Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
A journalist and columnist for The Times, called the most remarkable journalist of his time.
On the island
Eight records
The Magic Flute, Act I: Bei Männern, welche Liebe fühlenFavourite
Pilar Lorengar, Hermann Prey, and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Sir Georg Solti
I swear that if you put this on the British record on sus uh and made somebody listen to it who knew not a word of German on the one hand and had never heard of the magic flute on the other, they would know that what these two characters are singing about is love.
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Act III: Selig, wie die Sonne
Rudolf Kempe conducting the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra
The Master Singers is the only one of Wagner's operas which is entirely human... And this uh particular piece, the quintet, which is one of the loveliest pieces of music I know by any composer, is where the five main characters in the third act, when the when the action is moving to its climax, all express simultaneously their thoughts, uh their feelings and their emotions, and it pours out in this glorious sound.
This is one of his sunniest songs... the great thing about Schubert is that he knew... that as I once put it, nothing bad matters and everything good does, and that's Hubert for you, and particularly in this song, which is a song of the movements of the Son of the Muses, and he's he's out in the country, you might say, and feeling very light hearted indeed.
Falstaff, Act II: Quand'ero paggio
And this is when he's reminiscing, Falstaff is reminiscing about his childhood when he was page to the Duke of Norfolk. And the whole point of it is he said he was so slim and tiny he could go through the eye of a needle. And look at me now, and Falstaff with his huge belly going on before him. And also I wanted this particular recording because Garant Evans, a marvellous, wonderful baritone and dear friend who retired not very long ago from the operatic stage after many years of delighting audiences including me, he is the Falstaff on this record.
Turandot, Act II: In questa reggia
It just takes your breath away, doesn't it? It really does. You think those those three repetitions of the of that last phrase higher each time the third time you can't believe your ears in the old phrase. You see no throat, ordinary human throat, could make such glorious sounds.
Piano Sonata No. 21 in C major, Op. 53, "Waldstein": II. Introduzione: Adagio molto
And this one, the Waldstein sonata, is one to me one of the most profound and moving of all his piano works, of all his works indeed. And I particularly wanted this recording by Alfred Brendel, because I think Brendel is now the finest living exponent of Beethoven.
Sonnet 130: "My mistress's eyes are nothing like the sun"
Well, this is not music at all, it's words. It's a sonnet of Shakespeare, my favourite sonnet in fact. And it's uh read by John Gilgood. And I wanted this because drama on radio I think never really comes off successfully, but of course poetry does immensely successfully.
Messiah, HWV 56: I know that my Redeemer liveth
I know that my Redeemer liveth... is a precious and beautiful thing but but this particular recording I wanted the Kiritakanawa singing it because I might as well make no bones about it. I'm raving mad in love with her and I always will be.
In conversation
Presenter asks
3:48Do you come from a musical background at all?
No, not at all. Um my family wasn't musical. But in uh in those days, and and I imagine it still continues, Jewish mothers without any money, which was the definition of my mother, always believed that their son was destined to be the next Haifetz or Yehudi Menuin... Anyhow, I was not. And I was taught the violin very badly indeed, hated it. And the moment I could, I struck and refused to go on practising any longer. And it very nearly poisoned me for music forever
Presenter asks
4:16What was it like [growing up in Camden Town]?
Oh, it was a very poor neighbourhood indeed. But indeed, I do remember, it's not just retrospective sentimentality. It was, you know, the old thing about the poor, it's what the poor, what helps the poor, it was. We were a kind of collective and we all knew that we were all living on the on the edge of or living on very, very thin ice indeed, because, you know, things like illness and were catastrophes in there, absolute catastrophes. Families could be ruined overnight. And so there was a kind of camaraderie among the very poor physical facilities and surroundings. I don't think it it harmed or marked me.
Presenter asks
8:34Have you ever thought back on why this is in you, this difficulty in expressing emotion?
The keepsakes
The book
Michelin
so I can dwell upon the great meals I've eaten in France and plan, uh, if I ever get off the island, the ones I shall then eat.
The luxury
the reason I want that is that if I stayed on your island for 40 years, I might, only might, by the end of it, work out how to work the damn thing.
Hard to say. I have. It's something I've worked at in recent years and it's become very, very much easier, thank God. But where it comes from, I don't know. I had what is technically known as a broken home and maybe that contributed. Well, obviously it contributed in some way. It must have done. But you can't go back and rewrite the past. You've got to start from where you are, whatever happens. I've made my peace with myself and as I say, it's now this problem is very, very much more controlled. Well, not controlled, that's the wrong way of putting it. I'm very much more able to express my feelings.
Presenter asks
12:49What was the ambition of the young Levin? What did you want to be?
Oh, I wanted to be a politician, did you? Next uh it was a university teaching I was thinking of, being a Dom, and I dropped that fairly sharply. Then I didn't really know what to do, or what I wanted to do, more to the point, and I slid sideways into [journalism]... I couldn't do anything else, I had to become a journalist. And uh if if a man cannot uh succeed at any honest or demanding trade, that's more or less all he can do. So I've done it. Yeah.
Presenter asks
24:30Why did you opt out of journalism for 18 months and go away to refresh yourself?
Oh, that was wonderful. That was the most wonderful thing I ever did and the most sensible, possibly the only sensible thing I've ever done. I was exhausted in every possible sense of the word. I was displeased with my work. I was uh stale... So I took a deep breath and quit everything, all my journalistic work, completely... I said to myself, I will stay away as long as I feel like, and when I feel the juices flowing again, I'll come back to journalism. And that's precisely what I did. And it lasted exactly eighteen months. And it was marvelous.
Presenter asks
27:58What kind of overall view do you have of the world? Is it optimistic?
Oh yes, I'm I am an eternal optimist. Absolutely certain that the world is the right way up. When you look at the world and the horrors and terrible things that happen in the wars and the murders and the tragedies and the poverty and um you'd think the man must be mad to be an optimist in this. But he is. This man, at any rate, is an optimist. Mad or sane. I believe that there is a meaning and a purpose in the universe and that we are all part of it.
“all life is an exploration of Mozart, and what I meant by that is the deeper you go into Mozart, the deeper you go into life and what life is for, and what life means to you, and what your own life has done and not done, etcetera.”
“Life is a is in a sense a a matter of coming to terms with what you can't do and what you can do. The the interesting, surprising and wonderful thing about life is that although frequently you say, well that I can't do, and I better stop thinking I can, and then gradually it changes and that's has it's it's done that uh with me.”
“Work is important, and if you like your work, you love your work, as I do, until I got this choked feeling. It's important, of course it's important, and you must take it seriously, but you must not believe that we're on the earth to do our work. If you are, if you're Beethoven, then you are on earth to do your work, obviously, but I'm not. Most of us aren't. Work is important. for all of us in many ways, but it isn't the only thing in life and I don't even think it's the most important thing in life and shouldn't be.”
“I once said there are far more good people in the world than bad ones. Now that seems to me to be self-evidently true, but more to the point, it seems to me tremendously important. It that can't be an accident or a coincidence. I don't believe, anyhow.”