Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
2 appearances
Music administrator and writer, known for significant contributions to music.
On the island
Eight records
When I am laid in earth (Dido's Lament)
I had to decide between Purcell and Monteverdi... and I chose Dido's Lament.
Serenade in B-flat major, K. 361 'Gran Partita': I. Largo - Molto allegro
Soloists of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
really something chosen for pure pleasure.
Ella giammai m'amo (King Philip's Monologue from Don Carlos)
We did a production while I worked at Covent Garden in 1958... one of the leading performers from it, Boris Christoff, in fact sings the great monologue of King Philip.
String Quintet in C major, D. 956: I. Allegro ma non troppoFavourite
I think that Schubert is the composer I've always come back to in moments of stress and doubt and misery generally, and I couldn't conceivably be without a piece of Schubert on the Desert Islands.
The Cunning Little Vixen: Orchestral Suite
shows the vixen imprisoned... longing to be away.
Symphony in Three Movements: I. ♩ = 160
I thought that one needed something truly invigorating for a desert island.
Gurre-Lieder: Part 1 (excerpt)
very much connected with my time at the Edinburgh Festival.
Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings: Hymn
Peter Pears, Barry Tuckwell, London Symphony Orchestra, Benjamin Britten
a very lively, exuberant piece... a characteristic one would need on a desert island.
String Quartet No. 75 in G major, Op. 76 No. 1: I. Allegro con spirito
Wonderful simplicity I find, and I love the way the piece bounces away with the kind of confidence that I think one would need on a desert island.
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg: Act III Quintet
Elisabeth Schumann, Lauritz Melchior, Friedrich Schorr, Ben Williams & Gladys Parr
I think this is one of those wonderful, slow tunes that becomes almost timeless, and the singing is as clean and as exciting almost as the music.
Piano Trio No. 4 in D major, Op. 70 No. 1, 'Ghost': I. Allegro vivace e con brio
Daniel Barenboim, Pinchas Zukerman & Jacqueline du Pré
I have a particular interest in the performers because the cellist, Jacqueline Dupre, became my goddaughter ... and very wonderfully I think she plays the beautiful tune right at the beginning of the movement.
I puritani: Qui la voce sua soave
This performance of hers is to me the ... essence of what we ... Bel Canto, the perfect harnessing of means to ends, with the ends always involving a beautiful sound, which I think she has here, as well as a tremendous intensity of expression.
Placido Domingo & Montserrat Caballé
It's a very long opera, but it's one that has come gradually, I think, to become my favorite Verdi opera.
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Charles Mackerras
I love Janacek, and I'm always fascinated by the rapid contrasts of texture and of mood that he gets into his music, and these great ... lyrical, yearning tunes that he makes.
A Midsummer Night's Dream: Closing Scene
Elizabeth Harwood & Alfred Deller
I find it a wonderful finale to a very exciting and satisfactory opera.
Piano Sonata No. 20 in A major, D. 959: II. AndantinoFavourite
I like the late sonatas, the late piano sonatas, I think above everything of his. These very long, not desolate, 'cause I find them infinitely beautiful and therefore infinitely consoling.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:39From your experience as a prisoner of war, do you think you could adjust yourself with enforced solitude?
Very difficult to say. I'm really a gregarious animal and in prison we were too thick on the ground. On a desert island, one would be the reverse. I think one adjusted to conditions in the war that looked impossible in peacetime and I suppose I could to a desert island, I hope.
Presenter asks
1:29How did you set about choosing your ultimate eight? Did you have any plan in mind?
I think I did. I think I went for the eight composers who've meant perhaps most to me in the last 30 years or so, and then tried to find a proper variety amongst the eight selections, chamber music, opera, symphonic, and so on. I hope to provide me with variety on the desert island.
Presenter asks
9:15There's a story that during your spell as Prisoner of War, you read the whole volumes of Grove's musical dictionary. Is that true?
Well, not entirely. I only got as far as S and then we were moved, or I was moved.
The keepsakes
The book
The Oxford Book of English Verse
Arthur Quiller-Couch
The times I've tried to read poetry I've enjoyed it very much. But I'm a an idle reader. I'm a listener, you see. I listen to music. And I would like to be better involved in purchase. I would choose the largest BEST Anthology of Poetry.
