Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Composer of musicals, TV themes, movie scores; award-winning documentary presenter; England's first National Ambassador for Singing.
On the island
Eight records
I find the idea of a song called We Can Work It Out just so perfect. That's what someone would write if they were from Britain. They would think there's a way through this, we'll talk it through, we'll find a compromise.
Mass for Five Voices: Agnus Dei
Choir of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford
I've chosen his Mass for Five Voices, which is is very, very beautiful Renaissance English music.
Das Lied von der Erde: Der Abschied
Kathleen Ferrier, Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Bruno Walter
And the last few words just go Evig, Ebig, forever, forever. Mahler was trying to create the idea that the piece never really went away, it just drifted off into the ether. And it's unbearably moving listening to this woman sing this final part of this great work that came from the end of Mahler's life.
And on that island I want to put something on that will make me want to dance and feel that life is happy and exciting.
Truro Cathedral Choir, conducted by Robert Sharpe
The De Rufflet Requiem is one of my favourite pieces in the world, and I really associate this piece now with my wife Val because we have a house in France where I do a lot of my composing. And Val will often put on this piece on the stereo down in the kitchen, and I'm in my composing room upstairs, and she'd put it on quite loud and sing along with it.
This reminds me so much of my stepdaughters because in the car we'll put this song on and they both know all the words to all the songs we put on in the car and we all sing along to these songs.
This song All This Time is about his dad and about his growing up in the North East and it's about the river Tyne going out to the sea. It also has in it a wonderful line that is one of my kind of lines for life which is people go crazy in congregations, they only get better one by one.
I think there is very beautiful modern music written for orchestra that's film music. And a very, very good example of this would be John Williams's score for Schindler's List, which is utterly beautiful, incredibly moving.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:53Can you explain how it goes [hearing music in your head all the time]?
Yes, it's a bit like a C D playing of music you've never heard before, all the time. And I suppose that's why I b I became a composer, because I suppose it it would have started to happen when I was a boy.
Presenter asks
1:35When did you realize that it wasn't normal [to hear music in your head]?
Well, I was in a choir school when I was eight years old, and a lot of the other choristers were very musical, and therefore I suppose it wasn't that unusual. One or two of my friends also composed. It was only when I went to secondary school and was with lots of people who weren't particularly musical that it became obvious to me that what I'd been having as an experience as a boy chorister wasn't normal.
Presenter asks
9:49What was it you were trying to express at that age [when you began composing as a boy]?
I I was a chorister, therefore I wrote music that I thought the choir would sing, and eventually, by the time I was twelve or thirteen, the choir did sing a couple of my pieces, which was an immensely exciting thing to have.
The keepsakes
The book
Anne Frank
I'd like that because when I'm feeling low or self-indulgent about being on the island on my own, it would be wonderful to be reminded that it's really not that bad.
The luxury
ice-cold vanilla vodka with tonic
My luxury would be ice-cold vanilla vodka with tonic, please.
Presenter asks
10:00How did you feel the first time you heard them express something that had been this sound inside you?
Well, I suppose in those days it came as a bit of a surprise because I was putting down music on the page, I didn't really know exactly what it sounded like... David Lumson, he was a very great choir master, and he probably had no idea what an impact that had on me, having the choir sing one of my pieces. I mean, I thought, gosh, you know, I could do this.
Presenter asks
25:39Why do you feel the need to proselytize, to be evangelical [about music]?
Well, I suppose my dad was a teacher, and I suppose I've got teachers' blood in me, D and A, and I'm a natural teacher. In fact, some people would say I'm a bit lectury. And I suppose if I hadn't been a professional composer I would probably have been a teacher.
“I can't imagine what would be in my head without it. It is like a soundtrack that's there the whole time.”
“I think being three boys in relatively close ages, it's impossible not to be a bit competitive. I I don't see that as a bad thing though.”
“I think that a piece of music, however layered and richly textured it may be, if it doesn't have a melody, it it's really hard to latch onto it and for it to have emotional power.”