Zubin Mehta

Zubin Mehta0:00

Hello, I'm Kirstie Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen eighty four, and the presenter was Roy Plumley.

Presenter0:30

Our castaway this week is the celebrated conductor Zubin Mehta. Mr. Maitar, have you ever daydreamed about being alone on a desert island?

Presenter0:39

Yes, sometimes when I'm in the middle of a fugue.

Presenter0:44

On stage, either in an operatic situation or in a symphonic one, sometimes I wish I weren't there.

Presenter0:52

Did you find it very difficult to choose just eight pieces of music?

Presenter0:56

To last possibly the rest of your life? Yes, I think so. I had to do a lot of soul searching also. Is your choice based mainly on the fact that the music is great or all the memories are so personal? Now, I'm rather sentimental person. Therefore I like to be surrounded by my friends, especially in the in the case of loneliness.

Presenter1:15

That's what my primary concern was when I chose the records, I think. What's the first one you have there? Well, now the first one is a work that I have never conducted to this date, and if I were going to be on a lonely island, that's the one thing I would study.

Presenter1:33

And that's the B minor mass of Bach.

Presenter1:35

Which part of it? I'd like to play the Sangses. And which is your favorite recording? Well, the one by Mr. Richter is very good, I think.

Presenter2:48

The Sanctus from the Bach be minor masse?

Presenter2:51

Richter conducting the Munich Bach Choir and the Munich Bach Orchestra.

Presenter2:57

mister Mater, where were you born? Bombay. But by origin you're not Indian.

Presenter3:01

Well, I would say, yes, I am Indian. About a thousand years ago my ancestors came from Iran and settled on the west coast of uh India. But uh culturally as well as spiritually I am completely Indian. Are there many Parsis in in Bombay? Well

Presenter3:19

Better asked would be how many Parsis are there in the world, Parsis being of course my people.

Presenter3:26

We're about ninety thousand worldwide.

Zubin Mehta3:28

World.

Presenter3:30

But you find one of us everywhere you go. It's a rather strange phenomenon.

Speaker 23:32

That's rather strange phenomenon.

Presenter3:35

Are you one of a large family?

Presenter3:37

I have a large family, but the name Mehta of course is very common, because Hindus and Parsis share it.

Presenter3:44

It means accountant, really. Well, your father, of course, was an accountant, wasn't he? Before he turned musician. Yes. But he was very dedicated to Western music. Was there a lot of Western music to hear? In my father's day, not too much. They were the transient musicians going through India on their way to Australia or Japan. People like Heifitz and Pavlova used to come in the late twenties to Bombay on their way to Shanghai or wherever they were travelling. And that's how my father's interest first. There's a story that he gave up his job and postponed his wedding to play with a a rather scratch orchestra which was to accompany a visiting ballet company. That's right, yeah.

Zubin Mehta3:45

Yeah.

Zubin Mehta3:47

Uh

Zubin Mehta4:12

Does the storm

Presenter4:22

That shows true dedication. What did he play? He's a violinist. In fact, he still conducts in Southern California, in Los Angeles, and has a youth orchestra of his own. So you'll see a lot of him? Yes, when I'm in Los Angeles, yes.

Zubin Mehta4:30

Mm.

Presenter4:36

Now that scratch orchestra he conducted on that ballet occasion was to be the nucleus of the Bombay Symphony Orchestra which really he created. Yes, and he was the leader of it until he started conducting it too later on.

Presenter4:50

So you were brought up in an atmosphere of rehearsals and orchestral crises and all the other things. Yes, and chamber music at home.

Zubin Mehta4:56

Yes, and chamber.

Presenter4:59

I can't really remember the first time I heard music. I don't have the pleasure of remembering that pleasant shock.

Presenter5:08

I don't really know. Were you put to an instrument? Were you given a violin or a piece of? No, I was given a piano, basically.

Presenter5:16

And then I studied a little violin with my father until he left for the United States to further his studies. Then I just kept on with the piano. What age were you when you first played with the Bombay Symphony Orchestra? I never played with them. Didn't you? No. I merely lifted music stands and transposed uh horn parts for saxophones because we didn't have four horns. We would use three horns and one saxophone. And yes, I did all those little things. And I did sort of conduct once in a while without knowing what I was doing to prepare the orchestra when people like Menwin would come to India and my father would prepare the orchestra to accompany them. So then my father would play the solo part at those rehearsals and I would merely sort of try to accompany him.

