Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
A musician.
On the island
Eight records
Et resurrexitFavourite
from the Mass in B minor (BWV 232). The guest says it is a stunning piece of music that never wears out and a marvellously hopeful moment in a very great work.
Closing scene / fugue from the last act
from Falstaff. The guest says it is a wonderfully, delightfully cynical comment upon mankind, especially when there isn't any mankind about to be cynical.
The guest says it is a delightful piece of music and one of the most stunning pieces of ensemble playing he has ever heard.
Janet Baker, Sir John Barbirolli
from Sea Pictures. The guest chooses it because Janet Baker is a person he loves working with and a great friend.
from Tristan und Isolde. The guest says he might want to think about love and the people one has loved, and what better if one is going to be stuck on a desert island and die there.
A story by Eudora Welty. The guest says it is a masterpiece of comic writing and he would like to learn it by heart.
Le Marteau sans maître (excerpt)
The guest says it is a great masterpiece of our time, the science of it is very intriguing, and he hopes to find the raison d'être musically of it.
The guest says it is perennially joyful and would lift him up if he were wilting, and it would remind him of very happy times.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:31How did you set about choosing your eight records? What sort of terms of reference did you give yourself?
I suppose they were mixed. Uh some for the sheer quality of performance and the sheer quality of the music. And I suppose others because they reminded me of people I'm fond of and people I've worked with and those two are the main factors.
Presenter asks
2:12Could you adapt yourself to extended loneliness?
Yes, I don't think I'd particularly mind that. I'm fighting I might enjoy it.
Presenter asks
4:10What part of the country do you come from?
Uh well, I was born in London, but I spent a lot of my life in the West Country, in Bath.
Presenter asks
4:22Do you come from a musical family?
No, no, they're not at all musical. In fact, uh they've always encouraged me, but uh they're not not musical.
The keepsakes
The book
Homer
So that I can I've of course been re reading the Odyssey avidly because of of the Monteverdi opera, Return of Ulysses, so I'd like to to have it so that I could read it even more carefully.
Presenter asks
4:32You went up to Cambridge as a choral scholar. What were your principal musical interests there?
Well, I read music and so uh that naturally was a fairly full-time study. And I was a good deal involved with the Magical Society with Boise Ward and I was taught by a marvellous man called Hubert Middleton, who taught me a very, very great deal. I got involved as one does at university in all the music that was available.
Presenter asks
14:08In recreating these forgotten 17th century operas, what do you have to work on, what state are the original scores in?
They're almost all in the same state. That's to say they consist mostly of a vocal line and a bass line. And that's really how they always were written. There never was a full orchestral score. … The composer I think wrote his set the libretto in this way with a voice and a bass line. It's a supremely practical way of making an opera because of course you can cut it in the theatre itself and tailor make the work for that theatre, for that performance and make it work in this way.
Presenter asks
15:52Some critics have said you're inclined to soup the operas up to please modern audiences. Do you romanticize them?
No, I don't. I they uh I certainly don't do anything of that nature. Um I feel that they are em uh very highly emotional works. And uh they are high romantic, uh the operas. And that's how they come out.
Presenter asks
19:48How good would you be as a castaway? Could you look after yourself?
Not very well, no. I'm rather impractical about things.
Presenter asks
23:19Out of the eight records you've chosen, which one would you choose if seven got lost or broken?
Well, it would have to be a serious choice, although I suppose if they got broken, choice wouldn't come into it. But however, B minor mass, clearly.
Presenter asks
23:35And one luxury to take with you?
Yes, I'd like a case of gin, please. Uh with just enough room for half a bottle of martini, dry martini. Yes. I'm assuming the lemons are going to be on here. Of course, yes. And the proportions are right. I think you'd better have two cases. Oh, thank you very much. Or three.
Presenter asks
23:42And one book apart from the Bible and Shakespeare?
I'd like please the Iliad and Odyssey. So that I can I've of course been re reading the Odyssey uh avidly because of of the uh Monteverdi opera, uh, Return of Ulysses, so I'd like to to have it so that I could read it even more carefully.
“The tiresome size of civilization, the over-ringing telephone, the smell of cars, the noise, particularly the noise.”
“I've always enjoyed playing the harpsichord, but especially uh continuo work and I've never really had the patience to practise the solo repertoire uh to any great extent.”
“I had rather uh a sizable fire at my home and the full score that I'd prepared of um of the Monteverdi opera, of Reton and Dulisse was burnt. And so I've had to rework that.”
“It is absolutely thrilling. Very, very exciting indeed, especially when you look at and this takes of course a long time. You look at the manuscripts look often very much alike, even the Cavalli operas, they look very similar. And it's only when you actually sit down with them and see what life is in them, which takes a long time and you've got to be calm and listen to it carefully. And then when you feel that life coming off the page, it's absolutely wonderful.”
“I'd like a case of gin, please. Uh with just enough room for half a bottle of martini, dry martini. Yes. I'm assuming the lemons are going to be on here.”