Alfred Eisenstadt

Speaker 10:00

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

Speaker 10:05

For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in 1984, and the presenter was Roy Plumley.

Presenter0:29

Our castaway this week is the celebrated American photographer Eisenstedt.

Presenter0:35

Isie, you've worked all over the world. Have you ever visited a desert island?

Alfred Eisenstadt0:40

Uh visited a desert island. It was about one square mile long and uh ten years ago. Yes. The Bahamas Island. In the Bahamas. I stayed there half an hour to photograph.

Presenter0:52

Could you endure loneliness, do you think, for a few weeks, a few days?

Alfred Eisenstadt0:56

I could, because I'm very much interested in ecology. I would look for mosses, lichens, orchids, lizards.

Speaker 21:02

Yeah.

Alfred Eisenstadt1:04

And so on. Look at grasses, at sand corns. I'm very much interested. I have a microscope at home and look to the microscope. You can keep yourself occupied. Oh yes.

Presenter1:12

Polet.

Alfred Eisenstadt1:14

How much does music mean to you in life? Music meant very, very much in my life because I had piano lessons in my early youth, but I wasn't talented and gave it up because I thought that I am not a master in music. But I was always interested in music. Do you sing? I sing like a bird, like a raven.

Presenter1:33

Have you a lot of records at home in New York?

Alfred Eisenstadt1:35

We have about, let's say, about more than 800 records. Yes.

Presenter1:40

Was it very difficult to pick just eight to take with you to the island?

Alfred Eisenstadt1:44

Very, very difficult, yes. It was a big job for me.

Alfred Eisenstadt1:48

It was worse to pick eight records than fifteen interviews.

Alfred Eisenstadt1:53

What's the first one you're going to play? The first record I would play was Mahler's Second or Reformation Symphony. Why did you choose it? In 1960, I did a story for Life magazine on Carnegie Hall. There was a chance that it may be torn down. And I did a story on everybody who appeared at Carnegie Hall. And at that time, I photographed Bernstein, Leonard Bernstein, rehearsing Gustav Mahler's second symphony. He was praying, dancing, jumping up, down, crying, getting wild. We wept.

Alfred Eisenstadt2:28

And I was alone in the darkened hall with the orchestra, and in the second row in front was Alma Mahler sitting with closed eyes with some tears rolling down. Marla's widow. Mahler's widow, yes. And I have those pictures at Life magazine with me.

Alfred Eisenstadt2:46

It was a very moving experience.

Presenter3:43

The opening of the third movement of Mahler's Second Symphony, Leonard Bernstein conducting the New York Philharmonic.

Presenter3:51

You were born in Germany, weren't you, Izzy?

Alfred Eisenstadt3:53

Yes. Whereabouts? I was born in West Prussia, Dorsau, which belongs now to Poland. This was before the First War, wasn't it? Possibly the World War, yes.

Presenter4:02

What sort of job did your father do?

Alfred Eisenstadt4:04

My father had a a small department store. Were you a big family?

Alfred Eisenstadt4:08

I had only one brother who's dead now. As a schoolboy, were you interested in photography? No, as a schoolboy I wasn't interested in photography. Only in later years when I was twelve or fourteen years old, an uncle of mine gave me an Eastman Kodak folding camera and I experimented with it and I photographed like any bloody amateur. Horrible pictures. What were you good at at school? Don't even know that I was good at all.

Alfred Eisenstadt4:35

I only know that everything was very regimented, you know, in in in Berlin at that time. You have to almost stand at attention when the director or the teacher came in, not as today. What if

Presenter4:49

Who'd you want to be? Had you any ideas?

Alfred Eisenstadt4:50

No, I had no idea at that time.

Presenter4:53

Well, there came August 1914. Did people think it was going to be a long war until that time of that time?

Alfred Eisenstadt4:59

No, at that time, at that time, we didn't know anything. People asked me that question often: what happened? Why didn't you do this? We didn't know anything.