Zubin Mehta5:40

The highlights of the

Speaker 25:41

Yeah.

Zubin Mehta5:42

Uh

Presenter6:02

Okay.

Presenter6:03

Let's have your second record. Watch from that.

Presenter6:06

Well, after Bombay I went to Vienna to study, and the great discovery that I made in Vienna, apart from the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and the great concert halls,

Presenter6:17

was Anton Bruckner. This is one composer I did not know in India. It was sort of love at first hearing, and since my idol, which is Willem Furtwengler, is conducting the Vienna Philharmonic, I would like to choose the climactic moment of the Adagio of Bruckner's Eighth Symphony.

Presenter7:36

Part of the Adagio from Bruckner's Eighth Symphony, Furtwengler conducting the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.

Presenter7:42

You used to spend your pocket money on discs. Were were they readily available in Bombay?

Presenter7:47

In my youth, yes, especially sort of pre war period, we had records of Mengelberg, early Toscanini records, not too many Furtwander records. A lot of Adrian Bold records we would have from the HMV times. So that's what I grew up with really.

Speaker 27:58

Yeah.

Presenter8:05

Now, your father came back, he reformed the orchestra, you copied parts. You studied medicine for a start. Well, no, premedical studies I did. I never really went into the medical college because I just knew that it wasn't what was, you know, written on the wall for me.

Speaker 28:23

Hmm.

Presenter8:23

I did two semesters and then I asked my father whether I could go to Vienna. But before that he said I should stay home, learn some counterpoint and uh really brush up on my harmony studies, piano also. So I did that for a year and then about at the age of eighteen I went to Vienna. Why Vienna? Well I had a cousin there who was already in the piano master classes at the Vienna Academy.

Presenter8:47

And he wrote such praises of Vienna. And uh, you know, we tend to hang together as Indians. And my parents, of course, sent me straight away to him, basically. And I don't think I could have made a better choice, really.

Presenter9:02

Because I always say that I have the good fortune, in a sense, not to have heard really even a second rate orchestra before I heard the Vienna Philharmonic for the first time. In other words, you have to imagine my shock.

Presenter9:19

At hearing for the first time in my life the Brahms First Symphony with the Vienna Philharmonic under Karl Bohm,

Presenter9:26

In the Musik Verein Hall, which is even today for me the best concert hall.

Speaker 29:30

Mm-hmm.

Presenter9:31

So that

Presenter9:32

The first concept of my life is still the Axiom.

Presenter9:36

that I hold before me.

Presenter9:38

Let's have your third record.

Presenter9:40

And in Vienna, of course, my

Presenter9:43

contact with my teacher Hans Farofsky, who was a great disciple of Richard Strauss and the whole Weyburn school later on.

Presenter9:52

He really brought me into contact with Richard Strauss's music.

Presenter9:56

And part of my selection of these eight records is

Presenter10:00

one of each of my orchestras that I have been associated with for for so long, and the first one being the Los Angeles Philharmonic. So I'd like with them part of the domestic symphony of Strauss.

Presenter11:09

An excerpt from the Sinfonia Domestica by Richard Strauss. You're conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra. Did you speak any German when you went to Vienna? None at all. No, I learnt it there. You started playing bass.

Presenter11:22

In Vienna.

Presenter11:24

It was also because of this first impact with the Vienna Philharmonic.

Presenter11:28

I never knew the importance of the bass line in a classical work.

Presenter11:34

until I heard them playing it and I heard this magnificent bass section. And since I always wanted to play in an orchestra before I ever conducted, I just went to the professor and said, Look, I want to learn this instrument and I did it for four years. And I earned my first little monies that way too, later on.

Presenter11:53

And of course it was in Vienna that opera first came into your life. Yes, I heard Fidelio, which was my first opera, also under Berm. I told him all these stories later on, how he was the first real musical contact, even from far, uh for me. And that was before the Vienna Opera opened, the new one. And you went into the opera school, you had a rather embarrassing experience.

Presenter12:15

When you first appeared as conductor, as a student conductor,

Presenter12:19

You you weren't quite um dressed for it. Well

Presenter12:22

I didn't have the money to buy myself a pair of tails.

