Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
A writer whose works include the novel A Legacy and Booker-shortlisted Jigsaw, plus travel and trial writing.
On the island
Eight records
Piano Concerto No. 1 in C major, Op. 15
Artur Schnabel, London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sir Malcolm Sargent
It seemed to me an extraordinary revelation, the beauty of it and the emotional beauty of it
Brandenburg Concerto No. 1 in F major, BWV 1046
Concentus Musicus Wien, conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt
I simply love great music for what it does to me, the pleasure. The emotional pleasure are the life it gives me, and so I took very much to the Brandenburg concertus, especially at number one.
The Marriage of Figaro, K. 492: Act III, "Dove sono i bei momenti"
Aulikki Rautawaara, Glyndebourne Festival Opera, conducted by Fritz Busch
It is sheer. It is nostalgia and longing, but it she's still very young and hopeful and you feel that, um love will come back and it has hope.
The Marriage of Figaro, K. 492: Act IV, "Deh vieni, non tardar"
Audrey Mildmay, Glyndebourne Festival Opera, conducted by Fritz Busch
She's really singing her love a figuro and it's the waiting for the beloved to arrive, you know, and you have that scented garden and, you know, the night is in front of you. And it's a, I think, a wonderful declaration of of love and life.
String Quintet in C major, D. 956: II. Adagio
Amadeus Quartet with William Pleeth
That is really an honour of a friend who just died, called Audrey Wood... She wanted Thale, a dodger of the Schubert, very beautiful movement.
Concerto for Two Violins in D minor, BWV 1043: II. Largo ma non tantoFavourite
Yehudi Menuhin and Christian Ferras, Robert Masters Chamber Orchestra, directed by Yehudi Menuhin
Record number six is simply for for the sheer heart-rending beauty of it. And that would be wonderful to have on on the on the island.
Horn Concerto No. 3 in E-flat major, K. 447
Dennis Brain, Philharmonia Orchestra, conducted by Herbert von Karajan
I thought I need something which just just bucks one up, you know.
Don Giovanni, K. 527: Act II, "Deh, vieni alla finestra"
Ezio Pinza, conducted by Bruno Walter
I feel that wherever one is I suppose not on the desert island, however old one is, uh, there may be some one who comes to one's window. And I'd like to have that in my ears, you see.
In conversation
Presenter asks
5:57What do you remember about that period [of childhood during the First World War]?
It was a chateau with land. … My father was completely unworldly, and only liked living in Paris or in Spain and collecting antiques. And the chateau was stuffed with um with a collection, a very gloomy collection of Gothic and Renaissance stuff … and we began growing potatoes on the lawns, and the nettles came to the door, and the horses were no more, and we had the donkeys to p to pull us a cart to the station, you see. And what we still had was a very fine cellar, mostly of claret.
Presenter asks
8:07How great a shock was [your father's death] to you?
He was very loving when he loved me very much, and but he couldn't show it. Then we went to Italy and of course I took to Italy and I liked my Italian stepfather.
Presenter asks
20:05Is that how it was [with your mother's descent into addiction]?
Unfortunately, that was the reality, yes. The reality went on much longer. Yes, yes. And if Huxley hadn't helped me, I would have come to pieces too.
The keepsakes
The book
Marcel Proust
I want a Larry Shevd Klavan Proust because the I would have the dimension of another language.
The luxury
A French restaurant in full working order
I want a French restaurant in full working order, not a Michelin Four style, but a good traditional solid restaurant where people go to eat and talk of us.
Presenter asks
24:10Why do you choose English [to write in]?
This love for the English language. I mean, I think the English language is one of the most marvellous instruments there is, you know. … It's the possibility of concision or vomte taking liberties … in this wonderful double thing, you know, some very, very simple fractional origins and a very complicated gibberness styles, you can do all kinds of things. I mean simply English prose I find immensely exciting.
Presenter asks
28:11Why did you want to write about [the trial of Dr John Bodkin Adams]?
First of all, I think it's a very good education for a novelist, and it's drama, drama in court. I am immensely interested in the English judicial system and also in eccentricity. Nothing could have been more eccentric than what one heard about Dr Adams, you know, with keeping the morph morphine and and and and the poison and the chocolates all in the same … medicine cupboard, and it promised to be a very good trial.
“I love life and the distractions of life, of friendship, of of of travel, of of um food and wine and and falling in love and the pursuit of love. And um I still I haven't worked enough and um I yes, I reproach myself for for sloth. Not the love of life, because it brought me a great deal of happiness.”
“I write with enormous difficulty and and and it's almost a physical labor because I I um write every sentence over and over and over again. It's more like picking up s stones, paving stones, and fitting them together.”
“I've been has had wonderful escapes, you know. a very fortunate life. Nothing much has been found of me, I was supposed to know. I wasn't caught up in the drumming drum and machine, I yeah, I wasn't bombed in the wall.”