Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Head of a branch of the Rothschild banking family, also a scientist and a writer.
On the island
Eight records
Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue in D minor, BWV 903
When I was fourteen, my sister and I both played this particular piece of Montezuk American fugue. And I suddenly realized, my God, she's better than me, and she always will be. It was at that age, at fourteen, when I could just stumble through this piece, that I decided I'd better stop classical music and switch over to jazz.
Get HappyFavourite
My second one is very different from the first. and is by somebody who undoubtedly is the greatest jazz pianist the world has ever known, called Art Tatum. People have said from time to time that he had three extra fingers, sometimes that he had an extra hand. And I think when one listens to this record one can see why those myths have developed.
Well, this is a most extraordinary record. I'm afraid this is a jazz piano solo again. By a man who manages to introduce into his music a sort of split personality. And if you listen carefully, it's quite clear that one hand of his is doing quite different things to the other, although they're equally coordinated.
Oboe Concerto in C major, K. 314 (Cadenza)
My next one, by Maurice Bourg, is an oboe solo. Again, wonderful technical ability. I think everybody will agree about that.
Etude in A-flat major, Op. 72 No. 11
Well, this is absolutely terrific, this one. and it's by the great master Horowitz.
Well, this has a special meaning for me, this record by Teddy Wilson. Because he taught me to play jazz on the piano in New York, and so I've got a special affection for him.
Harmonies poétiques et religieuses, S. 173: No. 7, Funérailles
Number seven is also a very famous piano work. List played by Bolle. and it's one of the most famous pieces of Liszt's funerae.
On the First Day of the Year It Is Inscribed
Well, this is rather a sad record. It again has great technical merit. It um is sung by Cantor and is to remind me that I am what I am. and that we sat by the waters of Babylon and wept.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:39Could you endure loneliness for a long time on an island?
I think so. I think actually I'm rather a solitary person, normally. So it doesn't frighten me that.
Presenter asks
8:23Were you schooled with the idea that some day you might have to take over the family business?
Yes, I was. My father and mother wanted me to go into Rothschild's Bank. And being a dutiful son in those days, when I was about twenty two I did go into the bank for six months. Then I must tell you that I found it rather depressing and boring. … So after six months … Put it crudely, I said to hell with this, I'm going to go back and do it my real love, which is to be a scientist at Cambridge University.
Presenter asks
9:17How do you remember [Guy Burgess and Anthony Blunt]?
Guy Burgess was very drunk, very often physically very dirty, both in appearance and habits. He used to chew onions and things like that, which I found rather distasteful. But he was clever and rather good company. Blunt is quite different. Blunt was an ascetic type, reserved. Highly intelligent, very good mathematician, gave it up for the history of art. Good company as well. Altogether he seemed a delightful person, quite different from Burgess. Burgess was a pain in the neck.
The keepsakes
The book
L. Bostock and S. Chandler
I think it would have to be a very long book on pure mathematics with examples so that my luxury would come in useful.
The luxury
a very thick pad of ruled A4 paper with the associated barrow and spurs
I hope that I shall write something.
Presenter asks
16:03Why did you decide to give up first-class cricket?
Well, at the time I was playing. There was a man who very few of your listeners, I think, would have heard of, called Larwood. … And Larwood really was very frightening, and the other man who played for Knotts, Vose, was at that time a fast left hand burrower … And he hit me very badly, Pose. And I felt, you know, I mean, I'm supposed to be doing this for fun, but why on earth should I be bashed about like this? So I decided to give up first-class quick.
Presenter asks
18:34Why did you decide, in your forties, to go into the cut and thrust of commerce?
I I felt when I was about forty eight that my scientific work, though competent, lacked a certain vigour and zest which it had had before, and coincidentally at that time. The Rolldot Sher Group. made an invitation, gave an invitation to me, made a pass at me in a way. Why don't you come and take an interest in our activities? And so I did.
Presenter asks
27:35How did you come to get lessons from [Teddy Wilson]?
I suppose rather an impertinence, really. I was in New York and uh rang him up and said, Can I come and see you? to which he said yes. And I said to him, Do you ever give lessons? I'm a great fan of yours. And he said, Yes, I do from time to time. I think they cost, if I remember rightly, five dollars a lesson. … So I had eight. lessons from him. They were quite rigorous. I had to practise my left hand with him in the dark, so that it became automatic.
“I think actually I'm rather a solitary person, normally.”
“I really don't think that the facts live up to the myth. I don't think he did that. He certainly had a very good intelligence service. It wasn't pigeons, it was couriers and fast ships.”
“I think I ought to say that although you say it's spiked chilling, in fact, when one takes a bomb or a fuse to pieces, one really is so busy that one doesn't have time to be frightened. One's also very, very interested.”
“I must tell you that the whole of the Rothschild family is engaged in collecting something or other. They seem to have got a collecting gene, and some of them collect fans, some of them collect limerge enamel. They collect everything.”