Presenter12:26

I went to a sort of a section of town where they have second hand clothes, and the only people who bought tails there were the waiters. So I got this very cheap suit.

Presenter12:38

Which rather fit me well, and then I discovered that somebody had discarded it because the tailor had forgotten to um stitch the pocket on it. And I made my London debut with that suit. I conducted the first time the New York Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Philharmonic. I took that suit to quite a few places around the world. That's your lucky suit. You still don't have it? No. It's it's shred up somewhere.

Zubin Mehta12:59

Because I don't have it.

Presenter13:04

You entered a competition as a senior student for a job at Liverpool as assistant. Yes, that was in 1958.

Presenter13:12

My father was the assistant leader of the Halley Orchestra then, and he said, Well, look, there's this competition, why don't you just come and try? It's good for your experience. So I did, and I was awarded the prize that had the assistant conductor's job with it. So I was in Liverpool for one season.

Presenter13:31

You won that job, despite the fact, I believe, you conducted the wrong symphony at the

Presenter13:35

Yes, you're right.

Presenter13:36

I was asked to do the third movement of

Presenter13:41

The Schubert Fifth Symphony.

Presenter13:43

And

Presenter13:44

At that age, I was so nervous going on stage before that orchestra, I had never conducted, even at that point, a really professional orchestra.

Presenter13:53

And I gave some sort of a incredible upbeat, but in my mind I had the third moment of the Mozart G minor.

Presenter14:01

Thank God the tempos are not that far apart, and thank God the baton doesn't make a sound.

Presenter14:08

Hmm.

Presenter14:09

I mean, as soon as it started, of course, I got myself back into the niche, but my mind was somewhere else.

Speaker 214:13

Yeah.

Presenter14:16

But the thing is, what really impressed William Steinberg at that competition was my thinking of the beginning of the Beethoven Fifth Symphony, which happened to coincide with his.

Presenter14:32

In other words, there are many conductors who make brakes between the first ta ta ta ta and the second ta ta ta ta.

Presenter14:39

And uh I was made to believe in Vienna that since Beethoven didn't write a real break in it, uh, by making a break you're putting in an extra bar. And that's the way I did it, and Steinberg agreed. That was a great help.

Presenter14:52

What's your fourth record?

Presenter14:53

Well, I must come to my friends then.

Presenter14:56

Very early in my life I came into contact with Daniel Barnboim in Siena when he was about twelve years old and I was seventeen, or nineteen or something like that.

Presenter15:08

And since I I've only been given the choice of eight records and I have many friends, I have to couple some of them. So I'd like to play.

Presenter15:15

A sonata for cello and piano by Chopin, The Slow Movement, where Daniel plays with his wife Jacqueline Dupre, who has since then become my honorary sister.

Presenter16:30

Part of the third movement of the Chopin cello sonata, Jacqueline Duprui, with Daniel Baronboy. So you were assistant conductor, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. During your year in Liverpool, did you have a lot of experience, make a lot of progress? And a lot of mistakes. Yes, of course. Those were my first real concerts of my life.

Zubin Mehta16:47

Now the

Presenter16:50

And I was really sort of thrown to the wolves in that I was given rather difficult programmes to do in one rehearsal, which I wouldn't I wouldn't even attempt that today.

Speaker 216:58

One which I wouldn't

Zubin Mehta16:58

Uh

Presenter17:02

And I'll never forget the first rehearsal I had for my concert, because I used to do a lot for Mr. Pritchard.

Presenter17:11

I had Glatsinov's violin concerto.

Presenter17:14

At the Adagetto from Mahler's Fifth Symphony.

Presenter17:18

The Force of Destiny overture and Tchaikovsky's Sixth Symphony in one rehearsal.

Presenter17:22

How long was the rehearsal? How long a three hour rehearsal? Probably it's a three hour rehearsal, I'm not sure. But even that, um you know, Glazinov Violin Concerto is not everybody's repertoire, and nor was in those days Mahler's fifth allagetto. In nineteen fifty eight, the fifth of Mahler was not what it is today.

Speaker 317:23

How long was the rehearsal?

Speaker 217:24

Perhaps

Zubin Mehta17:25

Yeah.

Presenter17:41

you know, in the repertoire of orchestras.

Presenter17:43

Anyway, in the intermission of this rehearsal, I got news from Manchester that my daughter was born.