Presenter5:06

You, of course, were still at school when the war started. Yes. Well, let's break off at that point and have your second record.

Alfred Eisenstadt5:14

A second record should be very different from the first record. It should be a little lighter.

Presenter5:18

What is it?

Alfred Eisenstadt5:19

It should be Peter Gunn by Manzini.

Presenter6:20

Henry Mancini's orchestra, Peter Gunn.

Presenter6:23

So the First World War started, Isaac. You were called up in the German army?

Alfred Eisenstadt6:28

I was called up in the German army when I was six and a half years old.

Presenter6:32

How long had the war been on, then? Uh

Alfred Eisenstadt6:33

Two years or one year.

Presenter6:36

How did you feel about putting on the Feld Grau uniform? Were were you

Presenter6:41

Resistant to it? Or did you think?

Alfred Eisenstadt6:43

So everybody was resistant to it, but what would you do? We worked for the Kaiser Army, we didn't know what was going on. What branch of the army did they put you in? I was a cannoneer. A gunnerier? A gunner. 7.5 Field Artillery Regiment No. 55 in Naumburg and Saale. Where did you train? In Naumburg. And where did you go on active service? We was only on the Western Front in Passchendaele in Flanders. And when the Second German offensive started in April 1918, I was wounded in Dniebs, near the Flanders border. Were you badly hurt? Was barely hurt. I got shrapnel shot through both legs.

Alfred Eisenstadt7:26

And I'm very glad I got it through my other leg, but otherwise my knee would have been severed. My other leg would have been amputated. Were there many casualties in your battery? Yes. About half an hour later a full hit struck the battery and everybody was killed. You were the only survivor? Another man. Two people were survivors, yes.

Presenter7:45

Yeah.

Alfred Eisenstadt7:46

Lyvaila was uh in the

Presenter7:46

Yeah.

Alfred Eisenstadt7:48

Automobile reports brought me to Lille in France, another man died.

Alfred Eisenstadt7:53

I was really the only survivor at that time.

Presenter7:55

How long are you in hospital?

Alfred Eisenstadt7:57

I don't know how long, I only know that I was on crutches and I was treated, you know, for wounds. I had frostbites on all things such shrapnel, scratches on my arm and hands.

Alfred Eisenstadt8:10

But it didn't matter.

Presenter8:12

As far as you will

Alfred Eisenstadt8:12

The war was over, yeah, but when this uh shrapnel struck me, I thought my both legs were cut off. I had no feeling at all any more. Mm-hmm. They cut my trousers off and says, My God, you can be glad you're going home.

Alfred Eisenstadt8:27

He says, I have no feeling in my legs. How can I go home?

Alfred Eisenstadt8:30

And I looked down the legs were still there.

Presenter8:33

That must have been a moment.

Alfred Eisenstadt8:34

It's terrible.

Alfred Eisenstadt8:36

Let's have your

Presenter8:37

Third record.

Alfred Eisenstadt8:38

Yeah.

Alfred Eisenstadt8:38

My third record should be

Alfred Eisenstadt8:40

The Spanish dance.

Alfred Eisenstadt8:42

of Peter Ilyazchaikovsky's Swan Lake Ballet. Why, are you fond of ballet? I love very fond of ballets as I go to many ballet performances and see them on television all the time.

Presenter9:47

The Spanish dance from Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake, Andrei Preven conducting the London Symphony Orchestra.

Presenter9:55

So in due course I see you came out of hospital.

Presenter9:58

But Germany wasn't yet out of trouble.

Alfred Eisenstadt10:01

It was very bad, you know. It was just before the revolution broke out in November.

Presenter10:05

Tell me about the Revolution, what do you remember about that?

Alfred Eisenstadt10:08

I was walking near our home in Berlin.

Alfred Eisenstadt10:12

when in the afternoon a truck with marines came,

Alfred Eisenstadt10:17

About ten or fifteen jumped from the truck and tore my epaulettes off and I got so scared I said, My goodness, if somebody from the army sees me, I will be court-martialled.

