Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Composer best known for his many film scores written during the golden age of Hollywood.
On the island
Eight records
Chaconne from Violin Partita No. 2 in D minor, BWV 1004
I started out as a violinist. I started to play the violin when I was five. ... But the chargon was one of the pieces that impressed me most. I think it is the greatest violin music.
Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125 (Fourth Movement)
Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Wilhelm Furtwängler
Apart from everything, I think the Ninth Symphony is the greatest music ever composed, especially the first movement, but the last movement is just incredible. ... It's one of the greatest achievements of human mind.
Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Op. 68 (Fourth Movement)
New York Philharmonic, conducted by Bruno Walter
Well, I was very fond of the music of Brahms and quite agreed with Billow, who said when he had heard the first symphony by Brahms, that this is the tenth symphony by Beethoven. It is just as great.
La Mer (Dialogue du vent et de la mer)
Philadelphia Orchestra, conducted by Arturo Toscanini
I knew very little of Le Bussy before I went to Paris. But suddenly a new world opened up to me, which is French Impressionism.
Daphnis et Chloé (Closing Scene)
I was in Paris when I first saw Daphnis and Cloa. ... And it of course is is a splendor of orchestration, of colour and imagination. And it's I think it's a great, great work.
London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, conducted by Benjamin Britten
Well, I didn't sleep all night. I was reading that score and I said, When is it going to be recorded? ... And finally I got the record too and I was Enchanted.
The Rite of Spring (Sacrificial Dance)
Columbia Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Igor Stravinsky
I heard this the first time in Paris, conducted by Montu.
Chicago Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sir Georg Solti
Bartuk is very close to me, not only because he is a Hungarian, but because he is a great composer, And because of this very tragic life
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:40Could you endure loneliness?
I can try.
Presenter asks
3:22Was there a lot of music in the house [when you were growing up]?
Yes, I was, because my mother was a pianist. She was a pupil of Professor Turman, who was a pupil of Liszt. And so I heard the whole list repertoire that she had to play ... and I grew up partly with that
Presenter asks
4:19Why did you go to Germany [to study]?
My father had a very large estate in Upper Hungary, and his idea was that I will take that one day over naturally. and I should become a chemist. And I did not want to become a chemist. ... But if I thought if I go to Leipzig, because after all the Leipzig Conservatory was very famous, then I am on my own. I can do whatever I want.
Presenter asks
9:34When you graduated, what did you do? Did you stay in Germany?
I stayed in Germany until nineteen thirty one. when I went to Paris and gave a concert.
The keepsakes
The book
Endre Ady
I wrote a lot of songs on his poems, and I still would like to write more.
Presenter asks
10:23To earn a living, I believe for a time you wrote some pop songs to be played in cinema intervals?
Yes, under a Sudani. I was terribly ashamed of that, but that's all I could do. I didn't want to put my own name on it, of course, because b at that time Monteau was playing my music in Paris, and it would have been impossible that you go to a a Monteaux concert and you hear my a music of mine or to a chamber music concert and there was a fox throat written by Miklos Rosso. So I chose a name Nick Tomei.
Presenter asks
19:15What took you to Hollywood?
Alexander Gordon. We started the Thifu Baghdad here in London, nineteen thirty nine, summer thirty nine. And suddenly on september third, Something unpleasant happened, and there was no more money to follow with the film. ... And Alex went to America. ... and came back and said United Artists is putting up money in America to finish the film. And I have to take over the key man. You're one of'em. And actually I asked how long will I go for? Said two, three months. Now I am there since forty-four years.
“facetiously I would say eight works of mine, but that w wouldn't have been true because I never listened to my own records. ... Because uh I have over fifty records and when I hear them again I said, Why didn't I do it this way? Why is it so fast? Why this? Why that? So I'd rather not listen.”
“I'm completely impractical. The only thing I can do is write music, nothing else.”
“the beat of them, because the ninth symphony for me is the beginning and the end of music.”