Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Composer inspired by the Orthodox Church; his earliest works were recorded with Beatles' support, and his cello piece The Protecting Veil topped the classical c
On the island
Eight records
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:08How surprised were you to hit the number one spot with The Protecting Veil? Was it something you had hoped to achieve back in the sixties under the auspices of the Beatles?
No, not really. I think um as far as the protecting veil was concerned, it was uh it took me totally by surprise. Uh the only hint I got of it was when the BBC Symphony Orchestra were rehearsing it and they kept on clapping at the end of the piece and I thought what's the matter with them? They don't normally clap like this and uh so I I got a hint of the fact that people liked it, or certainly musicians liked it.
Presenter asks
5:27You approach your music as an act of prayer. Does that mean you don't have to pray in the formal sense? Do you do that instead of getting down on your knees?
Yeah. I don't think I know very much about prayer. I mean, the only kind of prayers I said would I tend to say, have mercy on me, I'm a worm. Those were the kind of prayers that the Desert Fathers said. I mean, they were the masters of prayer, and they're very, very short sentences. I pray for the dead and I pray for the living, but I have no idea wh whether it has any effect. I don't know.
Presenter asks
9:55The keepsakes
The book
The Apothegmata (Sayings of the Desert Fathers)
because of their incredible terseness, their incredible simplicity, and at the same time the enormous toughness and a a a depth of compassion that I think we can't even imagine nowadays.
The luxury
an upright piano, stuffed with manuscript, bottles of Greek red wine, and um as much Greek fresh garlic as possible.
You set out to be a concert pianist. What happened?
One day I remember very vividly I was learning one of the late Beethoven sonatas and and I can see it with hindsight that maybe it was a symbolic gesture. I just flung it across the m the room and said I I made one of the few decisions I have made in my life, uh that I wanted to put all my eggs into one basket and be a composer. Um it was a terrific risk.
Presenter asks
11:02How did you come to know the Beatles?
I think I kn I I knew independently Yoko Ono. That was how I I met John Lennon. In fact, I think I was wi invited I don't think I was invited to an American's house in Hereford Square and and he said that John Lennon and Yoko Ono were going to be there. And um we we we sat on the floor most of the evening. He prepared a huge dinner, but they brought their own macrobiotic food. So we sat on the floor and played each other's tapes. John Lennon seemed to like what he heard of my music and he rang me from his car the next day and and said they would like to sort of sign me up. Then I um it it took Ringo actually, who was much more pragmatic than John Lennon. Ringo actually brought out the whale and the Celtic Requiem.
Presenter asks
15:15You were commissioned to write a full length opera for Covent Garden called Therese. That didn't come easily, did you? You got a kind of block.
Yes, I certainly had a very big creative block. I think it may have been connected with this thing that was going on inside, this this moving away from the Western Church, basically. I mean the Roman Church and in a way, by writing Therese, I wrote myself out of the Western Church.
Presenter asks
29:31Your critics have said your work is simple music for simple desires, that you make some nice noises but offer nothing to the musically literate. How do you answer them?
But there's a wonderful story of the early desert fathers. There's a monk, young monk, who complains to his abba. He says, I can't bear all this abuse that's hurled at me. I can't bear all the praise either. So the abba said, well, you go into the cemetery and abuse the dead and praise them and see what happens. And so he did this, and the abba said, well, what did happen? He said, well, nothing. He said, then that's how you should be. That's how I try to be. Intellectually, I try to be like that, but I am very offended when people say nasty things about me. And I'm not all that comfortable when they praise me either.
“I think there are an awful lot of artists around who who are very good at uh leading us into hell. … I think one of Thomas Beecham's best remarks was um you know, I don't want to be left in hell, I'd rather someone could show me the way to paradise.”
“I don't sit down and and sort of think, Oh, I I must show people the way the paradise after all, I don't know what paradise is, and I haven't a clue whether I'll ever go there. I I just feel I I do feel a kind of vocation to write, and I feel that when I'm writing it's the only time when I'm happy, is when I'm writing music.”
“I don't think I know very much about prayer. I mean, the only kind of prayers I said would I tend to say, have mercy on me, I'm a worm.”
“I've been very protective of myself, thinking up marriage, children, no, no, no, no children will get in the way of my inverted comms, precious art. And I took a completely different attitude after this, partly, I think, because my wife to be was by my side all the time I was in hospital. And I thought, you know, if this person really wants to marry somebody who's likely to drop dead maybe in a couple of days, I mean, what a kind of love this is.”
“But there's a wonderful story of the early desert fathers. There's a monk, young monk, who complains to his abba. He says, I can't bear all this abuse that's hurled at me. I can't bear all the praise either. So the abba said, well, you go into the cemetery and abuse the dead and praise them and see what happens. And so he did this, and the abba said, well, what did happen? He said, well, nothing. He said, then that's how you should be. That's how I try to be.”