Alfred Eisenstadt10:28

And then we heard that revolution broke out and I couldn't believe it, and nobody could believe it at the time.

Alfred Eisenstadt10:34

After the war, were there jobs about? What did you do? After the war it was very weird. I became a salesman a very bad salesman, by the way, of belts and buttons. Mhm. And it was at that time that I became a little more interested in photography. How did that come about?

Alfred Eisenstadt10:53

Now I had a 9 by 12 centimeter size ideal camera and went on my vacation with my parents to Johannesburg in Bohemia, it's now Czechoslovakia. And one afternoon in August I saw a woman tennis player playing tennis in a sunken tennis court surrounded by benches, but visitors and was photographed with a glass plate. Several weeks later I developed it, made a contact print and a friend of mine saw that and says, my God, you can enlarge that tennis player. I said, what's enlarging? I've never heard of enlarging before. And he says, come to me and I'll show you. He showed me a contraption of a wooden box with a camera on.

Alfred Eisenstadt11:37

And when he blew that picture of the tennis player up with shadows and all this, and this this was the second

Alfred Eisenstadt11:45

And what happened to that?

Presenter11:47

Did that have

Alfred Eisenstadt11:49

That picture I printed myself. It hangs in my office now. Did you decide to study photography? No, I studied everything myself. Nobody could help me.

Speaker 211:57

Yeah.

Alfred Eisenstadt11:58

There were very few photographers around and I was an amateur. I had even no idea you get paid for pictures.

Alfred Eisenstadt12:04

What was the first time in which

Presenter12:06

But you were paid for it.

Alfred Eisenstadt12:06

Picture.

Alfred Eisenstadt12:07

It was very funny when I printed that picture and showed it to Photo magazine, says, Oh, you will publish it. He says, But you can sell that picture. I said, you can sell a picture. Why don't you go to Der Weltspiegel of the Berliner Targoblatt and offer it to him? And the editor saw that picture and says, Oh, yeah, buy it. I said, You get paid for pictures. He paid me three dollars.

Presenter12:29

Three dollars. This was the picture of the television.

Alfred Eisenstadt12:30

This was the picture which started my career, which is the most famous picture in my career. And the picture was called Fall.

Presenter12:35

Yeah.

Alfred Eisenstadt12:39

Or the shadows grew longer.

Presenter12:41

How long was it before you decided that photography was to be your career?

Alfred Eisenstadt12:46

The editor told me, If you want to succeed in photography, you should do what Eric Solomon does, be a candid photographer. Eric Solomon was at that time the god of photographers.

Alfred Eisenstadt12:56

No international conferences took place without him being there. And I bought the same camera and got acquainted with people from the Associated Press and worked for them as a freelance photographer. As I was very much interested in art, music and orthocultural events, I photographed them on the side by being a bed built and button salesman until one day in December 1929.

Alfred Eisenstadt13:25

The boss told me, Either you did this or do this.

Alfred Eisenstadt13:29

And three days later, I came to him. I said, I'm going to Photov. You're looking at me.

Alfred Eisenstadt13:34

What is it you are doing?

Alfred Eisenstadt13:37

Photography has never heard of this word before. Yes, photography. And six days later, it was the third of December, I was in Stockholm to photograph the Nobel Prize ceremony, the award to Thomas Mann, who got it for the Buddhenbrooks in literature.

Presenter13:55

So you were now a pressman? I was not a pressman, yeah. And of course you had to photograph some of the early Nazi rallies. There's one famous photograph of yours of Hitler greeting Mussolini.

Alfred Eisenstadt14:09

You forgot my second assignment. I want to point it out before I come to that. It was a great disaster, which almost broke my career. What was it? I had to go to Assisi to photograph the wedding of King Boros of Borgia to Sofia, the third and youngest daughter of the King, King Emmanuel of Italy. I photographed everything.

