Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
A composer, conductor, pianist and broadcaster who shared his enthusiasm for music through his broadcast talks.
On the island
Eight records
Valses nobles et sentimentales
it describes the delicious and unfailing pleasure of a useless occupation
Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor, Op. 30 - III. Finale (Alla breve)
I never realised people could do things like this on the piano.
Concerto for Double String Orchestra - III. Finale
he has a wonderful swinging tune which has got a quality of very English music
Le nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro) - Letter Duet (Che soave zeffiretto)
Irmgard Seefried and Maria Stader
one of the marvellous examples of Mozart's writing for the soprano voice
String Quintet in C major, D. 956 - I. Allegro ma non troppoFavourite
for unending delight on my desert island
Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat major, Op. 83 - IV. Finale (Allegretto grazioso)
I can't think of any music which would cheer one up more for sheer delight and happiness
Violin Concerto in B minor, Op. 61
this would take me right out of the island without anybody having to come and rescue me
Le Mans 24-Hour Race (sound recording)
I would miss the sounds of racing cars more than any other sound except, of course, the sound of music.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:41Do you think you have the temperament to endure loneliness and exile?
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.
Presenter asks
4:24When did you decide that music was to be your career?
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.
Presenter asks
7:14What was your first job when you left the Royal College of Music?
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.
The keepsakes
The book
Beethoven Piano Sonatas (complete)
Ludwig van Beethoven
It would keep on falling off, but there'd be a lot of wonderful stuff in it.
The luxury
Presenter asks
12:08What'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... well, I think twelve or thirteen years now.
Presenter asks
18:48How good a castaway do you think you'll be?
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 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.
Presenter asks
22:35If you would only have one of the eight records you've chosen, which would it be?
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. ... I think the Schubert, but I'm very tempted by the medicine. All right, the Subert. Professor Schubert, yes.
“I think there are far too many people in the world to day, and most particularly there are far too many people in England.”
“I never realised people could do things like this on the piano.”
“To me, a car is the nearest thing to a living creature that man has ever succeeded in making.”
“I would miss the sounds of racing cars more than any other sound except, of course, the sound of music.”
“I think the Schubert, but I'm very tempted by the medicine.”