Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Astronomer and mathematician, described as a maverick genius of British science, also a prolific writer of scientific books, novels, and TV series.
On the island
Eight records
And uh she wrote the words of the song I have chosen to begin with, O Tuneful Voice, and it's sung by Ellie Amelie.
And I've come to think it's something in a very subtle relation of rhythm. and of the ordering of the notes, of the the melody. And so I've chosen Lizzie Schubert. A bit from his famous song The Shepherd on the Rock with the clarinet, and again it's sung by Eli Ameling.
St Matthew Passion: Erbarme dich, mein Gott
Janet Baker, Munich Bach Orchestra, Karl Richter
Well, my third one is the Aria Have Mercy Upon Me, O Lord, sung by Janet Baker with the Munich Bach Orchestra conducted by Karl Richter, and it's from Bach St Matthew Pasch.
So what I've chosen is the sequedilla from Bizet's Carmen sung by Maria Callas. That's about as far as I go towards pop music, I'm afraid.
Ida Haendel, London Symphony Orchestra, André Previn
That was Russian Dance from Swan Lake, and it was played by Ida Hendel with the London Symphony conducted by Andrei Previn.
Leipzig Radio Chorus, Dresden State Orchestra, Peter Schreier
And this is from the Requiem Mass, it's the Lacri Mosa. Leipzig Radio Chorus and the Dresden State Orchestra conducted by Peter Schreier, and these, I believe, as I understand it, are the very last bars that Mozart wrote, and among the most precious in music.
String Quartet No. 16 in F major, Op. 135: III. Lento assai, cantante e tranquilloFavourite
The example I've chosen is uh from the string quartet in F, the Opus 135, pretty well his last work, The Third Movement, the Lento, and it's played by the Italian quartet.
Symphony No. 1 in E minor, Op. 39: IV. Finale (Finale quasi una fantasia)
Boston Symphony Orchestra, Sir Colin Davis
But I haven't chosen typical Sebillis, this is from his first symphony. He was a young provincial at a time when Finland was a province of Russia, and this is the strength with which he went in as the young provincial into the Russian capital. It's played by the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Colin Davies and it's from the fourth movement, it's the peroration of the symphony.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:50Did music play a significant part in your childhood?
Well, it did because my mother was trained as a musician and so from the very earliest times … I must have been listening to music on pretty considerable scale, because she would play the piano maybe three hours every day that I can remember, or all the years of her life.
Presenter asks
7:51Why did you play truant from school so much as a child?
Well, I think it's fairly characteristic of my whole life. If I get bored, I just want to opt out. I I go somewhere else, do something else. And um it didn't take long at some schools for me to get very bored. I was very ill balanced in my interests. I was quite good at sums as we called them and uh usually I wasn't given things that were as I regarded as interesting and I'd be called on to do other things I didn't want to do.
Presenter asks
12:52When did your fascination start with astronomy?
I was quite fascinated when I was young. I had a little telescope of my own … But uh when I got to eighteen, nineteen, twenty uh I was writing among the professional mathematicians, physicists, so I rather forgot my astronomy. And it wasn't until I was twenty three or twenty four that I returned to it.
The keepsakes
The book
I do a lot of calculation, but I do it in my head. ... I solve mathematical equations mostly in my head these days. But I do need what in physics we call physical constants, just to keep me honest so that I'm using the right numbers in my calculations, so I would take a big hand book of physics.
Presenter asks
17:25What did you make of Bertrand Russell when you encountered him?
Well, of course he was just what I was not. He was patrician … distinguished member of a distinguished family but our subjects were similar. We in subsequent years used to eye each other from a distance, realizing we were very different kinds of animals.
Presenter asks
24:56Could you explain your theory that there is life on other planets?
We eventually got round to the idea that by about 1972 and ten years later that the particles were more likely to be organic than just bits of household dust … Eventually an amazing thought occurred to us that they might be biological. As soon as that idea occurred, we were able to check it … and it worked within a week perfectly … we have come from this to the view that the universe is pretty well saturated with basic biological components.
“I profited enormously due to the path I was perhaps fortunate to take of just not permitting the educational system to educate me. I I have to stress uh t to reject the educational system is not a good reason for doing nothing. One has to replace it by something, but as long as one's serious about what one's replacing it, um [it is fine].”
“I remember climbing walls, which we often did, and standing on the top of the wall and looking up into the sky, thinking, This is just amazing. I'm really going to find out what those fellows are up there and uh find out what it's all about.”
“I'm appalled when I look back over my life how profligate I've been in the way I've wasted my time. Nonsense. I really want to see the answer to various puzzles. It's it's really a question, I suppose, of curiosity.”