Presenter17:51

So of course that played havoc with my concentration also. You hadn't even a minute to celebrate. Well, I couldn't tell well, guys, you know.

Presenter18:01

Take the next part of the Reslav, I'm going.

Presenter18:03

I had to stay there till the bitter end, ran to the railway station, off to Manchester and saw my child for the first time. My first child.

Speaker 218:11

Uh

Presenter18:12

Uh

Presenter18:13

Anyway, you were learning your job the hard way and probably a very good way as well. Well it's it was a good uh year, I must say, with all the difficulties. I got to know a professional orchestra as an instrument and I must say I don't think I did terribly well, but uh i it opened my eyes and my ears for anything that I had to do in the future.

Zubin Mehta18:16

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Presenter18:35

And you began getting some opportunities in the United States. Leopold Stukovsky was helpful. And Leonard Bernstein? Well, I applied to Bernstein to be one of his assistants, and I sent him all my material. I still had never met him.

Presenter18:49

And he accepted me as one of the three assistants he used to have every year.

Presenter18:55

By the time all this happened, because of the competition in Liverpool and because of my

Presenter19:02

Association with the Jeunesse Musicale of Vienna, through whom I had quite a few sort of uh non subscription type concerts in Vienna, sort of closed for young people only.

Presenter19:12

That I had so many little engagements here and there that I just couldn't take up that uh engagement in New York anymore.

Presenter19:21

So I had to decline Mr. Bernstein.

Presenter19:24

And Metropolis, whom I had gone, you know, quite close to in Vienna, agreed with that.

Presenter19:30

He agreed that I should better than sitting in the rehearsals in New York.

Presenter19:34

and having s one piece in the whole season to do, but I go to these smaller towns and get the experience. Yes. Which I did. I mean, I went from little towns in Slovenia, uh Ljubljana in Yugoslavia, to Trondheim in Norway. But at any rate you got more than one rehearsal. Oh, yes. I saw to that.

Presenter19:55

What was your first orchestra of your own?

Presenter19:58

Well, that was the Montreal Central. And it is with those musicians and coupled with Los Angeles, because I used to pendulate between the two towns, that I really learnt my business.

Zubin Mehta19:59

Montreal.

Presenter20:09

I learnt to make music.

Presenter20:11

'Cause I really had fine musicians in those orchestras in those days.

Presenter20:16

Very experienced musicians. In Los Angeles, even if I think of my position to day, I had some of the finest leaders of string sections in that orchestra, people who had played for years with Klemperer, a lot with Bruno Walter, and then a lot with Stravinsky and Schoenberg.

Presenter20:32

and I learnt a lot from them during rehearsals what these people would say, etcetera.

Presenter20:37

I had a first bassoon player in Los Angeles who used to play in the Berlin Philharmonic under Nikish. Really? So I only learned from them. And the same thing in Montreal. Very experienced, fine musicians.

Presenter20:49

Record number five.

Presenter20:51

Well, let's go to some more friends. As you can see, I'm not going to be lonely on this island.

Presenter20:57

I'd like to play a concert performance of the second movement of Mozart's Symphony Concertante with Itzhak Perman on violin and Pinker Zuckerman on viola with the Israel Philharmonic, which was recorded at a concert celebrating Huberman's hundredth anniversary.

Presenter22:15

Part of Metzart's Symphonia Concertante in E-flat, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra which you're conducting with your friends Itzhak Pellman and Pinchas Zuckerman.

Presenter22:26

What about opera? When did that come into your career?

Presenter22:29

Very soon, uh the first opera I did was in 1964 in Montreal, which was Tosca.

Speaker 222:36

Mm-hmm.

Presenter22:37

Uh

Presenter22:37

And I did a number of operas for the first time there. And in sixty five I was doing Aida at the Met, the old Met. I did the Enfurung in nineteen sixty five also at the Salzburg Festival. And I've always sort of kept up. A a dream of mine finally came true a couple of years ago when I did my first ring cycle in Florence, because uh Wagner is rather a sickness of mine.

Presenter23:06

Apart from Wagner, who are your favourite opera composers? Oh, Mozart and Verdi, there's no doubt.

