Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Bishop of London, who also umpired the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race.
On the island
Eight records
Symphony No. 1 in A flat major, Op. 55Favourite
London Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Sir Adrian Boult
I am a great devotee of El Gar. I love splendid music. And I think the first symphony, especially the end of it, where the very solemn melody with which it opened comes back with the full orchestration, is one of the most magnificent pieces of music that I know.
When we were at St George's, old Sir Walter Parrott used to give each year for the choir boys what he called the sausage feast ... And then afterwards he would take us in his drawing room and on a little spinet that he had he used to play the harmonious blacksmith, and it would bring back memories of days at St George's very vividly.
Patience: "I hear the soft note of an echoing voice"
I would have to have some Gilbert and Sullivan. ... I'd like to hear what I think is the most beautiful of all the madrigals, the sextet from Patience.
Before we've got to have something to make me laugh, and I'd like something that appealed to my family and also reminded me of Chester and so I would like to hear the scaffold singing Thank you very much.
Gérard Souzay, with Dalton Baldwin
I have always been very fond of singing, and that is the area of music that I've enjoyed most. And I would like to hear what I think is one of the most beautiful love songs, that is Zweignung Devotion by Richard Strauss.
Symphonic Variations for Cello and Orchestra
Antony Pini and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Joseph Post
I have a very vivid memory of coming to the old Queen's Hall and hearing the great cellist Soudja playing a piece, the cello variations with orchestra by the French composer Buelmann. It has a very luscious melody in it, and it is one that's always given me great pleasure.
Eugene Onegin: Tatiana's Letter Scene
Well, I'm very fond of opera. And my favourite opera is Eugenia Negin. largely, I think, because it has a very plausible story, which can't be said of all operas, and also the marvellous music by Tchaikovsky, and I would very much like to have with me on my island the letter song.
Missa Solemnis in D major, Op. 123: Agnus Dei
Philharmonia Orchestra and Chorus, conducted by Herbert von Karajan
However peaceful and happy one was, one couldn't but forget the tensions and the troubles of the world, and I don't think one ought to forget about them. And I would like to have a piece of music that would remind me of these tensions. And I don't think there's anything which expresses more man's longing for peace and his revulsion of war than the closing part of Beethoven's Missa Solemnis
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:38How did you set about choosing your discs, and to what extent does nostalgia come into it?
I chose first records that I'm fond of and that I think would meet my various emotional needs on the island, but as well records that have got, for the most part, some particular connection with happy memories and experiences that I'd be glad to recall on the island.
Presenter asks
2:30As a youngster, you were in the choir school at Saint George's Chapel, Windsor, so you had a musical upbringing?
Music was very much a part of our home life. My father was a rector in the City of London at St Michael's Corn Hill. He and my mother were devoted members of the Bach Choir. And my father, with Harold Dark, founded the St Michael's Singers ... And then I and my two brothers were both in the choir at St George's Windsor. ... And so we were brought up in the great tradition of English church music.
Presenter asks
5:41How early in life did you envisage ordination?
I don't think I can remember a time when I didn't intend to be ordained.
The keepsakes
The book
London Music in 1888-89 as heard by Corno di Bassetto
Bernard Shaw
Well, there's a book which has given me great pleasure over a long period of time, which I bought when I was chaplain in the Navy in Alexandria, and that is London Music in 1888-89 as heard by Corono di Bazzetto. In other words, Bernard Shaw's wonderful musical criticisms during that period.
The luxury
I think I would take the opportunity of trying to teach myself uh a musical instrument properly. I should think that a stringed instrument or a reed instrument might be rather too sensitive to the atmosphere, and so I would like to have an instrument which I tried to learn when I was a curate, and that is a trombone.
Presenter asks
6:50What do you remember about umpiring the university boat race when Oxford sank?
I'd of course prepared myself thinking of every possible eventuality. But the one thing that I never expected to happen was that one of the crews would sink within what is known as the protected area. ... it was the first time that a boat had ever sunk within the first two or three minutes of the race. ... And I in a split second had to decide whether a hazard of the weather constituted an accident. And I decided there and then that it did, and I think on the whole my decision was upheld.
Presenter asks
10:20What are the duties of a bishop's chaplain?
He's really an ADC to the bishop, and especially with Bishop Cyril Garbit, who I was with, he was a bachelor, and so he depended very much on his chaplain for companionship, as well as for seeing that his diary was kept in order and doing a certain amount of deviling for him if he wanted preparation, for anything that he needed information about.
Presenter asks
14:01Bishops of London have lived at Fulham Palace since pre-Norman times, but you've now broken that tradition?
Well, I didn't break it. It was broken for me, but I think absolutely rightly. ... Bishops of London have lived at Fulham ever since then. And I'm the first not to live there, but it had become quite impossible economically. And the great difficulty was, of course, the time that my predecessor had to spend going up the King's Road in order to get to meetings in the middle of London.
“I don't think I can remember a time when I didn't intend to be ordained.”
“I in a split second had to decide whether a hazard of the weather constituted an accident. And I decided there and then that it did, and I think on the whole my decision was upheld.”
“I used to describe myself as being the bishop of the North Circular Road.”