Alfred Eisenstadt14:31

All the pageantry except the bride and groom. And I came back to Berlin, has bought us there with the bride and groom. What bride and groom I've I've never seen them. And the boss from London said that man had to be fired, but they couldn't fire me because the freelance was off.

Presenter14:49

You decided to emigrate to the United States. Had you some idea of what was breaking? I mean, did you feel the war coming up?

Alfred Eisenstadt14:52

Yeah.

Presenter14:58

At that time we didn't know.

Alfred Eisenstadt14:59

By dear It was very bad to work in Germany anyway. I photographed the early rise of of Hitler. I photographed, for instance, Goebbels at the Fifteenth League of Nations session, that famous picture where he looks at me not lovingly but hatefully.

Presenter15:04

I've

Speaker 215:15

Mm-hmm.

Alfred Eisenstadt15:15

And then the first meeting of Hitler Mussolini on the thirteenth and fourteenth of june nineteen thirty four in Venice.

Alfred Eisenstadt15:24

Then two months later he became full of the rifle Polfran Hindenburg died, a photograph of the funeral procession in Tannenberg in East Prussia.

Alfred Eisenstadt15:34

And this was about all I did of the Nazis.

Presenter15:37

Yeah.

Alfred Eisenstadt15:38

And in nineteen thirty five, about a few months before I immigrated to the United States, I was in Ethiopia to photograph the preparations for war against Mussolini.

Alfred Eisenstadt15:51

Then I came to the United States.

Alfred Eisenstadt15:53

Let's have your fourth record. My fourth record is uh

Alfred Eisenstadt15:57

On your toes. Which part of it? Which tune? Slaughter on Tenth Avenue. Why'd you choose that? I love that. I love ballet.

Presenter17:01

The Richard Rogers ballet from

Presenter17:03

On your toes, Slaughter on Tenth Avenue, Stanley Black conducting the London Festival Orchestra.

Presenter17:10

So, Isaie, to the United States, to New York? New York City, yes. What was your English like at that point?

Alfred Eisenstadt17:16

My English was not very good, but it was better than French.

Alfred Eisenstadt17:20

Yeah.

Alfred Eisenstadt17:22

I had uh French lessons in school and I was better in French, but when I came here my French was very bad and my English lessons got better.

Presenter17:29

But you had a portfolio of very good photographs to show around. Yes. Now, Life, the magazine with which you'll always be associated, wasn't yet in existence when you

Alfred Eisenstadt17:39

No. But I went to Hollywood for them, you know, on a freelance basis and photographed quite a lot of stars and gong on there. And when I returned, Mr. Lew said, That's the type of photographs we want for the new magazine. And I was told if life ever would see the light of the world, I would be hired as staphator.

Presenter18:00

And eventually you were. You started doing assignments for life that took you all round the world.

Presenter18:07

Definitely, yes. How many assignments altogether? How many picture stories did you do?

Alfred Eisenstadt18:12

From nineteen thirty six to nineteen seventy two when First Life folded up about two thousand five hundred stories. Did you really? Yes. And ninety two covers.

Presenter18:20

Early night.

Presenter18:22

Yeah. Ninety-two counts. Did you usually go on your own after those stories or did you go with a writer?

Alfred Eisenstadt18:28

Yeah. Quite often with the writer, because the writer has to get information, the photographer has to photograph. Very often he doesn't have time to make all the notes.

Presenter18:38

You crossed the Atlantic in the Graf Zeppelin. That must have been a rather thrilling occasion. Or was it a bit eerie in in this craft that made no sound, or virtually no sound?

Alfred Eisenstadt18:43

Or was

Alfred Eisenstadt18:48

It was not airy at all. It was done in 1934 and it was about uh a few months after Hitler came to power. It was a very strange feeling because a big swastika was painted on the Graf Zeppelin when I boarded in Friedrichshafen for only one purpose, to go to Pernambuco in Brazil and then to Rio de Janeiro to take Raf Eckner aboard. He made a deal with the Brazilian government to erect an anchormast in Rio de Janeiro. We stopped in Rio de Janeiro exactly for eighteen minutes.