Presenter23:12

How does the opera business work? Now the head of an opera house says let's put on carmen with X as carmen and Y as the tenor, and we'll have Subin Mehta to conduct. Now how early do you come on the scene? Usually in the case of Covent Garden, Sir John Thule and I have a little chat about it, or he says, you know, well, what would you like to do?

Zubin Mehta23:26

Yeah.

Presenter23:35

Then I say, Well, what do you need in your opera house at that time? What have you done already? What is you know? Like this year, we decided three years ago that they needed an Aida and we tried to get the best possible cast we could. How long before the production night did you arrive at Covent Garden to start with? About three and a half weeks. Because I don't just involve myself only in the musical rehearsals. I go to every staging rehearsal. Then of course there are rehearsals with chorus and orchestra alone, orchestra and stage. It's a rather long process of build-up. So six and a half weeks for just six performances.

Speaker 223:53

Yeah.

Presenter24:11

But it's a nice London holiday, of course. I can watch a lot of cricket in in between performances.

Zubin Mehta24:14

Uh

Speaker 324:15

Rabbit.

Zubin Mehta24:15

Tweet

Presenter24:18

How how many oper productions a year do you do?

Presenter24:21

Oh, about two maximum.

Presenter24:23

Because since I'm five months in New York and three months with the Israelis, I really don't have that much time. Mm. And I do take holidays though.

Presenter24:34

Record number six. Well, I'd like to go to one of my most favorite group of musicians. That's the Israel Philharmonic. Do you have a a special feeling for that orchestra? Yes, well I've grown up with them too.

Presenter24:46

I started with them in nineteen sixty one.

Presenter24:48

By chance, Ormondy was sick and they called me. I didn't even know what their telegraphic address meant when they came. I didn't know which orchestra was inviting me.

Presenter25:00

But the important thing in a young person's life in a musical situation is to be invited again.

Speaker 225:06

Yeah.

Presenter25:06

And that hasn't stopped in Israel.

Presenter25:10

Since 1969 I've been their music director and we've had some really wonderful experiences together.

Presenter25:17

We gave a concert there at the end of May for the seventy fifth birthday of Tel Aviv, where four hundred and fifty thousand people came to hear one open air concert. Now that's half the city of Tel Aviv.

Presenter25:29

And when you take

Presenter25:31

into consideration.

Presenter25:32

that the Sephardic part of the population doesn't really

Presenter25:36

go into uh Western classical music as much, it is really probably the entire European population of Tel Aviv that came to that concert. And uh that makes you want to do more and more for them. I'd like for you to play the first movement of Schubert's Fifth Symphony with the Israel Philharmonic.

Speaker 225:45

Right.

Zubin Mehta25:46

Uh

Speaker 225:49

Close it.

Presenter27:01

The opening of Schulbert's Fifth Symphony, in which we're conducting the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra.

Presenter27:08

You must have one of the most difficult and responsible jobs. You've got a large orchestra of perhaps a hundred players. You've got a chorus of a hundred. Now it only needs one second's lack of concentration, and this great thing is collapsing. Has it ever got near to happening? Once at the Met.

Presenter27:28

During an opera

Presenter27:29

I went through hell.

Presenter27:31

Now I'm telling you about the only performance I really remember which was a catastrophe for about two pages.

Speaker 227:37

Uh

Presenter27:38

I don't want to you know neglect the th thousands of concerts where nothing happened.

Presenter27:45

But I I pinpoint that performance only because of your point that a moment's lack of concentration can be

Speaker 227:51

By one man.

Presenter27:55

Some of the percussions sit under the stage level, you know, just like here at Covent Garden Tomb. And there was a Glottenspiel player.

Presenter28:03

who was just a little bit behind the beat.

Presenter28:06

Now, in order to catch his attention I had to bend my head

Presenter28:10

'Cause I couldn't see his head. You know, his head was covered by the overhang almost.

Presenter28:14

And I could only see his hands going in the wrong direction. So I had to bend down to say, Hey, follow my beat.

Presenter28:21

In the meantime, Miss Nielsen, singing Turundot on stage, made a Ralintando, which she was absolutely in her right to do. You know, there was a Ralintando. Only doing that that half a bar that I'm trying to get the Glockenspieler's attention, I went forward. She makes a retard on the stage, and now I find myself in front of her.

Presenter28:43

Now, you know Turundot stands way up I mean, fifty steps high on the podium with all her nails hanging out she says she didn't know I was in front of her, she just heard cacophony under the vibration of her voice, which must have been tremendous.

