth I hope you won't begrudge me a sports girl.

Speaker 322:09

It's two o'clock on Sunday morning, and only thirty-four cars are left on the circuit after ten hours of racing.

Speaker 322:15

The night is fine and there is no wind as the cars race past the grandstand.

Speaker 322:19

Empty now, but for those hardened enthusiasts huddled in their seats, determined not to miss a moment of the twenty-four hours.

Presenter22:27

And I may say I have sat in that stand all night, every time I've been to Le Mans.

Presenter22:31

You do race yourself? In a mild way, yes, just club racing.

Presenter22:35

Well now, if you would only have one of the eight records you've chosen, which would it be?

Presenter22:40

I don't think I would have chosen any of those if I could only have one. I would choose a very difficult, obscure piece with which I am not wholly in sympathy, so that I would know that by constant listening I would get some increased reward.

Presenter22:53

Yes, well, that doesn't really help us with this question. If you would only have one of that eight. I think the Schubert, but I'm very tempted by the medicine. All right, the Subert. Professor Schubert, yes. And you're allowed to take one luxury with you to the island.

Presenter23:06

An upright piano. I believe I'm not allowed a grand. You're quite right. Yes.

Presenter23:11

And one book?

Presenter23:12

One book I think is very simple. I would take the Beethoven Piano Sonatas bound in one volume. It would keep on falling off, but there'd be a lot of wonderful stuff in it. Well, thank you, Anthony Hopkins, for letting us hear your choice of Desert Islanders. And thank you for inviting me.