Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Actor, writer, director and producer, known for his versatile career and extensive travels.
On the island
Eight records
My first choice is by Berlioz, whom I always consider one of the most sensuous of all composers.
Violin Concerto No. 2 in G minor, Op. 63 – II. Andante assai
the second movement from Prokofiev's second violin concerto, which is an absolute when I first heard it I played it fifteen times without stopping
Kindertotenlieder – No. 1, Nun will die Sonn' so hell aufgeh'n
the music for which haunted me from an early age, which was the Kindertoten leader by Mahler
Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor, Op. 37 – II. Largo
after all you can't have a programme this sort and not take Beethoven along
this is the great Aria, the great consoling and serene Aria by Sarastro … sung by the great Finnish bass Talvela
it's the speech on the budget of nineteen nine by mister Asquith
La Cucaracha / Revolutionary song about Pancho Villa
a revolutionary song sung by Mexicans … and I love this kind of relaxed and lethal atmosphere
Little Star (Звёздочка) also known as 'Gde ty, zvyozdochka?'
Modest Mussorgsky (orchestrated by Igor Markevitch)
this is a song by Musorgsky, orchestrated by Igor Markiewicz, called, I think, Little Star
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:55What would you be happiest you got away from?
I said this year uh on one occasion that my idea of paradise was a country without telephones.
Presenter asks
3:25You went to one of the most English schools Westminster, top hats and tail coats. Were you bright at school?
No, I was a matte finish on the whole, and uh I once said that I thought the British education was probably the best in the world. If you could survive it if you couldn't, there was nothing left for you but the diplomatic corps.
Presenter asks
4:01Why did you opt for drama?
My mother's family is all painters, and i inevitably a family of large size with traditions of that sort tend to become a kind of mutual admiration society, or even a a m mutual condemnation society, which is just as bad. I was dying to do something slightly different for the rest of them.
Presenter asks
11:39The keepsakes
The book
The only book that would keep me quiet would be an exercise book at which I could fill myself.
The luxury
I think I do that simply in order to get rid of the salt after I'd had my morning dip.
You've written Getting On for twenty plays, Peter. Which is your favourite play?
I don't know. I think probably Photo Finish is, in a way, which I think went further than the others, and of course was tremendously experimental, in spite of the fact that it was absolutely naturalistic to look at. But the fact of a play running on four different time levels at once uh is a technical accomplishment of which I'm rather proud because it actually works when you see it … I saw it the other day in Leningrad. Played by people that obviously did not have the benefit of my advice because I had no idea they were playing it … And I can only tell you that I really saw the play as it was written for the first time, and I began at the end to look at it as though it had been written by somebody completely different, and yet it was exactly they hadn't changed a word, and it was marvellous.
Presenter asks
15:11You've directed several operas, haven't you, Peter? Did you find that rewarding and exciting?
It's a very difficult thing to do … simply because uh you're dealing with uh singers who of course know their parts musically in a most commendable way … Of course, the second uh rehearsal resembles the first enormously, because in the meanwhile they've sung Carmen and they've forgotten everything that you've told them. And so it goes on until the end. … So that one starts out usually euphorically by the end you're thoroughly depressed, and then Mozart, or whoever it is, gallops to the rescue, because you've really rather forgotten the music.
Presenter asks
20:42How did it feel to stand back and look at yourself so far [in your autobiography Dear Me]?
Uh I was curious enough I found when I started more interested in my extreme youth and childhood than in what happened later on, which is really part of the the public record … and which humanly interested me now much more. But that's perhaps a symptom of growing old, too, because I find that or I have found in my life that very, very old men remember things that happened in the first five years of their lives with a clarity which they never had when they were younger.
“I've selected records on the whole which are difficult to remember, because those I can remember easily I can hum to myself, and some of the more energetic things. I think at my age my selection tends to be languorous, rather slow moving and majestic.”
“a measure, of course, which disappointed me as a spy, but on the other hand gave me enormous encouragement as an actor, because he said, uh, unfortunately, my face would be uh very difficult to lose in a crowd.”
“In the third lesson he said, I will see how much you, if anything, you remember of the lesson so far. And I said yes. Then I ask you to think with the stomach. Bravo and to breathe with the forehead. It's incredible. I've never had a pupil so quick. And now the last thing I must tell you, the third lesson, as I always tell to Gobby, Remember always, under any circumstances, to sing with the eye.”
“I think it would probably be the Mozart simply because he's the most enduring. The idea from the magic flute.”