Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Violist who switched from violin to viola as a student at the Royal Academy of Music and never regretted it.
On the island
Eight records
The keepsakes
No book or luxury recorded for this episode.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:08Whereabouts were you born?
I was born in West Hartlepool in the county of Durham.
Presenter asks
0:33Were your parents musical?
My father was an awfully good singer. I think I got my music from him.
Presenter asks
0:43How old were you when you started taking an active interest?
Well, I was a pianist originally. I was six years old at my first performance in public on the piano.
Presenter asks
1:00And what was the next important event?
Leaving home at the age of thirteen with my parents' permission, to earn the wherewithal to study the violin, which I'd always hankered after.
Presenter asks
What was your first professional job?
My first professional job was in Scarborough. We were a band of musicians supposed to be Hungarians and we were all British and I remember that our costumes made us look more like brigands than the Hungarians.
Presenter asks
2:39Now your instrument then was the violin. When did you change to the viola?
Well, that was quite by accident. When I was a student at the academy, there was a fellow student who wanted to play string quartets, and there was no student there at that time who played the viola. And he asked me if I would do it and I took it up and the first moment that I played on it, I loved it.
“My father was an awfully good singer. I think I got my music from him.”
“the first moment that I played on it, I loved it.”
“I took the opportunity of giving up orchestral playing because I didn't like it at all. I wanted to get on with my solo playing.”
“the viola … was really the scullery made of the orcs. It was a despised instrument.”
“My recipe was that I don't drink and I don't smoke, but I'm not quite a saint.”