Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
A conductor and artistic director of the London Mozart Players, known for presenting the BBC One series Orchestra and Mozart.
On the island
Eight records
Piano Concerto No. 9 in E-flat major, K. 271 ("Jeunehomme")
With that bit, it does actually incorporate what I think is um two of the greatest bars in all music. Um I'm not going to sing them to you, but they are there, where to put it simplistically really, time stops. It's just one of those moments when Mozart grabs you and you simply can't do anything but listen to those bars.
And it's this marvellous combination of music that is majestic and monumental on the one hand, and yet marvellously intimate on the other, you feel you're making chamber music and at the same time you're building cathedrals.
Peter Grimes (Four Sea Interludes: Dawn)
And so I've chosen Peter Grimes. It's a piece I've I've worked on since and I I now conduct Benjamin Britton quite a lot and it always feels like coming home in a sense for this reason. But I've chosen actually the one of the the four C interludes from Peter Grimes, which might be appropriate on Desert Island after all. And the one I've chosen is Dawn.
Così fan tutte (Act I Quintet: Di scrivermi ogni giorno)
It's Mozart writing ensembles which are second to none. I don't think he ever bettered the sort of ensembles that he wrote in Cosy, and I've chosen the quintet from the first act, Di scriver miogni giorna.
String Quartet No. 13 in A minor, D. 804 ("Rosamunde")
Chamber music just to contrast with all these forty part motettes and operas and so on. Uh again terribly difficult to choose, but Schubert really has to be around, so please can I have the A minor string quartet?
Jephtha (Waft her, angels, through the skies)
I've chosen an aria from his oratorio Jephthah, which is Waft Her Angels Through the Skies, that marvellous prayer that Jephthah sings just before his daughter is to be sacrificed.
Das Lied von der Erde (Der Abschied)
It's um the most marvellous piece. It's actually about the third piece of of valedictory music I've chosen so far. I don't know whether this is intrinsically tied up with my departure to the island, but Waft Her Angels the Handle is is valedictory and so is the trio from Coisy. But please can I have another farewell with Marla?
Symphony No. 41 in C major, K. 551 ("Jupiter") (Coda to the last movement)
It is, uh, guess what, Mozart you can't go anywhere without the coda to the last movement of Mozart's last symphony, The Jupiter. It is the most breathtaking amalgam of five-part invertible counterpoint, just speaking technically for a second. And when you come to this coda, having performed the rest of the symphony, you sort of take off, as he does, and it is, from his point of view, absolutely effortless and yet exhilarating for all of us.
The keepsakes
The book
Virginia Woolf
I think she would be such good company, and if I had the letters of her to read, then I would feel that I was in touch with somebody, and of course they're so marvellous to read.
The luxury
a fully-stocked bathroom with hot towels, toiletries, and first aid supplies
What I really want is a bathroom and full of sort of hot towels and um cupboards stuffed with lots of lovely things that make you smell nice and of course a cupboard for insect bites and first aid and all that sort of stuff.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:30Was there any doubt at all that you'd do anything other than music as a career?
Oh, yes. When I was nine, I wanted to be a policewoman. ... I certainly was playing a lot of music and, you know, learning music, as a lot of children do. And I had recognised that there was something instinctive in me which responded to music. But I didn't think I'd necessarily articulated that I was going to be a musician. For a long time I wanted to be an actress, you know, as all schoolgirls do.
Presenter asks
1:23What sort of family do you come from? Was there a lot of music in the family?
We are not essentially a musical family, it's an academic family, though my parents were keen amateur musicians in the sense that they sang with choral societies and that sort of thing. So there was always music on the periphery of the home, though not necessarily in it.
Presenter asks
5:30Did the thought ever occur to you in those days that perhaps one day you might end up being what you are now, a conductor?
No, I don't think it did at all. I mean, conducting was something that happened really while I was at Oxford. I was tremendously lucky in being part of an absolutely wonderful year of musicians. ... And so because all my friends were getting up and conducting concerts, I did too, and it seemed to work, and nobody seemed to think this was a crazy idea. And one thing led to another, really.
Presenter asks
8:18Why did you choose [to research] 17th century Venice?
Well, it was not as I was often accused because Venice was a nice place to go and work, which indeed it was, and I did spend four years divided between Oxford and Venice, which isn't a bad way to spend four years. But I had got very hooked on the Baroque period of music, Purcell, Monteverdi, Vivaldi, Handelbach, while I was at Oxford. ... And this name Cavalli came up, a pupil of Monteverdi's, and his operas started being done. ... I was completely bowled over by these pieces and I frankly leapt onto a bandwagon. I wanted to find out more about this chap, Cavalli
Presenter asks
14:41How do you set about learning to be a conductor?
Well, there are really only two ways. One is by doing it and finding out yourself what works for you. And, of course, the other thing is to observe other people doing it. And I still learn an immense amount just from watching my colleagues.
Presenter asks
24:49What do you find unacceptable about being called one of the few women conductors around?
It implies that because one is a woman that one is different as a conductor. ... What really matters is what the music sounds like, not what one is wearing, and that really is is I accept [that] one is a conductor.
“I could easily take eight records by Mozart. ... Because in a way, ultimately he answers all one's needs, for me anyway, and there is so much in him of variety and and depth”
“I think one's technique as a conductor never stops developing and changing and with any luck improving. ... I suppose I felt that there was something in me that could, through the eloquence of gesture, transmit what I felt about the music and make it happen from the chap sitting in front of me.”
“The agony never goes away, and that the nerves are still there, wherever you're playing, whoever with. ... And if they weren't there, you wouldn't be very much good at the job like that.”
“However many people you're working with, you are colleagues. You can't do it without them. They, well, perhaps can do it without you, but the idea is that you're all doing it together at the time. And I don't think we should ever underestimate the professionalism of the people one is working with.”