Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Gardener who served as gardens advisor to the National Trust, overseeing up to 110 gardens covering about a thousand acres.
On the island
Eight records
Mass for Five VoicesFavourite
Choir of King's College, Cambridge
I think I've chosen this not only because of its beauty, but because it's been recorded in King's College Chapel, Cambridge. I was born in Cambridge and I was acquainted with King's College Chapel from a very early age.
Herbert von Karajan with the Chorus and Orchestra of the Society of the Friends of Music
Again, I hark back to Cambridge because every year there there is a great work performed in King's College Chapel.
Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor
Clifford Curzon with the London Symphony Orchestra
I had awful difficulty in deciding which I would choose, the first or the second. They are both very large scale music, and I don't think one could tire of them.
Prelude and Fugue in E-flat major, No. 7 from the second book of *The Well-Tempered Clavier*
I feel that the fugues are wonderfully settling for the brain and I think it's just what I should want when I'd been frustrated by not being able to catch any fish.
Sister, Awake! (Close Not Your Eyes)
I thought that we would choose something a little less well known, and what I'd like you to play, if you would, is Sister Awake, Close Not Your Eyes by Thomas Bakeson.
So tone (from the song cycle *Die schöne Magelone*)
I always feel that nobody else sings Brahms or any of the other lieder as well as he does. … It's a most splendid series of poems and the moment this song, the hero, discovers that his Lady Love's ring has been stolen by a raven and he chases off in pursuit of it and gets himself lost, and he sings this in utmost despair.
London Philharmonic Orchestra with sixteen soloists
I was present when this work was first performed for Sir Henry Wood's Golden Jubilee in 1938.
In conversation
Presenter asks
3:12Why did you become a gardener?
I think it really started with my godfather giving me a fuchsia at the age of six. … And that started me off and my mother and father both encouraged it.
Presenter asks
7:08In the case of a house built in the time of James I, do you merely plan the most decorative garden for the public to see, or do you try to reconstruct a genuine Jacobean garden?
I wish it were as simple as that. In just a few instances there are original Jacobean layouts, such as at Ham House, which we are reconstructing. The paths are still in their old position. … and Westbury Court in Gloucestershire, which we have been able to reconstruct because we have all the plans and all the planting lists of the many, many years ago.
Presenter asks
9:59I'm very interested in the historical side of the job you've been talking about. Are there enough old engravings and old notebooks to recreate a garden as it really was?
Yes, we have done so in one or two instances, but very often there are so many old engravings that one can get a pretty good idea of what should be there. … and in some instances there are records of the plants used.
The keepsakes
The book
The Collected Works of Hilaire Belloc
Hilaire Belloc
I regard his writing as some of the best English that I know and it would be useful as a sort of refresher course if I started scribbling on some of the drawing paper.
Presenter asks
10:57What's happened to garden colour through the ages? Are garden colours more subtle now or are they brighter?
Oh they're not brighter. Much brighter. … Bigger and brighter and better, some people would say. … Because of hybridising and selection. But in the old days, in the Jacobean times, gardening as we know it today rather packed up by mid-summer and great delight was taken in the fruits after that and nuts … And most of the plants were over by July.
Presenter asks
12:08Are there any particular problems that arise in dealing with these old gardens?
Same old problems. Same old problem, human problems, but we always get over them. The culture of gardens is not difficult. … But what is very disconcerting is, having planted some young trees, if you get two inches of snow on the ground, the rabbits, which are very much on the increase in places, will come in and gnaw the stems. Or you may get a herd of deer coming over the fence in some districts, and they can do appalling damage.
Presenter asks
18:08Now this desert island — you've tamed jungles all over the country. Could you tame this island, do you think?
It'll be quite easy digging in sand after some of the soils I've had to cope with. … And a shelter. You could put up a bothy. I'm a rough carpenter … and cultivation obviously no problem at all. … No, I could manage that, I think.
“I think if I had to choose, I should have no hesitation in choosing the old one.”
“It'll be quite easy digging in sand after some of the soils I've had to cope with.”
“I think I should go back to the very beginning of English music to the bird. The bird nests for five voices.”
“I regard his writing as some of the best English that I know and it would be useful as a sort of refresher course if I started scribbling on some of the drawing paper.”