Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Scottish conductor best known for his work in opera, especially at Sadler's Wells.
On the island
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:09Whereabouts in Scotland do you come from?
Politically I say I was born between Edinburgh and Glasgow. That is uh perfectly true. Uh but it was a little near to Glasgow. I was born in Motherwell.
Presenter asks
0:23Are you a member of a musical family?
Um I think I am. Um … Not professionally, but you heard a lot of music. I heard a lot of singing going on because. My mother's father was a Welshman.
Presenter asks
1:43When you were demobilised, you went to the Royal College of Music in London. Were you already aiming at being a conductor?
Well, in in my heart of hearts, without telling anybody else, I had been aiming at being a conductor from my late teens, I think.
Presenter asks
6:49How long is it now that you've been in charge of the Scottish National Orchestra?
Oh, well I went there in nineteen fifty-nine, fourteen years ago.
Presenter asks
6:57To how many countries have you taken them?
Well, we've been to Norway, we've been to Germany, Austria … Switzerland, Holland. I think that's about it.
“in my heart of hearts, without telling anybody else, I had been aiming at being a conductor from my late teens, I think.”
“I was then promoted or chosen by my fellow students to conduct the Royal College of Music Students' Association Orchestra, which rehearsed in the concert hall in Prince Concert Road, in the college itself, and gave concerts at lunchtime. And there was a rule that at that time nobody should lift a baton in the college unless they were an accredited member of the conducting class. So I was made to join the union, as it were.”
“I had always had a f a feeling for opera, right, from my school days, from uh singing in Gilbert and Sullivan, that kind of thing.”
“When I had done my hundredth butterfly and my forty-ninth Boheme, I I might regret that I hadn't gone away to learn the other tunes, the symphonic tunes.”