Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
American conductor known as a champion of English music and the first foreign maestro to conduct the Last Night of the Proms.
On the island
Eight records
In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning
There was a moment where the violins take a little bit of time and they slide down between one and two notes. My father had a specific way of doing it and asking for it. So that's kind of the secret there.
The quartet made many important recordings, most of which have now been reissued. But perhaps the most important would have been the one they made in nineteen fifty, which was the first recording of the original version for six players of Schoenberg's Verklertenacht Transfigured Night.
Violin Concerto No. 2 in G minor, Op. 63: III. Allegro, ben marcato
Jascha Heifetz, Boston Symphony Orchestra and Serge Koussevitzky
The west coast was a haven for refugees, mostly escaping from the war, some coming before. And among the refugees to settle in Los Angeles was the great violinist Joshua [Jascha Heifetz] ... who had an overriding passion for playing chamber music and inviting people to his home.
They never appeared live, they couldn't because what they did was specific to recording. They would multi track. The four voices would sing, they would pile on another four voices, another four, and another four, creating virtually an orchestra of voice with such pure intonation that you can only dream.
Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini
Leon Fleisher, Cleveland Orchestra and George Szell
In his Rhapsodyname of Paganini he created for me one of the very few perfect works where not one bar or one note can be faulted in any way.
Michele has a combination of fire in the playing and a beautifully classic lyric touch when he needs it. He's an artist of the first rank, and I thought we might listen to him in his guise as uh ensemble pianist.
This particular piece, although I certainly listened to it many times without talking over it, is a little hard to live without for me because it became very much a part of my life.
Irish Tune from County Derry (Danny Boy)Favourite
St. Louis Symphony Orchestra conducted by Leonard Slatkin
The orchestra had requested we do one last piece together. To pay honour. To the newest slatkin. And it was Danny Boy in The arrangement by Percy Granger, which is just for strings.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:31Why does English music need saving, or what does it need saving from?
I don't think it needs saving from anything other than the fact that, very much like American music. People tend to isolate the music of their own country. The only way that the music gets heard in broad fashion, it is for conductors from other nationalities to pick it up.
Presenter asks
2:17What are you going to do to give the BBC Symphony Orchestra a completely new profile?
Perhaps not completely, because its history is too distinguished and long to dismiss altogether. But I do think that most orchestras today need to broaden their activities and their repertoire so it's not limited to what we would simply call the traditional concert hall music. It means that we have to be comfortable in many, many styles, that the idea of incorporating elements of popular culture into a program comes into play. The way we communicate and present the concerts themselves also should change.
Presenter asks
11:04You've gone as far as to say you were what we call now a dysfunctional family. What do you mean by that?
In the sense that we really didn't communicate other than in the world of music and baseball. That were the two things that we could talk about. We didn't see our folks very much because they were working away in the day. Sometimes in the evening we'd have supper together and then the quartet would rehearse. So there really wasn't much going on. Unfortunately, my father was an alcoholic.
The keepsakes
The book
James Baldwin
because it would remind me constantly of the difficult struggle so many people have to achieve equality in the world.
Presenter asks
13:50Why did your father's death mean that you could become a conductor?
The competitive nature of the family and the household. Now was liberated to a certain degree. But for a year and a half I left music altogether. and became an English major at City College in Los Angeles with the expectation that I would actually be a teacher.
Presenter asks
17:53What do you mean when you say you like music with a face?
There are so many composers. Who wrote Good music But when you listen to it it's a little hard to tell who they are. They fall in a category of decent composers who have not so much personality in their music. I can admire. A composer who is recognizable after a few bars, a few measures of music. I may not feel comfortable with the style or the music, but I'm interested more that they have a profile, that something about them is individual and unique.
“We never talked about classical music. There were just different musics that sounded different and had different meanings for different people. If it was good it was good. It didn't matter.”
“Nothing that I do in the symphonic work ... equals the sophistication, intimacy, and overall form of communication that the quartet has.”
“Our audiences are getting older because they don't have the knowledge or the background to come to concerts and they're intimidated. And if that really is the case It's our responsibility. to find a way To make music in particular. more accessible through knowledge.”