Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Pianist with major concert hall tours, fifty-plus recordings; also writes, paints, composes; named a living polymath by The Economist.
On the island
Eight records
Prelude in A Flat (from 24 Preludes, Op. 28)
One of my favourite pianists, someone who sadly died before I could have heard him play, Alfred Cortot. He's a pianist who was on one of the first records we owned when I was a child, and he's someone who has remained very close to me. I find his way of playing open so many doors. He was such an imaginative player, and with this, the Chopin Preludes I'm going to take with me, these tiny pieces, each one of them he makes into some sort of epic emotional drama. You just feel that everything is expanding in his vision.
Fritz Kreisler (arr. Rachmaninoff)
This track was on one of the very first records that my parents bought when I started learning to play the piano. We had no classical records in the house at all. My mother went into Dawson's in Warrington, a little music shop, mainly selling guitars, but they had a small section of classical records too, and bought this record called Keyboard Giants of the Past. And I think it's probably the most important thing that happened to me in my learning the piano because it introduced me to some of the greatest players and a style of playing which I still love, and to this track of music, which is one of the great examples of how to play the piano.
This piece symbolizes that whole period of my aimless youth when I would spend my time in the bedroom burning jostics in my um flare trousers and my platform heels, doing absolutely nothing except listening to rock music. It also I think is a very beautiful song.
The Dream of Gerontius, Op. 38 – 'Go Forth' chorusFavourite
This piece of music is one of the most important pivot points of my life because my composition teacher at Chetham School suggested I got to know it by playing the chords that are part of this section that we're going to hear and saying, 'What's this, my boy?' And I didn't know. And he said, 'It's the Dream of Gerontius.' He said, 'Go and get the records and study it.' And I loved it instantly. It was my first introduction to Catholicism, which later became an important part of my life. And it was my first reintroduction to serious music, having had this period when I was listening to Led Zeppelin and Burning Jostics. So here was me listening to Roman Catholic music by a Catholic composer. And it was around the time I was, I suppose, 14 or so. And it really planted a scene.
Mass in B minor, BWV 232 – Kyrie eleison
Monteverdi Choir, English Baroque Soloists, conducted by Sir John Eliot Gardiner
Bach, the greatest composer, probably, but someone that I've always had a bit of a blind spot for. So I want to take this to the desert island because I'm sure that if I sit down with Bach there we can become friends.
Lyric Suite – III. Allegro misterioso
This is the Berg Lyric Suite for String Quartet. It's chosen for a number of reasons. One, because this is the recording by the Juilliard String Quartet. And Robert Mann, who was the first violinist of the quartet for 50 years, was a very important person in my life. He was chairman of the Naumberg competition, which is the competition that I won. And he was very supportive to me in the years that followed. We played a lot of chamber music together. And this piece, this movement, this crazy third movement of the lyric suite, I think I would find endlessly fascinating on the island to listen to.
Sonata for Cello and Left Hand – 'Les Adieux'
Stephen Hough and Steven Isserlis
Well this is one of my own compositions. I thought it would be nice on the island to have some reminder of this part of my life. But also because it was written for my friend Stephen Isserlis, the cellist. He commissioned this from me for a friend of his to play who'd lost the use of his right hand. So it's a sonata for cello and left hand.
Robert White (tenor) with Stephen Hough (piano)
This remains in the area of friendships. This is Eric Coates, of course, well known as the composer, in fact, probably best known as the composer of the theme music of this very programme. And this is Robert White, very dear friend of mine. And it's Eric Coates' Bird Songs at Eventide. I have a real sentimental streak, and I love music from this sort of Edwardian period. It's a sort of combination of all of those things in my life that are important to me.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:47Is it fair that the ephemeral moment of live performance might be the pinnacle for you?
I think when it works in a concert hall and you feel that the audience is with you and you have this moment of sharing, it's a pretty incredible thing. But recordings are good too, because you want to grasp the ephemeral as well. And I think the combination of the two is what makes modern musical life so wonderful, actually.
Presenter asks
4:56How differently do you approach your job now compared to when you were thirty?
Well, you do learn certain things in the experience of playing concerts, but I still find that I'm nervous backstage. But much more important, I'm excited still about playing this music, even pieces that I've played many, many times. And I often look over at the world of the actor, an actor who's in a show for six months, let's say, running eight shows a week, and you go in the middle of the fourth month, and still there's fire when that actor walks out onto the stage. And to me, that's a great inspiration, because that's what we need to have. If we're going to go out onto the stage, it's not that we won't have an off night, but there has to be something of that energy every single time. We have to find new insights into it every performance.
Presenter asks
12:45What happened to you when you had a sort of mini-nervous breakdown at around twelve?
The keepsakes
The book
À la recherche du temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time) – dual-language edition
Marcel Proust
I've dipped into it over the years but never read the whole thing. And I would love to study some French while I'm on this island.