Presenter28:59

And she glares at me from the stage. What is going on?

Presenter29:05

For a moment, I didn't know what had happened. I only figured all this out later when I went home and see exactly that was the point. Oh!

Zubin Mehta29:10

My ment

Presenter29:13

That must have happened.

Presenter29:15

Well, till we got together, you know, you can't

Presenter29:18

Pull the brakes so that you go backwards a little bit and the singer comes forwards. That's just very difficult to do.

Speaker 229:24

Uh

Presenter29:25

Anyway, we finally landed on a high note together at some point. But it was about two pages of the score. Yes, that was worth us high. Horrendous.

Zubin Mehta29:33

Horrendous.

Presenter29:34

A moment I shall never forget. Yes, I can imagine.

Presenter29:38

Do a lot of your guests tell you about their mistakes? Not many.

Presenter29:45

Your seventh record.

Presenter29:47

Well, this is a piece where I have made a few mistakes in my life also. The Rite of Spring by Stravinsky.

Presenter29:54

This is a wonderful programme, I must say.

Presenter29:57

Now I'd like to play part of it with the New York Philharmonic.

Presenter30:01

Now I must reiterate again.

Presenter30:03

The three records of Strauss, Schubert and Stravinsky with myself conducting, I wouldn't take to the island really for any egotistical reasons except for the fact that I'd like to have three of the orchestras that I've been so closely connected with around me in some form. So therefore I can't take these orchestras with a guest conductor, which wouldn't be the same thing. So this is one of the dances from the first part of The Ride of Spring by Stravinsky.

Presenter31:29

An excerpt from Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.

Presenter31:34

Now we put you on this desert island at mister Mater. Could you look after yourself? Are you an open air sort of man? Could you build a hut?

Presenter31:49

One never knows what kind of qualities come out at that point. What about food? Have you done any fishing? No, but I would plant red peppers. You would plant red peppers? Yes, I cannot do without red chilies. Mhm. I think I would find somewhere a little pepper growing and I would uh

Presenter32:05

Make use of the seeds. Right. Would you try to escape? Do you know anything about small boats? Do you know about navigation? Not too much, but if I would learn the Bach By minor Maas

Presenter32:15

I would so want to conduct it that you can rest assured that I would escape.

Presenter32:22

What's your last record, number eight.

Presenter32:25

My last record is the Concerto for Four Violins by Vivaldi. It features four other friends of mine, Isaac Stern, Ivory Gittlis, Ida Handel and Shlomo Mitz. And that was also recorded at the Huberman Centenary Festival in Tel Aviv last year.

Presenter33:40

Part of the Vivaldi concerto for four violins.

Presenter33:44

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

Presenter33:48

At this point, without any doubt, the Bach began a mass.

Speaker 233:52

Uh

Presenter33:53

I want to digest this piece once and for all in my life, and that would be the only occasion I could think of in the future, is that I would lock myself up on an island to do it. Right. It's so gigantic in proportion. And you're allowed to have one luxury with you, one object that would give you great pleasure to look at, to touch, but it's of no practical use.

Presenter34:13

Well, I'm going to be very spoilt, and that's where my fantasy comes in, as you first pointed out.

Presenter34:19

I would like to have before me on this island, when I listen to the Bachbi Minor Mass, The Triptych of Van Ayck.

Presenter34:27

From the Ghent Cathedral, The Adoration of the Lamb, which I think is really one of the greatest paintings of all time. We will arrange to borrow it for you. And one book. You already have the Bible and complete works of Shakespeare.

Presenter34:41

But I've never read

Presenter34:42

The equivalent of the Bible in my own religion, they're called the Gatas.

Speaker 234:47

Uh

Presenter34:49

I would like to have a translation of that book, that I might finally know what my own religion is all about.

Presenter34:56

And thank you, Zubin Mater, for letting us hear your Desert Island Discs. You're welcome.

Presenter35:02

Goodbye, everyone.

Speaker 335:11

Desert Island Discs was introduced and devised by Roy Plumley, the producer was Derek Drescher.

Speaker 335:18

Next Friday the castaway will be Lord Rothschild, whose career has included scientific research at Cambridge and a period as head of the government's think tank.

Zubin Mehta35:36

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