Presenter19:20

How long did the crossing from Friedrich Hafen to

Presenter19:25

South America take

Alfred Eisenstadt19:26

I think I talk about

Alfred Eisenstadt19:28

three days or two and a half or three days to fly there.

Presenter19:32

With your German background, I suppose that you weren't sent to cover the Western Front, because it could have been dangerous for you.

Alfred Eisenstadt19:39

No, I wasn't sent to the front because I was older than all the other photographers, and the younger photographers were war correspondents.

Speaker 219:47

Mm-hmm.

Alfred Eisenstadt19:47

And uh they went to war and I covered the home front, which was not covered too much anyway. Well there's quite a lot of work to do actually. Oh yes, I I worked day and night. It's unbelievable how much I work.

Presenter19:54

Quite a lot of work to do, I guess.

Alfred Eisenstadt19:59

I know that one in the early fifties had three covers in a row. We worked day and night.

Speaker 220:05

Uh

Presenter20:05

Yeah.

Alfred Eisenstadt20:05

I mean from the airport I didn't even go home, I went right to life to have a developer and so on.

Presenter20:11

But you must have had marvelous back up at at life at

Alfred Eisenstadt20:13

Technically.

Alfred Eisenstadt20:15

We didn't have to develop it, everything was developed there in our dark rooms. And we had no choice to draw, I had no choice to pick the pictures, was done by editors.

Presenter20:25

Tell me some of the pictures that you're proudest of, your favorites, news pictures, actuality pictures.

Alfred Eisenstadt20:32

Now the my most famous picture is that picture at the end of the war. This is a V J D picture where a sailor at Times Square in New York City picks a girl up, it was a nurse, and kisses her.

Alfred Eisenstadt20:46

This is probably a picture which everybody will remember me. Oh God, that's the photographer who took the picture. And at that time, when it was published the second time, seventeen sailors wrote to life, I am the sailor, I am the sailor. They sent photographs of their tattoos in hair samples and so on.

Presenter21:03

It's a picture that went round the world.

Alfred Eisenstadt21:05

Yeah.

Presenter21:05

Yeah, went around. Everybody knows that picture of

Alfred Eisenstadt21:05

I went around everybody knows

Alfred Eisenstadt21:07

Yeah. Yeah.

Presenter21:08

It's time we had some more music. What next?

Alfred Eisenstadt21:11

My next workout would be Lenotti di Cabiria by Nino Rotha.

Alfred Eisenstadt21:16

I love all music by Nino Rotta.

Presenter22:17

Carlo Savina in his orchestra playing the theme from Le Notte di Cabiria.

Presenter22:23

How much gear do you take on a distant assignment, Isaie? And is it a a small suit case, or is it a great big hold all with three or four cameras and a great deal of film?

Alfred Eisenstadt22:34

No, I take only a small case along and I have mostly two LICOS and two Nikon cameras with me, and actually a fleet of lenses.

Presenter22:43

Which do you look back on as the really dangerous assignments? I know you were mixed up in the Mau Mau at one time.

Alfred Eisenstadt22:49

This was not so dangerous. You know, a very dangerous assignment was the exploration of a tropical rainforest where I was hoisted into trees, 142 feet high. With the view to what? To photograph from a platform in trees. But the trouble was below me was nothing and I was hoisted by two Indians on a hoist, scraping the trees, the bark of trees, with my boots surrounded by bees and ants, you know, and so it was terrible.

Presenter23:17

No way to spend an afternoon.

Alfred Eisenstadt23:18

Yeah.

Presenter23:19

Oh, it's much better on a desert island. Have you ever been a casualty? Have you ever got hurt when carrying out an assignment?

Alfred Eisenstadt23:26

No.

Presenter23:27

Yeah.

Alfred Eisenstadt23:27

Yeah.

Presenter23:27

Thank goodness not.

Alfred Eisenstadt23:28

Uh

Presenter23:29

A recent assignment you had was to photograph the city of of Aberdeen uh as a book and uh also an exhibition.

