Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
An American organist who performed extensively in the United States and Britain.
On the island
Eight records
I think it's a good, clean, musical, fun escape from mister Ives.
How Lovely Is Thy Dwelling Place (from Ein deutsches Requiem)Favourite
Philharmonia Orchestra and Chorus, conducted by Otto Klemperer
I adore to make the organ sing. I'm a real fan of melody, and I've chosen something by Brahms from his lovely Requiem, How Lovely Is Thy Dwelling Place. I think it's a beautiful, beautiful piece.
which is a lovely song which I knew from my grandmother and was taught it and sang it in the church choir as a solo when I was only six years old, as a bit of a budding boy soprano. I'm afraid things have changed since then.
Symphony No. 4 in E minor, Op. 98: III. Allegro giocoso
Chicago Symphony Orchestra, conducted by James Levine
the beginning of the third movement, I think is some of the most powerful writing in all the Romantic repertoire. It's one of my favorite pieces to listen to.
The Love for Three Oranges: March
It's where I discovered it.
Concerto for Two Violins in D minor, BWV 1043: II. Largo ma non tanto
Jascha Heifetz (playing both parts), with the RCA Victor Chamber Orchestra conducted by Franz Waxman
this is the one where he's doing it with himself there.
I've chosen a piece of organ music by the famous French composer Alexandre Guillemand. It is his Noel Polonaise played by Odile Pierre on a marvellous Cavaille call organ.
The Ride of the Valkyries (arranged for organ by Edwin H. Lemare)
This many people don't play transcriptions on the organ any more. They say it's oh, it's it's not apropos, it's absolutely awful. It's not the way there's enough classic material written for the organ, but I I rather tend to think if it's musical and melodic, play it.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:31How well could you adjust yourself to loneliness?
Loneliness. Oh, that's a very, very difficult question, actually. I've never been lonely, because just in this past concert season during the year between the States and this country, I've performed over eighty engagements, and I can tell you that's a lot of paw-shaking after the concerts. But I don't know, it would be a little bit difficult. I do like time on my own, and perhaps I fancy it. I would love to do that, actually.
Presenter asks
0:58Apart from the loss of companionship, what would be the worst thing about [being on a desert island]?
Oh, I think the wonderful camaraderie that I receive from talking on the telephone. I have a disease called black cord disease, telephonitis, as the GPO can attest. And I I love talking on the phone. All my friends see me coming, and the phone's locked away in the cupboard. All of them, you see. So um this is a slight problem, but I survive.
Presenter asks
3:07Are you of Italian stock?
Not at all, as a matter of fact. The Carlo, of course, is an Italian name, as you well say. The Curly is of Irish extraction. My entire mob came from Dublin, settled in Massachusetts. Members of my family, my past generation, became involved in politics in Massachusetts and so forth. Not any of them were musicians necessarily, but my mother was a concert violinist and played in Florida in a proper symphony orchestra. And my grandmother was a very fine pianist and taught at the New England Conservatory in Boston for many years.
The keepsakes
The book
Mastering the Art of French Cooking
Julia Child
I think I'd fancy a cookery book, really something that I could look through to see all the wonderful food I'm missing and the marvellous dishes I had created theretofore. I mean, it'd be lovely. Perhaps the one by Julia Child, since it's such a scream, I could always have a good laugh while looking at the trout on the page, you know.
The luxury
Perhaps have my Danish friends build me a very small little portotif pipe organ to practise on while I was there. Wouldn't that be lovely, playing to the gulls and the sea?
Presenter asks
5:22Do you remember the first time you played in public?
Yes, I was horrified. Oh, it was awful. It was in the town hall in Monroe, North Carolina, which seconded as a recreation center where people shot billiards. And I was more interested in the billiard tables than I was the piano on the stage, you see. And I won the competition, actually, hands down, but I came in with billiard chalk and and powder all over me hands, and I know it made the key the keys very ... very slick, and it seemed that I went from a linto to a presto a little bit too quickly, so God knows why, but in any case, it's not a good idea.
Presenter asks
6:37You were an infant prodigy and an object of wonder, really. How did you react to that?
Well, it never occurred to me because I was made to work so very hard. I entered an arts school at a very young age, which did not necessarily deal in academic things such as your spelling and your math as much as it did in teaching you uh solfege and fugue and counterpoint and composition and etcetera and etcetera. And I'm very glad for that because I went to a school called the North Carolina School of the Arts, which was the very first state supported school in the United States for talented children in the State.
Presenter asks
8:56How old were you when you took your first professional post as a church organist?
I was hired when I was fourteen, but I actually began after my birthday, which appears on August the 24th. So I was really fifteen when I began at a large Baptist church in Atlanta, Georgia.
“And that was perhaps the greatest single mistake of my life, because I was immediately delivered into the next room, just chained to the piano bench of a horrible Gulbranson upright, and forced to practice five or six hours for the next three years, you see.”
“I went up and pushed the blower on, and when that first surge of wind hit the bellows, I knew I was caught. The organ bug fever had bitten, and I've been playing the king of instruments ever since.”
“I always say, would Heifetz fiddle from behind a potted palm? Well, not likely. So, I mean, it's about time that organists came out of the dusty lofts and came downstairs and showed people what they have.”