Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Military musician, third generation bandmaster; director of music for the Portsmouth Division of the Royal Marines.
On the island
Eight records
Preobrazhensky March
I have chosen it again because of the historical associations and the countless times that I have heard it, even marched to it.
The keepsakes
No book or luxury recorded for this episode.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:08There's a family tradition for martial music, isn't there?
Yes. I am the third generation of my family to follow the profession of military music. My father was the director of music of the Royal Horse Guards the Blues. … I was born in India. … My mother was a very good musician. … And there never seemed to be any doubt that I should become a musician.
Presenter asks
1:11And when you left the academy?
I left the Academy uh to become one of the members, one of the original members of the BBC Symphony Orchestra. This in the days of Dr. Adrian, well later Sir Adrian.
Presenter asks
1:26And when did you move over to military music?
It happened during the promenade season in 1931. My predecessor … was better known be when he went into the Royal Air Force as a Wing Commander R. P. O'Donnell, was at Portsmouth. And as he left the Portsmouth Division of the Royal Marines to go to the Royal Air Force, there was a vacancy. And uh I along with about uh a hundred or so others. Applied. And after an audition I received a letter from the Admiralty informing me that I had been appointed the Director of Music of the Portsmouth Division Royal Marine. Now I had to obtain the approval of not only Sir Henry Wood, but of the BBC to take up this appointment.
Presenter asks
2:27How many Royal Marines bands are there?
Well, during my service … Up to twenty three bands, and well over a thousand musicians. … And each band, of course, had its separate identity.
Presenter asks
4:44You've accompanied several royal tours overseas, haven't you?
Two, yes. The first in nineteen forty-seven in HMS Vanguard to accompany King George VI and Queen Elizabeth. the Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret, as they then were, to South Africa. And later. Queen Elizabeth. the second and his Royal Highness the Prince Philip, in The Gothic on the tour of the British Commonwealth.
Presenter asks
5:22That is part of beating the retreat, isn't it?
Yes, it is the climax to the ceremony of beating retreat. When you say the ceremony of sunset. It is the term usually given to it when performing in naval establishments. When on the Horse Guards Parade, we call it beating retreat. But one of the most marvelous moments that I can recall. It was after leaving South Africa in 1947, about the year Beginning of May. The ship was turned, and a wonderfully calm sea and we beat retreat on the quarter deck. Exactly as this marvellous flaming orb sank over the horizon. It's often said, you know, that this tune, Sunset, Makes strong men weep. I don't know whether that's true.
“I am the third generation of my family to follow the profession of military music.”
“It might be said that I was born within the sound of my father's band [room].”
“I left the Academy to become one of the original members of the BBC Symphony Orchestra.”
“I find the word retirement something of a myth.”