Alfred Eisenstadt23:38

called a portrait of a city. It was done on knit and colour but in black and white.

Presenter23:45

Did you know anything about Aberdeen, or did you just arrive and buy a sixpenny guidebook and start to look around?

Alfred Eisenstadt23:51

I look

Presenter23:52

Uh

Alfred Eisenstadt23:52

looked only at some guide books, but these guide books were not very helpful to me because, you know, they can phrase something, but it everything looks beautiful when you read it, but when you have to photograph, it doesn't look so interesting.

Alfred Eisenstadt24:04

And naturally I just try to make it as interesting as possible. How many pictures did you take?

Alfred Eisenstadt24:10

I took exactly

Alfred Eisenstadt24:13

Forty four rolls, about thirty pictures on each roll.

Presenter24:17

Forty-four by thir well, anyway, it it's uh well over a thousand pictures. Yes. And you trim those down to how many?

Alfred Eisenstadt24:19

Well, anyway.

Alfred Eisenstadt24:24

It was trimmed down to about

Alfred Eisenstadt24:27

There's seventy or eighty in the book.

Presenter24:29

Mm.

Alfred Eisenstadt24:29

I'm uh well known as an undershooter, not an overshooter. I don't have automated cameras either. An interesting assignment. It was most interesting but difficult on account of the weather. It was cold, windy, rainy, drizzly, foggy, and too cold, however.

Presenter24:45

So you didn't give a very picturesque impression of Aberdeen.

Alfred Eisenstadt24:47

Yeah, but

Alfred Eisenstadt24:49

But the people were were warm and helpful.

Presenter24:52

Write another record number.

Presenter24:54

Six we've got to.

Alfred Eisenstadt24:56

These are excerpts of Rome and Juliet by Prokhoviev.

Presenter25:00

Left.

Alfred Eisenstadt25:00

It's a favorite ballet of yours, isn't it? It is a favorite ballet. It was in 1959 when the Bolshoi Ballet came to New York City with Galena Aronova as prima ballerina. I photographed the opening scenes and photograph the ballet at that time.

Presenter25:16

Which part of the ballet would you like to hear? The morning dance.

Presenter26:18

Morning dance from Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet, Charles Munsch conducting the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Now you love the ballet, you love photographing, show business. Now this is the lighter side of your trade, isn't it?

Alfred Eisenstadt26:32

And I love Sophia Lauren. I have done five cover stories of her. Have you? And we are very good friends. She came to my office, you know, and we correspond, she writes letters to me. And several years ago, when People magazine wanted to do a cover story of Sophia and her two boys, she refused to have her children photographed. And Logan Bentley, our correspondent in Rome, said, But would you do it for Isa?

Alfred Eisenstadt27:03

She said, Is he still working?

Alfred Eisenstadt27:06

Of course, answered the working. For him I would do it. Fifteen hours later I was on my way to Paris.

Alfred Eisenstadt27:13

And when she opened the door, I said, my goodness, Sophia, you look terrific. How many pounds have you lost? I'm a friend of the family. She said, 25. Wow. She says, my goodness. She gave me two kisses. I gave her two kisses. Grabbed me by the hand and said, come, I'm watching uh T V series. Sit on my bed. You have sit on every bed I had.

Presenter27:35

And you took some excellent pictures of Marilyn Munro. How did you find her? Was she cooperative? And she was a little bit more.

Alfred Eisenstadt27:40

She was very cooperative but very shy. And it was at that time that I mixed my cameras up. Unfortunately, the colour pictures didn't turn out so well, only two turned out, but h I took more than a hundred in black and white, and everybody kidded me naturally. No wonder she turned your head around.

Presenter27:58

And you'll photograph many Broadway shows.

Alfred Eisenstadt28:01

Yeah.

Presenter28:01

And a lot of time in Hollywood?

