Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Music director of the English National Opera, known for leading the company's musical performances.
On the island
Eight records
Piano Concerto No. 17 in G major, K. 453
Alfred Brendel, with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, conducted by Neville Marriner
Mozart's music has always been very close to me, and the piano concertos, in their different ways, make a link between purely instrumental music and the opera house.
I thought that I would like to be able to take with me a record that would have music that was exclusively from the time when I was a chorister.
Falstaff (Act I, Scene 2: "Torna all'assalto, torna al galoppo")
Luigi Alva and Anna Moffo, conducted by Herbert von Karajan
where the two young lovers are meeting together and snatching from the chaos of the adults around them a brief moment of tenderness together.
Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Karel Ančerl
One of the composers who I feel on a desert island I really couldn't live without is Dvorak. I find his music to be really fresh and unpretentious, and right from the heart...
I Used to Be Color BlindFavourite
I think Fred Astaire is one of the great performing personalities of the century.
Dresden State Orchestra, conducted by Rudolf Kempe
I very much admire Kempe as a conductor. I always have done. And I've chosen a little section from this work in the middle of the love scene.
String Quintet in C major, D. 956 (First Movement)
Pablo Casals, Paul Tortelier, Isaac Stern, Alexander Schneider and Milton Katims
I find listening to chamber music a great relaxation. It is so different from the music that I spend my morning and evening actually working on and conducting and thinking about.
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (Act II)
Meistersinger itself has long been a favourite of mine. I adore it, and I think particularly the second act is one of his most original and outstanding creations.
In conversation
Presenter asks
2:42Did you come from a large family, and was there a lot of music in it?
Huge. I'm one of six children. I was the the first boy, but the second child. [A lot of music in the family?] Almost none. My father is a dentist, and his enthusiasms are are not with the arts.
Presenter asks
5:01Had you decided by now [at age thirteen] that music was to be your profession?
I think I decided that when I was about thirteen. My father said to me one night that he thought that perhaps I ought to go into the church … And it was then that as I realized I'd got to rebuff the suggestion that I realized that I'd got to be a musician. I had never articulated it before, and I didn't still quite understand what it would involve. But I did feel about that time that it was going to be essential for me to be a musician.
Presenter asks
7:33Was it [at Cambridge] that you conducted for the first time?
Just about. I had actually conducted, just before I left Bryanston … funeral music that Hindemit wrote for the late king, I think. And uh that was the first time that I'd had the experience of of joining up different people together in music.
The keepsakes
The book
Leo Tolstoy
I think of the books that I've not many books that I've read and loved I think the one that I would love to have with me is Tolstoy's War and Peace
The luxury
I suppose what I would like to take is a very tender memory of her. And that would be her trifle, her Sherry trifle
Presenter asks
8:59What happened to you when you came down [from Cambridge]?
Well, during my third year at Cambridge I had the opportunity to go and work on the music staff of the Wexford Festival. which was a fire and water experience of the first order … and when I came down from Cambridge I went there for a second year. and a few months after that I went to join the music staff at Glindbourne.
Presenter asks
15:02How long did you stay [in Australia]?
I was there for two and a quarter years and I missed a lot of things about Europe, and by the time I came home I was really looking forward to seeing Europe again. But the experience that I got there and the friends that I made there um really very important to me.
Presenter asks
27:40Could you rig up a shelter [on the island]?
I am very nervous about the prospect of being isolated like this. I don't feel I have many techniques immediately at hand. I suppose if I had to rig up a shelter I would find a way to do it. I had always imagined that it would depend on the vegetation. But I think I could rig up a shelter all right.
“the experience of singing in public from an early age is a great uh discipline and often very exciting.”
“I remember when I first got it it was actually taller than I was. And there was some doubt as to whether I would be able to lift it. And I'm a left-handed person. I remember picking it up and putting it the wrong way round, you know, slanting it across my body the wrong way, and hoping that perhaps, well, if they do left-handed golf clubs and left-handed violins, they might manage a left-handed bassoon.”
“I do think that I want the company to develop more as a theatre company. What I would like to happen for the company is that people, the audience, come to the Coliseum never quite sure what type of entertainment they're going to be given. though the way we present even Horiel chestnuts should never be taken for granted.”