Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
A conductor best known for conducting the Last Night of the Proms.
On the island
Eight records
plain song and the music of Palestrina Victoria in a choir. And uh it made a a very vivid impression in spite of the fact that I was uh asked to leave the choir for bad behaviour uh when I reached eight years of age. But in those early years I loved it and I would love to have this spiritual side to listen to.
Violin Concerto (original version)
Jascha Heifetz, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Eugene Goossens
After the war I was greatly influenced by the music of Bartok and Ravel and Stravinsky, and of the British composers at that time, Vaughan Williams and Walton especially, I loved, and there was a recording, the very first recording of the Walton Violin Concerto. And that was the composer's first thoughts which he subsequently reorchestrated that I would love to take on this desert island.
The Gypsy Baron: Entrance March
The third record is a reflection of my student years in Amsterdam, because although it's not connected with the Opera House, the music in the streets of Amsterdam always intrigued me, and I would love to hear some of the hurdy gurdy organ music that is so common there.
Piano Trio No. 1 in B-flat major, D. 898: II. Andante un poco mosso
Alfred Cortot, Jacques Thibaud and Pablo Casals
Well, the one composer I feel that I could not be without on a desert island w would be Schubert, which may be a surprise to many listeners associated with Brahms and Beethoven, etc. But Schubert to me is is the most natural composer. He's not trying to establish himself in any particular way. He's just it just flows For his friends and those who love music. And I'd love to hear the second movement of his trio in B-flat, the first one.
Record five is an unusual record in so far as I felt that on a desert island with no instruments I would like to do as they do in the Western Islands. where if there are no instruments around, they have mouth music. This is music that's not necessarily connected with any specific words. It's the syllables that make the rhythm. And you can make up your own syllables in your own words and your own particular rhythmic pattern. And uh having this would I think spurn me on to make my own particular mouth music and uh I thought this would be a very useful record on a desert island.
Fidelio: Mir ist so wunderbar (Quartet)Favourite
Christa Ludwig, Gottlob Frick, Ingeborg Hallstein and Gerhard Unger, conducted by Otto Klemperer
The sixth record then follows that I would love to have something of Beethoven and thinking about it, the one piece that I would love is the quartet from Fidelio, because this would certainly satisfy moments of reflection and deeper thought that one o occasionally needs time to time.
Serenade for Strings in E major, Op. 22: I. Moderato
English Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Rafael Kubelík
One great regret in my life was that I was never able to play a stringed instrument. I wanted very, very much to do so. And there's the story of when I was at school, I went to my headmaster and said I desperately want to learn the violin. And the classic answer I received was, Have you mastered the piano? So there was no response to that. I found that I w th I just had to buy a violin and secretly try to get uh lessons in them. But I was never good enough to be able to play w to my satisfaction, certainly, so I don't regard myself as being able to play the violin at all. And therefore I must have some string music. And one piece I'm very fond of is the Devorch Serenade.
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Sir Thomas Beecham
is really to reflect on the marvellous sense of British tongue in cheek humour that I think I would miss very much on on the island. And one of my heroes in my early days was Sir Thomas Beacham. who gave me the impression that he did everything very well without taking life too seriously. And he arranged some music of Handel, and one of those pieces, which is from his ballet music to Love in Bath, is has been a long favourite of mine, which I would love to chuckle over, and that's the hornpipe.
In conversation
Presenter asks
3:59Was there any tradition for music in your family?
Only that there was always music in the family in an amateur way. My father had a most marvellous voice and uh he would take me to the theatre. Um nothing in the line that I'm now involved in insofar as I I never really went to a a symphony concert before the age of thirteen. But I did go to the theatre uh to musicals and pantomime and that sort of thing.
Presenter asks
4:33Did you go to music college?
No. I was slightly put off going to music college because I did apply for a music scholarship when I was twelve and at the audition had a a flaming row with the principal because he insisted on whistling when I was playing my Beethoven sonata. I'm sure he was quite right. You know, I was probably playing it badly. But I gave him the choice of either whistling or listening to me play. And it it created such a bad impression that I thought academies were places where people were manufactured into musicians. So it psychologically was a black mark on my career.
Presenter asks
6:32What had you been doing before [studying music full time]?
Well, before that, uh, you see, I'd been at school and then did my national service and then I intended, really, going into the academy. But during the time that I was in the National Service I had continued to study music where I could, and um lots of people recognised this conducting talent I had and suggested that I should go back to Scotland as an assistant conductor. But there were no funds in those days to even uh suggest that I I I could be taken on the staff. And my parents said, Now you're a young fellow, why don't you go and study something else? And so I studied law and economics for four years.
The keepsakes
The book
A World Airways Comprehensive Timetable
Because in the last twenty years, I have been so furious at the way these timetables are organized that I always miss my connection by half an hour or there's not enough time for the baggage to go around. I would like to spend my time constructively making out the perfect timetable to suit everybody's connection.
The luxury
go back to one of my first loves, and that is drawing and painting. So if I could have some paints and um some charcoal and paper, is that allowed?
Presenter asks
7:01What made you change direction [from law and economics back to music]?
My finals. I was re sitting the finals in company law. And a moment came of truth where I looked at the clock every ten minutes in the Mitchell Library in Glasgow, I remember. And so as a diversion. I thought I would go and explore the music library. I went up, took down a score of Meistersinger, and three hours later I looked at the clock. And uh the rest speaks for itself. I mean, I had had my discipline away from music, finding out whether I could work at something else, and learned a great deal, but there was no point in continuing.
Presenter asks
25:55Recently, you've resigned from both the Halle and the Bamberg Orchestra. Why?
I'm resigning from the end of next season because I felt that it was a time in my life, I'd been 12 years with the Halley Orchestra, which I felt. That was all I could do, certainly, with this particular post, and the orchestra's playing so splendidly just now that it's much better to take a back seat when they are so good. And after fifty I felt I would like to be stimulated to do lots of other things, because for the last years I've been so busy with two orchestras that I haven't had time to do lots of things that I'm keen to do before I've finished my career.
“I would rather have, as I only could have eight records, music that reflected different moods that we inevitably have in the course of a day or or a week or whatever.”
“most of the conductors that I've met have been self-taught, and I certainly feel that I owe a great deal to what I picked up. First of all, through the radio.”
“I scraped off all the tradition, all the wallpaper, and presented them as we thought they would be heard to an audience that had not heard Brahms and Mahler and Strauss, that had only heard Mozart and Bach and Hendel, which is a different kind of sound, and that in itself was a very interesting experiment to do for for someone like the B B C.”