Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
A Welsh tenor, best known as a choral scholar at King's College, Cambridge.
On the island
Eight records
Choir of King's College, Cambridge & Academy of St Martin in the Fields, conducted by Philip Ledger
I love Christmas and because it's conducted by a great friend of mine and also my pianist and it's also there because I spent a long time at King's College Chapel.
Be Fruitful All (from The Creation)
The second record is going to be Apart from the Creation, Be Fruitful All, sung by the bass. Jose Van Damme, I think in this case.
Don Giovanni (The Commendatore's scene)
Because it's the most frightening bit of music I think has ever been written.
Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major, Op. 73 'Emperor' (Second Movement)
Daniel Barenboim & New Philharmonia Orchestra, conducted by Otto Klemperer
Klemper was very, very kind to me as a very young singer at one point.
Fantasia in F minor for piano four-hands, D. 940
Alfred Brendel & Evelyne Crochet
I couldn't exist without Schubert. And I'd very much like to have the fantasy in F minor for two pianos. And basically because it's the most wonderful bit of music, but we also try and play it at home, which would remind me of that.
Philharmonia Chorus & Philharmonia Orchestra, conducted by Carlo Maria Giulini
Simply because I think it's the most unusual and the most truthful bit of Holy Holy in the world. It's it's it's fun and fast.
Das Rheingold (The Entry of the Gods into Valhalla)
Simply because I loved the opera tremendously and knew it really quite well.
Concerto for Double String Orchestra (Slow Movement)Favourite
Academy of St Martin in the Fields, conducted by Sir Neville Marriner
Simply because I think it's the most wonderful evocation of England and the kind of philosophy I like
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:46What was the first impact of music to you? Was it in your home?
Oh, certainly, yes. My father used to sing in the choir, he used to take me along. He sang, I think, bass and I sang treble until it stopped. And also my grandfather was a singer, almost a professional, I think.
Presenter asks
3:24What does being a choral scholar [at King's College, Cambridge] entail?
He used to go in at four o'clock every day, rehearse totally unknown music, sight read and obviously unknown music, for the service which came that evening. And singing settings that were written for that choir 500 years ago. Surely, by people like Gibbons, who was the organist there. It was absolutely marvellous.
Presenter asks
4:56What did you want to be when you left King's?
I had absolutely no idea at all, because I knew by this time I really didn't want to be um a teacher, and I'd grown out of the idea of being an engine driver. And there was nothing I really wanted to do, so I just was left without any idea at all.
The keepsakes
The luxury
Picture postcards of favourite paintings with favourite poems on the back
I'd like all my favourite paintings on postcard like the things you get in museums, on postcard sizes. But on the back I would like all my favourite poems.
Presenter asks
7:55Can you look back on any particular freelance job which gave you a special opportunity?
I think basically every freelance job I did gave me a special opportunity, but later there was one very special one, and that was when Ronald Dowd couldn't sing in the Missa Solemnis with Carla Maria Giulini at St. Paul's Cathedral. And I knew it, and I went and did it, and I've worked with him ever since. But also, when I was singing Messiah with Meredith Davis at Birmingham... when he told me that the English Opera Group, which was Benjamin Britton's opera group, were auditioning... and that was totally formative.
Presenter asks
10:53I believe that Benjamin Britten wasn't always an easy man. There's a story of you singing that first performance of Curlew River.
Yes, in London, when he was... obviously dissatisfied with the way I was doing my work... when he suddenly said, You're not actually believing what you're doing. You're using my music merely as a vocal exercise... he obviously read my character fairly well, because it spurred me on. And from that moment, if I may say, I thought about work differently. I suddenly began to think in terms of of words and meaning, and not in terms of singing.
Presenter asks
14:01When with the prestige of your Aldeburgh work you became exceedingly busy, there was one occasion when you had to choose between two first performances of operas by very distinguished composers.
Yes, that was... between Owen Wingrave, which Benjamin Britton had written, and The Knot Garden, which Michael Tippett had written. And I chose The Michael Tippett simply because I had already done ten years at all, and I was seeking an individual voice, and also because it was at Covent Garden, a place obviously where everybody wants to sing.
“I can't bear the telephone at any price at all.”
“I'm a quick studier, but not a quick learner. I mean, I can sight-read well, but it takes an awful long time for me to memorize... I find it awfully boring.”
“Once I've learnt it, I know it. But it takes one heck of a time to learn.”