Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
The most celebrated and commercially successful composer of carols alive today; directs the Cambridge Singers and runs his own record label.
On the island
Eight records
Choir of King's College, Cambridge, directed by Sir David Willcocks
Well, I think I would want to celebrate Christmas, even though I was by myself on my desert island, and I would also want to be reminded of Christmas in Cambridge. And for me nothing sums it up better than the choir of King's College singing in the bleak midwinter by Harold Dark.
The Creation: Introduction to Part Three
English Baroque Soloists, conducted by John Eliot Gardiner
Well, I think that every day would begin on the desert island probably with a beautiful sunrise. But in case it didn't, it would be lovely to have a musical evocation of a sunrise. And for me, the one that always brings tears to my eyes is from Haydn's Creation. It depicts the first morning when God created man. I think it's a lovely, lovely piece, and it's from a work which is very special to me because Haydn's Creation was the first great choral work I sang in at school.
Mass in B minor: Gloria in excelsis Deo
Collegium Vocale Gent, conducted by Philippe Herreweghe
We sang in so many wonderful pieces at school, and the second great work I sang in was the Bach B minor Mas. And of course at Christmas time the words of the Angels to the Shepherds, Gloria and Exchelsis Deo, just sum up what it's all about.
Laurence Olivier and the Philharmonia Orchestra, conducted by William Walton
Well, this is actually going off in a different direction, really, because at that sort of age, you always have composer heroes, composers whose work you just love. And of course, with the living ones, you think to yourself, well, I wonder if one day I might meet him. And it came about in the early 1970s that I actually did meet Sir William Walton. That was a great moment. So I want Sir William Walton on my desert island, and I want some Shakespeare, and I love film music. And so Henry V brings it all together. I would love to hear the human voice on the desert island, and of course I would want it to be one of our great Shakespearean actors. And this is Laurence Olivier.
Piano Quartet No. 1 in G minor, K. 478: Final Movement
Benjamin Britten, Kenneth Sillito, Cecil Aronowitz and Kenneth Heath
Mozart, if I have to pick just one piece, I would like it to be the piano quartet in G minor, because it's the work that my son, who's a violinist, is playing just at this very moment with his friends at school. And this particular performance is rather special because Benjamin Britton is playing the piano part. He was a wonderful pianist, and so it's a reminder of him.
Brigadoon: Almost Like Being in Love
I've always adored the musical theatre. I think my parents took me to Oklahoma when I was a kid, and I was hooked. This is by Lerner and Lowe, and it's from their first successful show, Brigadoon. It sums up that wonderful, glad-to-be-alive sort of optimism of the American dream and the American musical theatre. And of course, it's terribly poignant in a way because so many of Lerner and Lowe's people back in Europe who had not managed to escape Hitler were not alive. And when this show was produced in 1947, there was, I think, a real resonance to that because life was a gift to be celebrated, and there were many who had lost their lives.
Symphony No. 2 in E minor, Op. 27: III. Adagio
Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, conducted by Vladimir Ashkenazy
This is pure self-indulgence. Rachmaninoff is a composer who was not awfully fashionable when I started out, and I think his tremendous merits are now appreciated much better. There's a wonderful feeling in the work I've chosen, which is the Second Symphony, that this was music that just poured out of him. It's music that had to be written. But when the clarinet solo comes in in the slow movement, it's like the composer is speaking personally to each and every one of us.
The Office of Compline: Keep Me as the Apple of an Eye
The Cambridge Singers, conducted by John Rutter
Well, on my desert island, I would want to end each day peacefully. I don't usually have much trouble getting to sleep, but just in case I did, it would be lovely to listen to and perhaps sing along with the Office of Compline, which is the last of the daily monastic offices, sung to Gregorian chant, which I've always loved. And this particular recording would be a memento for me of the Cambridge singers, because I know I would miss them terribly on the Desert Island.
In conversation
Presenter asks
6:39Was there a piano in the house [when you were growing up]?
There was an old upright piano that was in our flat, left there by the previous occupants because they couldn't get it down the stairs. It was horribly out of tune, but I can't have been more than three or four years old when I first climbed up to it and instantly entered a world of magic that I've been inhabiting ever since, really.
Presenter asks
14:00How did you come to meet [David Willcocks]?
I was a member of his Harmony and Counterpoint class, and he would look through our Harmony exercises, and I think he must have spotted something he liked in one of mine, because he took me aside and said, Well, I believe that you've been writing some Christmas carols ... And he said, would you come and present yourself at my rooms at nine o'clock on Monday morning and bring along some of what you've written? And in fact, he looked through a number of pieces, including, I think, the Shepherd's Pipe Carol, without a word. And at the end of it, he looked up from his desk and said, would you be interested in these being published? And I didn't argue with him. And within, I think, a matter of just a few days, I got an offer of publication.
Presenter asks
17:30How do you make a living as a musician in Cambridge in those years?
Well in bits and pieces I did quite a bit of teaching, sort of one-to-one teaching, which was paid by the hour. And then I was starting to get commissions little by little as a composer. And so that brought in a certain amount of income. And I worked as a copyist. In the days before computers, orchestral parts always had to be hand-copied. And I used to do quite a lot of that, sat up all night sometimes.
The keepsakes
The book
Teach Yourself Mathematics (with illustrations of voluptuous women by Rubens, Velázquez and Titian)
This book doesn't actually exist. It would have to be made up specially for me on the desert island. But it would be Teach Yourself Mathematics, because I've always felt I should learn mathematics, and it was what my older son, Christopher, was good at. And perhaps if I really did learn mathematics, he might be proud of me.
The luxury
I'm not sure whether for a musician a musical instrument counts as a luxury because I suppose I'd like to have a viola and it's the instrument my wife and my son play and it's my guilty secret that I don't play a stringed instrument. I would love to be able to. With all the time in the world I think I'd like to learn on my desert island.
Presenter asks
21:43Why didn't you publish [your choir's recordings through an established label]?
Well, I think that's right. It started in a very small way. The thing was that I had my choir, the Cambridge Singers, which I'd set up. And it seemed natural once I'd formed the Cambridge Singers to have a home for them on record. Because I made a decision, which I think was probably the right one, not to do live concerts with this choir, because I knew once I got drawn into the world of live concerts and touring and promotion and all that kind of thing, I probably would have an excuse never to compose. And I'd have felt bad about myself if I never wrote anything. And so I thought I can limit it to recordings. I like music making just when there's a red light and concentration and no audience. That's meaningful to me as well.
Presenter asks
29:28Are you a religious man?
Well ... Yes and no. I'm an agnostic, I suppose, if you want to stick a label on me. But as I get older, the more I realise that the person I am is shaped by the traditions and the ideas of Christianity. And of course, I just love the music and the liturgy. It's been part of my life. And to this day, the framework of the offices of the church is still something I couldn't be without. I'm just not very good at signing up on dotted lines, really.
“I think there's a general amnesty on modernism in the month of Christmas, and you're allowed to be simple, and that's something that I've always appreciated, because when I started out as a composer, simplicity was not something that was generally allowed.”
“Composition is solitary. I don't really enjoy composing. I like having pieces finished. But starting a new piece is really hell on earth. I mean that's the moment where you find every possible delaying tactic that you can.”
“The trouble with composition is it's a compulsion. It doesn't necessarily make you happy, but you feel you've got to do it. And so it is very much a regret that I didn't spend more time with my wife and kids when they were growing up.”
“My oldest son, Christopher, was 19 when he was run over in his first year as a student at my old college, Clare College in Cambridge. And if I had known that we were only going to have 19 years together, of course I would have spent them differently, but you can't know that in advance.”