Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Composer
154 episodes
Chosen over the decades
152
Total castaways
1980s
Peak decade
8
Decades seen
Castaways who chose this
Conrad Black on taking visitors to see his press hall's million-copy print run
How hearing the Turangalîla symphony in a lift convinced Harrison Birtwistle to become a composer
Gavin Laird on wealthy families offering to take the dog instead of evacuee children
How Margaret Thatcher told David Mellor he'd never make a living at the Chancery Bar
Nicholas Snowman on his Cambridge sadness that music might not exist anymore
Diana Mosley on missing three and a half years of her children's lives in prison
Enoch Powell on describing his younger self as a ‘learning machine’ at Cambridge
Claus Moser on watching Hitler's torchlight procession from his window
Peter Donohoe on putting his hands under his armpits in a 70mph car crash
Hugh Trevor-Roper on being ordered to investigate Hitler's disappearance
Lord Armstrong on going to Buckingham Palace with Heath to resign and returning with Wilson
Bernard Levin on how being forced to learn the violin nearly poisoned him for music
Nicholas Goodison on buying a cheap barometer that led to writing the standard reference book
How Jorge Bolet's Carnegie Hall debut audience included Rachmaninoff, Horowitz and Heifetz
Gwyneth Jones on her father dying two hours before her scholarship acceptance letter arrived
How her husband's 'Well, then write' turned Rachel Billington into a novelist
Carlo Curley on his first public performance with billiard chalk on his hands
Earl of Harewood on worrying his royal bargaining power as a POW was a bluff
Patricia Ruanne on hiding behind a character to overcome performance nerves