Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
A conductor who was given a small violin at age five.
On the island
Eight records
What Have I to Do with Thee (from Elijah)
Isobel Baillie and Harold Williams
I would think my earliest memories would be of of my father conducting the church choir and inviting such famous people as Isabel Bailey and Harold Williams to come.
Violin Concerto in B minor (First Movement)
Albert Sammons with the New Queen's Hall Orchestra conducted by Sir Henry Wood
the great exponent of the concerto was someone who taught me a little later at the Royal College of Music, and that was Albert Sammonds, and it's his performance I'd like.
Romeo and Juliet (Scene of Love)
London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Pierre Monteux
the principal conductor, of the orchestra very shortly after I joined became a Pierre Monteur. And uh I think that I would like to hear uh one of the performances that we've made under his battle now, and that is of the Romeo and Juliet music, uh, Belio's.
There Is No RoseFavourite
Choir of King's College, Cambridge directed by David Willcocks
My uh youngest child, who was son. was then able to go to uh King's College, Cambridge as a choral student, as a chorister. And I suppose that these were some of the most memorable musical occasions of our life as a family.
a very close friend of both mine and and my wife's is Janet Baker, and I suppose Janet gave me more thrills per bar in the early days when I first heard her voice than anyone.
Symphony No. 4 (Fourth Movement)
Cleveland Orchestra conducted by George Szell
I think what he did for the Cleveland Orchestra is what every conductor would like to do for his own orchestra, and that is turn them from a a national institution into an international instrument.
The Augmented Hollywood String Quartet
I developed a great taste for the sound that their um string players made. And although I won't play records of my orchestra there, I would like to play the Hollywood string quartet version, or the Hollywood string sextet version, of the Schoenberg Verkletenach.
Jascha Heifetz with the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by the composer
I suppose one of the most perfect instrumentalists perhaps the most perfect instrumentalist in the world is Jascha Heifitz, and I don't think I would want to be without some of his music making anyway.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:34Could you endure loneliness?
Yes, I think I could. I've uh put up with quite a lot of it in my travels.
Presenter asks
3:57Was there a lot of music at Lincoln School?
No. It was rather second rate music at s at school. And one always felt a little bit weedy, I think. But being a musician, or being known to be a violin player at school, was no particular distinction and I think in self defence you rather desperately threw yourself into playing games.
Presenter asks
4:17What do you remember about those competitive music festivals?
Absolutely terrifying, I suppose, in retrospect. They were sort of rituals, competitive rituals, throughout that part of England at that time. In the 1930s, one lined one's children up against each other, and you have these horrific sessions where perhaps twenty children played the same piece over and over again to these desperate people who were sitting having to judge them.
Presenter asks
The keepsakes
The book
David Attenborough
I really think that Life on Earth would be a very good book to take with me there. I think I could find out what it was all about on a desert island.
The luxury
Well, I suppose then it would have to be the violin. That would be the most absorbing thing that I could think of, not having played it for uh so many years now, that I think I've got quite a lot of work to do before Rheumatism sets in.
Did you go up to London to study at the Royal College of Music as young as fourteen?
Yes, I did. It was the first time I'd been to London... In fact, I was given the scholarship, but then it was suggested that I stayed at school until I'd finished what was then the school certificate, until I was reasonably educated... and I think I was just sixteen when I came to London.
Presenter asks
17:13What was the tie up between the Academy of Saint Martin in the Fields and the church?
Jack Churchill, who was the director of music at Saint Martin in the Fields, was the the keyboard player, the harpsichord player of the Academy. And he invited us to to rehearse there because we had nowhere else to go. And eventually we even gave concerts there.
Presenter asks
28:37How do you think you would make out as a castaway?
Well, I love practical jobs. I really do like knocking holes in walls and and putting nails in... If the materials were right, I could [build a hut]. I'd probably have to tie it together there, I suppose
“there never seemed to be any moment where I didn't know what I was going to do. It was, I think, always assumed after a certain age, after a number of local competitive festivals, that I was going to be a violin player.”
“I tussle rather with the teaching institutions here that there seems to be no time at which they tell you uh that you are not going to be a solo violin player. I mean you are left to discover yourself that if you always wanted to be high fits that the place is already filled.”
“The Academy was something that we'd put together as a sort of form of self-defence against playing in a symphony orchestra... you do lose your identity slightly in a symphony orchestra. And several of the younger ones of us that had joined at the same time decided that we'd like to have a smaller group where our own personal contribution was more obvious.”