The luxury
a typewriter and Tip-Ex correction fluid
I've always used a typewriter, and I would want that, provided I could have the ... magic substance called Tip X, with which you can white out the mistakes you make so that the paper looks pristine and you go over the top.
Presenter asks
9:28What was your first active interest in music?
Well, I was asked while I was at Cambridge by Benjamin Britten to become president of the English Opera Group, and I'm a great enthusiast for his music and for the work the English Opera Group did and does. And I was allowed to do a good deal more than presidents sometimes are. So that was enjoyable.
Presenter asks
11:04You made a lot of innovations at Edinburgh Festival, which do you look back on with most pride?
Well, I think the criticism that I found of Edinburgh before I went there was that it had no point, that it was a conglomeration of events without any central purpose. And I tried to bring back specific particular interest to give it point and inasmuch as I succeeded over that I was pleased.
Presenter asks
13:40Just how Philistine is this country in its attitude to the arts? Are our government subsidies as miserably small as they seem in comparison?
I suppose they are. I think the truth is we learn much less quickly officially than we do as a public. I think that we give subsidy an insufficient quality to allow artists to fail, which sounds like a bad reason for giving subsidy. What I mean is that every experiment, and an artist must try out new things, must succeed if it is not to exceed its subsidy. And that I think is a wasteful way of giving subsidy.
Presenter asks
0:37How do you rate as a performer?
I would have thought a candidate for the world's most silent performer. On instruments I rarely never perform at all ... I learned the piano as a kid and I was hopeless at it.
Presenter asks
1:06When did you start collecting records?
Well, I think I started when I was really, very young. I think I bought with my pocket money records and asked for records for Christmas and birthdays and so on. And I was quite a serious collector when I was at school.
Presenter asks
4:22Had you resigned yourself to a life as a landowner looking after the estate?
Yes, up to a point. But I think it was too early, really, when the war came. I was sixteen when the war came too early in my life for that kind of decision to appear decisive, if you know what I mean.
Presenter asks
8:28As a grandson of King George V and nephew of the reigning King, you had considerable bargaining value as a prisoner of war, they thought?
Well, they thought so. We thought this was all very ridiculous, that there were about half a dozen of us with well-known connections, and we would have absolutely no importance whatsoever ourselves ... our fear was that somebody would rumble that the bargaining power was a great deal less than they'd at first thought it was.
Presenter asks
22:24What do you look back on as the major achievements of your term of office so far [at the Coliseum]?
Oh, I suppose the ring in English, the first rings in English for very many years, which we we produced at the Coliseum, that was a a major source of excitement and satisfaction. We have done difficult pieces like War and Peace and people liked them.
Presenter asks
28:41Do you think you could endure complete loneliness for a long time?
I don't think I should be keen on it. ... I think I'm a gregarious person, which means that I very much like being alone occasionally. for a short time, a day or two or something of the kind, but not much more.
“I'm really a gregarious animal and in prison we were too thick on the ground. On a desert island, one would be the reverse.”
“I think that Schubert is the composer I've always come back to in moments of stress and doubt and misery generally, and I couldn't conceivably be without a piece of Schubert on the Desert Islands.”
“I think that we give subsidy an insufficient quality to allow artists to fail, which sounds like a bad reason for giving subsidy. What I mean is that every experiment, and an artist must try out new things, must succeed if it is not to exceed its subsidy. And that I think is a wasteful way of giving subsidy.”
“I believe so strongly in the Greek sin of hubris... that I don't think I would ever dare to admit it except to myself, what I hope to be doing in 10 years' time.”
“I can't write. I find the physical action of writing immensely difficult. And as I rather like writing in the other sense, I suppose I'd want a good new typewriter, inexhaustible paper, and a great many spare typewriter ribbons.”
“I think [Maria Callas] was wonderful. I think she was an example to performers, particularly singers, that should be constantly kept before them.”
“When Bill Shankley, the great Liverpool manager, was asked whether he regarded football as a matter of life and death, he said, No, sir, it's much more serious than that. And I guess he was right.”
“I don't think I could make a raft, but I should preserve the spirit of optimism. I must tell you that. ... Wouldn't lose that.”