Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Concert pianist who shared the Moscow Tchaikovsky Prize with Vladimir Ashkenazi and rebuilt his career after mental illness.
On the island
Eight records
Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes
London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by André Previn
Well, I I think when Britton wrote Peter Grimes. It was like a new age beginning in English modern music. It really has such beauty and delicacy of colour, and he was such a lovely person. We knew him slightly, and he was terribly kind and awfully nice.
Well, it's a concerto that you don't hear as often as the others, and the record itself, from the technical point of view, was regarded as something of epoch making at the time. It's very finely engineered and Michelangeli plays marvellously as
which I think is given a miraculously fine performance by Vladimir Ashkenazi. And he the way he thinks the shapes, the melodies, and the wonderful rhythms are really quite spectacular.
Symphony No. 1 in B-flat minor (first movement)Favourite
London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by André Previn
Well, We knew William and Sue Walton quite well. ... And I feel the piece takes one back to the year of nineteen thirty five and you can feel the tension in it of, you know, armaments races building up and I think somehow he managed to convey this in the piece, you know, in a miraculous, fantastic way.
Thi I think'cause of his demonic burlier.
Sir John Barbirolli conducting the Hallé Orchestra
I think it's one of my favourite pieces of music.
In conversation
Presenter asks
3:03Why does that piece mean so much to you?
Well, I I think when Britton wrote Peter Grimes. It was like a new age beginning in English modern music. It really has such beauty and delicacy of colour, and he was such a lovely person. We knew him slightly, and he was terribly kind and awfully nice.
Presenter asks
9:12Were you any good at academic work, or was music always the one and only thing?
It is a crap. Yeah. Well, I I enjoyed history very much at the school, and it was very well taught, and there was a very active music society. The Film Society and the Philosophical and Debating Society of the Marvelous School of Music. So you enjoyed your school days? Very much. Very much better.
Presenter asks
13:58How great a chance did you feel you had of winning?
Well, I didn't know. I mean, I'd always been enthused with Russian music. I mean, my father was enthused with Russian music. And so I felt with this affinity that I ought to enter at any rate and, you know, have a go at it.
Presenter asks
The keepsakes
The book
Wilkie Collins
Well, that would go a long way in itself, but I thought I might take the moonstone of Wilkie Collins.
The luxury
Well, yes, yes, I think a piano would be a sine qua non and uh I think that's a a very brilliant idea for Luxury indeed.
Can you recall how you felt?
Um I felt rather given to irrational moods and not connecting things up properly, you know, words and things and needed some well treatment, you know, some sort and
Presenter asks
25:35So there you were, after a nine-year absence, on the stage of the Queen Elizabeth Hall. How did it go? How were you received?
Well The audience were very warm and and they seemed to receive it very well. Um I enjoyed it enormously.
Presenter asks
31:57How much, John, do you go over in your head everything that's happened to you and wish perhaps that it might have been different?
Um Well I do go through different things in my head, but I've I feel I've had the good fortune. After this illness. Thanks to Brenda's devotion, to make a good recovery.
“Um well, I felt really wonderful, but stunned at the same time.”
“Uh well I did, I'm ashamed to say, yes, and the thing will never show up.”
“The audience were very warm and and they seemed to receive it very well.”
“I take lithium, lithium carbonate, which is a bl a blood salt that we have in our blood naturally, and this has proved a a wonderful stabilizer.”
“Um well, very important really. I love to see my children and m I mean we get together as often as we can”