Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
An architect who was the youngest president of the Royal Institute of British Architects and used the office to counterattack Prince Charles' criticisms of the
On the island
Eight records
Symphony No. 1 in A flat major, Op. 55: III. AdagioFavourite
London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sir Charles Mackerras
Well, I've chosen my favourite composer of all time, Sir Edward Elgar, who was self-taught as a musician, as I am, was an English eccentric, was a Catholic, was an enormously powerful composer, I think this country's greatest composer. And I've chosen his first symphony and a tiny bit of it, which is is all to do with descending sevenths and a vision of some sort of Catholic vision that he had at the time...
Requiem, Op. 48: Introït et Kyrie
Choir of King's College, Cambridge, and the English Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Philip Ledger
I spent the most sepulchral year of my life listening to everyone's Requiem, from Brahms' German Requiem to everything you can imagine. And the one that I would take with me to the sand and the palm trees is Foray's Requiem.
Thelonius Monk playing the piano solo and he's going to play Round Midnight which amongst my favourite of all jazz compositions was of course the theme tune from the film about the life of Lester Young in Paris... And Felonius Monk really is how I play the piano when I'm feeling confident.
Lacrimosa (from Requiem in a Village Church)
The Village Choir, conducted by Valerie T.
Well, this is this next record is part of my own requiem, which is sung by the village choir I've talked about already. I don't sing in it, I don't play for it, I don't conduct it because I feel too stressed by the whole occasion. And I've chosen a tidy little bit, which is lacrimosa, which is all about crying.
I cut the end of my finger off about two years ago, chopping sticks... And when I sat with the bit of my finger in Peterborough Hospital waiting for it to be stuck back on again, I vowed a great vow that if my finger ever came back again, which it has done, I would play the blues. So I've chosen Larry McRae, who's a young blues man...
Choir of All Saints, Margaret Street
It's a piece of music which the choir would sing during the festival of All Saints. It's O Salutaris Hostia, written by Saint-Sans, and I've chosen it for another reason, because I go to a service called Benediction, which is a rare service.
I've chose a piece of pop music, straightforward, gutsy American pop music by a band called The Pixies, who are a young American band. They don't use lots of synthesizers and effects. They just play the guitar, sing loudly, and often they're very rude...
Piano Concerto No. 2 in F major, Op. 102: II. Andante
Christina Ortiz, with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Vladimir Ashkenazy
Shostakovich is where architecture and politics comes together in the most amazing way. I mean his confrontations with communism and the dictates of what he should write and what he shouldn't write and the role of music in society.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:07Which is the more important part for you, the architectural or the musical?
I don't think I balance them up like that in some sort of enormous intellectual equation. I take every part of my life as it comes, and each part contributes to who I am and how I feel at any one time. I wouldn't be the architect I was without the music, or the musician I am without the buildings.
Presenter asks
4:48How early in your life, Max, were you aware that music was important to you?
My mother was a self-taught pianist, and I remember her playing the Dambusters March and things like that... and I remember summer days when the piano was sort of wafting out of the window, that's when it really struck me. And then I could sit down and do it after her, which was a a strange sort of metaphysical process that no one had taught me what to do, but I could go to the piano and lift the lid and sit down and do what she had done.
Presenter asks
11:59How was it then that on leaving architecture school you could immediately afford to set up in your own practice?
Well, it was the tail end of the property boom at the end of the nineteen sixties, and I'd had to work at architecture as well as music when I was at the AA. And I had a lot of contacts who had properties, and I lived at the junction of Southgate Road and the Balls Pond Road in Islington, and there was the great start of the gentrification of Islington, and I was there and I was doing it, so I just somehow fell into it. I do wish I hadn't, however.
The keepsakes
The book
T. S. Eliot
The the book would be T. S. Eliot, and I would take the collective words if I could, but if I'm limited, I'll take the four quartets, because I've started to write those words, time present and time past, are both perhaps present in time future, innumerable occasions, and you're going to give me lots and lots of time to do that.
The luxury
Fender Stratocaster (serial number E807046)
It's a guitar. It's a Fender Stratocaster designed by Leo Fender, and it's a very special one. It has serial number E eight zero seven zero four six, and it is the best Fender Stratocaster in the world.
Presenter asks
14:39How did you feel when people started saying things like ["If this is modern architecture, God help us"]?
Oh, I was glad that people were talking about architecture. I remember in the early part of my career, if I could get half a column inch in the Daily Telegraph about architecture, then I would have run up and down Portland Place waving a flag. And now we have coverage of architecture everywhere.
Presenter asks
18:35Why do you find it so difficult listening to your own music?
Oh, because I don't know where it comes from... And when I hear it back afterwards, I think, good heavens, I've got no conception of how I was able to do that.
Presenter asks
29:29How are you going to survive on the desert island? [I can't imagine that you'd be very good on your own for very long.]
I'm enormously good on my own. In fact, I take my being on my own very seriously. I go away on holiday on my own and don't talk. I go to Italy and I write down everything I would have said had someone been there to listen to it. And I go on retreat with Benedictine monks and... observe Benedictine silence, greater and lesser silences. So yes, I'm I'm very good at being quiet and very good at being on my own.
“Hearing my own music performed is an enormously emotional experience. It's like seeing one's own buildings built and then walking around them. It's the same sort of feeling. The feeling that how did I do it? It makes me feel very humble and and enormously moved.”
“I was taught to be disciplined, hard working. resolute, opinionated, clear, and I think that stood me in very good stead.”
“I think Centrepoint is one of the most important buildings in London and suddenly people start to agree with me... It takes a very long time for architecture to mature.”
“I like being alone very much. I think we all need space to think and write and dream and plan. And I like to do that on my own.”