Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
A bass singer, one of the finest.
On the island
Eight records
Glyndebourne Festival Orchestra conducted by Fritz Busch
Mozart's my favorite composer. I always imagined myself as an operatic bass, even from my very early days singing Mozart. One of my favorite parts was to be lepero and Don Giovanni.
You can't have a brass-band record without the name of Mortimer on it.
My boy, you may take it from me
He recorded this in his seventy-ninth year, which I think is marvellous.
Isobel Baillie, Roy Henderson, Robert Easton, Norman Allin
There are sixteen singers on this, which to me represent the golden age of English singing.
It's a tune that's played whenever I enter any sort of concert where there's a signature tune needed.
He actually sang a free concert in my village for me, which is never to be forgotten.
Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125, 'Choral' - excerpt (bass entry)
Swiss Romande Orchestra conducted by Ernest Ansermet
The first concert of the United Nations, which was given in Geneva, I was chosen as the bass to sing in the Ninth Symphony.
Noah's FloodFavourite
It would provide me with the spiritual side of things, the love of children and everything.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:37How well do you think you could endure loneliness?
Well I think I would get on pretty well. I can enjoy my own company quite well.
Presenter asks
1:30Do you come from a musical family?
I think I do, yes. My father was um fifty odd years the organist and choir master of the local church and that's where I began my singing.
Presenter asks
4:13Music wasn't your first profession, was it? You learned another job?
Yes, I did. I was apprenticed to uh The joinery trade, mhm, printed joiner in the village. Yes.
Presenter asks
6:27What was the next important thing to happen when you came to London?
Well, I left the north of England and came to London to be a The joiner and the singer.
The keepsakes
The luxury
It's an ideal place to learn the trombone. Then, of course, I could come back and play duets with Walter Midgley.
Presenter asks
7:31When did you decide to give up your daytime job and be a full-time professional singer?
Well, I didn't have to decide. That was decided for me. The directors of Saddler's Wells then, Joan Cross and Lawrence Collingwood, heard me do some little broadcast and Made me on the strength of that principal base of Saddler's Wells' opera.
Presenter asks
13:41Have you any one big ambition still unfulfilled professionally?
Yes, I've always wanted to sing the part of Baron Ox and Rose and Cavalier. It's been my fault that I haven't. I've been offered it at the wrong time or time didn't suit me or something. But now I find that I wished I had Sound Paranox. Yeah. Probably I still can do it yet.
“I always imagined myself as an operatic bass, even from my very early days singing Mozart. I used to start at the overture so that I got the real feeling of what he should feel like.”
“I studied at the Guildhall School of Music as a night student. After a hard day's work, every night.”
“The first concert of the United Nations, which was given in Geneva, I was chosen as the bass to sing in the Ninth Symphony.”
“I think that I'd have a trombone after all. At last. And a tutor. It's an ideal place to learn the trombone.”