Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
A literary critic and professor of English at London and Cambridge, one of the most influential critics and teachers of his age.
On the island
Eight records
L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato
Michael Ginn, English Baroque Soloists, conducted by John Eliot Gardiner
I first heard it sixty years ago in the Isle of Man ... Michael Ginn or Ginn is a boy soprano, and I was a boy soprano. And so altogether it seemed to me a suitable way to start the list.
Impromptu in A-flat major, D. 899 No. 4
The next record, like some of the others that I'd chosen, has to stand as a symbol of a great deal of other music, the whole of Schubert's piano music in fact. But all I could choose was one short piece. And I've always particularly admired the way Clifford Curzon played this impromptu.
Edita Gruberová, Robert Holl, Wiener Symphoniker, conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt
what they don't know because it's very often omitted, I think, in amateur performances, is the wonderful duet between Adam and Eve towards the end of the oratorio, which is sort of the finest, sort of most radiant celebration of unspoilt married love that you could possibly find in music, I think.
Lella Cuberli, Cecilia Bartoli, John Tomlinson, Berlin Philharmonic, conducted by Daniel Barenboim
A representative again of Mozart's operas which are truly important to me and I think Cosifantute is possibly the most beautiful opera ever written. So it's very difficult to pick a piece of it that will have to stand for all the rest. However, this wonderful little trio from the first act will have to serve.
Charlotte Margiono, Barbara Bonney
I I didn't know what to choose from Figaro. The obvious choice would be Susannah's wonderful ara in the last act, but this little letter song sung by the Countess and Susanna in Act Three will remind me of all the rest.
Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit, BWV 106 (Actus Tragicus)Favourite
Teresa Stich-Randall, Vienna State Opera Orchestra and Chorus, conducted by Felix Prohaska
the actus tragicus is a wonderful uh uh cantata about death. Uh I've sung in it and loved it for a great many years, but I th the it has of course many times been recorded, but the recording that we're going to use here seems to be the most beautiful of them, partly because of the exquisite singing of Teresa Stitch Randall.
Piano Sonata No. 32 in C minor, Op. 111
Really, I suppose I chose it again as a representative, but also because it is the last part of Beethoven's last sonata, the sort of general idea of lastness creeping in here.
Elisabeth Schumann, Maria Olczewska, Vienna Philharmonic, conducted by Robert Heger
this is a lovely moment, I think, from De Rose and Cavalier, the presentation of the Silver Rose. And just for old time's sake, I've asked you to do the recording by Elizabeth Schumann, made in 1933, which was the first one I ever heard.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:35Do you suggest in your autobiographical writings that you've been rather blown about through life, like tumbleweed?
Well, that is true. I have sort of drifted about uh mostly within the university system in this country and in the United States. I've never stayed longer than eight years in any job, and that's very unusual in an academic profession. And I can't really explain it, a kind of natural a quickness to be bored with whatever one's got.
Presenter asks
10:29Did you then decide that you wouldn't be a writer?
Well, I knew I wasn't uh any more than I was a singer or a violinist or anything else, so I I fell back on criticism, I suppose you want to say.
Presenter asks
13:31In the war you learned to deal with the madness of captains. Can you explain that?
Well, I had a rather strange war. I think it's quite I I never met anybody else who had uh a similar experience, but I did find myself acting as secretary to people who were crazy and drunk a lot of the time. And uh I think I learned a lot from this.
The keepsakes
The book
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
Edward Gibbon
I thought it had to be a very long book. Um, probably a book that I ought to have read by now and haven't, like Gibbon's Decline and Fall. So I just I voted for Gibbon.
The luxury
Moonlit Landscape with Sheep by Samuel Palmer
I imagine what I would like is something very beautiful. ... I decided to ask you to persuade the trustees of the Tate Gallery to part with a painting by Samuel Palmer called Moonlit Landscape with Sheep. I'll settle for that.
Presenter asks
21:01Do you feel a little guilty that you helped bring [literary theory] in, because you had a ringside seat?
I did. I I did, I suppose. Well, I was that was when I was in London. No, since then I've really become I've I've uh in politics I've never taken the the track from left to right which is supposed to happen, but I have in this respect, and and I'll spend a good deal of time giving lectures denouncing this this business.
Presenter asks
30:47Do you enjoy your solitary state?
For the most part, yes. Uh um it's it's softened by um friends and um people come to stay sometimes. No, I I'd rather I mean I've very I'd rather be like uh Adam and Eve in the creation, but I'm not. I'm Adam before uh his rib was removed.
“I think what what what's difficult to understand about autobiographies is that w what you're writing is about now. You're not writing about the past at all. You're really writing about the moment at which you're writing.”
“the element of sheer craziness in in war is well i i it's forgotten. I mean we know it's terrible and that millions of people get killed, but the silliness is quite extraordinary too.”
“I've had very good students who've said they're really only taking courses in literature in order to get out of it and and study what they now call theory. Theory in with a capital T, which is not literary theory anymore. It's theory of everything. And fine, as long as we can still have some people who are susceptible to the effect of good literature, particularly of poetry.”