Alfred Eisenstadt28:03

In Hollywood I spent uh in nineteen thirty six, thirty eight and especially in nineteen forty nine. And this was almost the last time I photographed Hollywood because we had too many photographers there. We had about a dozen photographers who covered Hollywood and they covered it.

Presenter28:19

Isie, if only one picture of yours was to survive as an example of

Presenter28:25

The Photographic Proess of Eisenstadt Which one would you like it to be?

Presenter28:32

Probably the video

Alfred Eisenstadt28:32

J. D. The Sailor and the Girl.

Alfred Eisenstadt28:35

Is there everybody says it's my most famous picture?

Presenter28:38

It's a very happy picture.

Alfred Eisenstadt28:39

It's a heavy picture because the war is

Presenter28:39

Does it

Alfred Eisenstadt28:42

Finally at an end.

Alfred Eisenstadt28:44

Record number seven.

Alfred Eisenstadt28:45

Record number seven would be

Alfred Eisenstadt28:48

Theme music. From what? By the B B C

Alfred Eisenstadt28:52

And it would be

Alfred Eisenstadt28:54

I Claudius.

Presenter28:55

Uh

Alfred Eisenstadt28:55

This was a B B C

Presenter28:57

Series that you enjoy particularly.

Presenter29:30

The theme from the B B C television series I Claudius played by the ProMusica Symphony Orchestra conducted by Marcus Dodds.

Presenter29:39

Isy, how good would you be at looking after yourself on a desert island? Are you uh

Presenter29:43

A handyman. Could you put up some sort of shelter? I could find shelter. I could build a shelter for.

Alfred Eisenstadt29:48

For myself. What are you going to live on? Ever done any fishing? Believe it or not, I've never fished in my life. Well, you'll have to see.

Presenter29:54

You'll have to stop.

Alfred Eisenstadt29:55

But I would be dead already after five days probably.

Presenter29:58

Would you try to escape? Do you know anything about sailing?

Presenter30:02

Could you build a raft?

Presenter30:04

I don't think so.

Alfred Eisenstadt30:05

I probably would perish.

Presenter30:07

I'm a bit worried about you. I think you probably would.

Alfred Eisenstadt30:09

I probably feel bored about myself being on a desert island alone.

Presenter30:14

Right. What's your last record, number eight?

Alfred Eisenstadt30:17

My last record would be the Rahmaninov Concerto number three, played by Van Kleiburt and directed by Kuro Kondrashin. And I picked that record only for one reason, because when Van Kleibern returned from the Moscow competition, we won the prize. I did a big story on Van Kleibern and Kondrashen at Carnegie Hall.

Presenter31:37

The finale of Rachmaninov's Concerto No. Three.

Presenter31:41

Kirill Kondrashin conducting Symphony of the Air with Van Clyben at the keyboard.

Presenter31:47

If you would take only one disc of the H you've played us, which would it be? A disc by Nino Rotta. Ah, yes. The music was a very good music. And one luxury.

Alfred Eisenstadt31:55

Very much.

Presenter32:00

One object of no practical use that would give you pleasure to have. A camera. A camera.

Alfred Eisenstadt32:05

With film in

Presenter32:06

Of course.

Alfred Eisenstadt32:06

No, no, it's not, of course.

Presenter32:08

Well

Alfred Eisenstadt32:08

Because it happened time and again, time and again, time and again, even five years ago, a photograph of President Ford, you know, and the Pokot put filming.

Presenter32:17

Oh, well, we'll give you some film. If you don't put it in, that's your fault. It is. And one book. You already have the Bible and the works of Shakespeare. Choose one other book.

Alfred Eisenstadt32:21

Yeah.

Presenter32:27

It will be book of quotations. A book of quotations. Right.

Presenter32:31

And thank you, Alfred Eisenstedt Isi, for letting us hear your Desert Island Disc.

Alfred Eisenstadt32:36

And thank you very much, Roy. You are most gracious and courteous to me. Thank you.

Alfred Eisenstadt32:42

Goodbye everyone.

Speaker 132:50

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