Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
A musician and horn player who studied at the Royal College of Music and deputised for the London Symphony Orchestra.
On the island
Eight records
The Marriage of Figaro: Overture
First disc not explicitly named in transcript; inferred from guest's mention of conducting Figaro. No reason quote given.
First new production mentioned. No reason quote given.
Boris Godunov (excerpts)Favourite
Guest discusses learning Russian for this. No reason quote given.
Guest translated this. No reason quote given.
Guest translated this. No reason quote given.
The keepsakes
No book or luxury recorded for this episode.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:08How well do you think you could adjust yourself to loneliness?
Well, I would miss certain people a few people, very much indeed. But the vast majority of people I think I could get along quite happily without.
Presenter asks
0:24What would you want music to do for you on your desert island?
I would like music to remind me of certain cultures, certain countries for which I have a great affection… Well, certainly not in any nostalgic way would it be looking back to the past. Quite the contrary, I rather look forward to the future.
Presenter asks
1:04You started performing at a very early age?
Well, my sister, who is four years older than I am, started to have piano lessons when she was seven. And I copied her at home, and I think when I was five I also started to have lessons on the piano and on the fiddle. I was also singing. I was a choir boy from a very early age.
Presenter asks
2:16How did you set about making music your career?
Well, I set about it by studying every lunch hour in the City of Birmingham library. I used to eat a pennyworth of roast potatoes… and I would eat them in the library and read all the books on music I could find. I got a scholarship, an open scholarship, to study music at Birmingham University. And this upset my parents sufficiently for them to kick me out. Because they thought they didn't want to be a musician, they thought it was rather immoral to be a musician.
Presenter asks
3:54Did academic life [at Aberdeen University] appeal to you?
Not at all. The teaching, the actual fact of teaching, enthusiastic students I find I enjoy very much, I still do. But the sedentary life, the quiet back quarter of a university, particularly a Scottish university, albeit a very beautiful place and a very charming place, was not for me. It was much too sleepy for me.
Presenter asks
6:38Your first opportunity to conduct at Covent Garden came in Bulawayo?
when we went for the centenary of Cecil Rhodes. And [Barbirolli] was conducting Boheme and he couldn't do all the performances because he's also doing some Aidas. And so I did several of the performances that he couldn't do. That is my first thing. And then when we came back to Covent Garden afterwards I began to do more and more conducting.
“Well, I would miss certain people a few people, very much indeed. But the vast majority of people I think I could get along quite happily without.”
“I got a scholarship, an open scholarship, to study music at Birmingham University. And this upset my parents sufficiently for them to kick me out. Because they thought they didn't want to be a musician, they thought it was rather immoral to be a musician.”
“My first one of my first assignments, for example, was to prompt Maria Callas in her debut. Yes. Where Italian came in very useful.”