The luxury
Handmade with the finest threads you can imagine. Takes almost a year to make each hat. But I think being on the island it would be very useful as a protection against the sun and it's a rather splendid item to have.
Well, I was afraid of being mugged for some reason. And then, after sort of overcoming that fear, I was mugged. I mean, not seriously, but enough that I was punched in the stomach by a couple of guys wanting money. And then a man came up to me and said, Would I like to come to his office? Because I was crying at the time. And so the combination of the physical violence of being mugged, and then this rather sinister man offering to take me to his office, which was a complete coincidence, it just made me feel very uncomfortable. And I had to see the doctor quite a bit, and I didn't want to leave the house. I didn't want to go to school. I had almost a year off school, actually, around that time.
Presenter asks
18:05How personal did the Church's rejection of homosexuality strike you, given how close you were to your Catholicism?
Well, I realized at one point if I wanted to become a priest, or indeed to be a serious Catholic, at least as I understood it at that time, that meant a lifelong of celibacy as a gay man. And I rebelled against that very much for a couple of years. And then I came to a point when I thought, well, I'm going to give this a go. Maybe it can work. And it did. I lived, not as a priest, of course, but as a serious practicing Catholic, not thinking it was possible to have any kind of emotional connection with another person in that particular sort of way for about 15 years. I lived this solitary life, I suppose, very much as a sort of travelling monk. I was always considering whether I would give up the piano and become a priest. And I was told constantly by bishops and priests and monks, no, your altar is the piano. I remember one priest describing his priesthood as being a bringer of joy. And I thought that was a wonderful phrase, because in a sense I think that's what I as a musician would love to feel that I can do, is when I play concerts, actually to bring joy. I'm not hectoring, I'm not preaching. I just play this music, and sometimes that music touches hearts in a way that I have no power over. The person receiving it doesn't really know what's happening, but something is healed, something is brought comfort to, and if that happens at any time in my life, I'll think that my life has been worth living.
Presenter asks
25:34What is the difference in sensation of performing a piece of your own music compared to playing great composers?
Well, it's just so much more personal in that way. There's a kind of energy and excitement from within that I don't think, although I have I'm certainly very excited and energetic playing other people's music and playing music of the greatest composers, but I think when you're writing your own music, it's just... Well, maybe it's like your child. You know, you can say, Well, my child isn't Mozart, but you have a sort of connection to that child, however lacking in gifts or intelligence that's fantastic and close and is the most important thing in your life. And I think that's a similar thing. These pieces are my children.
Presenter asks
31:37Would you be capable of building a shelter and fishing on the island?
I'd certainly try. Yes. I'm not sure about building. I'm not very good with very heavy stuff.
“The PROMS is pretty spectacular. I think partly because it's so many people in the room, I think around 6,000 people. And when 6,000 people are quiet, it's quieter than being on your own in a silent room, because there's a kind of electricity to that quietness. It's not so much the applause. I think people think that that's what we want to get from an audience. No, it's that moment when we share a kind of breathlessness. It's almost like a hallucination, really, with the music as a sort of a drug, in a sense.”
“Well, I was afraid of being mugged for some reason. And then, after sort of overcoming that fear, I was mugged. I mean, not seriously, but enough that I was punched in the stomach by a couple of guys wanting money. And then a man came up to me and said, Would I like to come to his office? Because I was crying at the time. And so the combination of the physical violence of being mugged, and then this rather sinister man offering to take me to his office, which was a complete coincidence, it just made me feel very uncomfortable. And I had to see the doctor quite a bit, and I didn't want to leave the house. I didn't want to go to school. I had almost a year off school, actually, around that time.”
“I lived this solitary life, I suppose, very much as a sort of travelling monk. I was always considering whether I would give up the piano and become a priest. And I was told constantly by bishops and priests and monks, no, your altar is the piano. I remember one priest describing his priesthood as being a bringer of joy. And I thought that was a wonderful phrase, because in a sense I think that's what I as a musician would love to feel that I can do, is when I play concerts, actually to bring joy. I'm not hectoring, I'm not preaching. I just play this music, and sometimes that music touches hearts in a way that I have no power over. The person receiving it doesn't really know what's happening, but something is healed, something is brought comfort to, and if that happens at any time in my life, I'll think that my life has been worth living.”
“It's the balance between everything matters and nothing matters. And to me if one can get that right, then that's kind of the most wisdom one can get out of human life.”
“I was conscious as the car was turning that I had these sketches with me and I would never get to hear this piece that I'd spent so many hours in the previous three days working on. And then I was alive, and so the piece did eventually get performed, and then was later orchestrated.”
“There is part of me that's uncomfortable with a certain kind of international life. I often sort of feel that I want to retreat back into my bedroom with the purple walls and the Led Zeppelin stairway to heaven. Of course, not really, but I'm very happy with my life. I'm very lucky not to get depressed. And I say lucky really because that's something that some people live with in a very terrible way. And I'm really deeply grateful that I'm basically an optimistic sort of person.”