Historic archive of Desert Island Discs on R4 podcasts

[Prommer]

The wonderful online Desert Island Discs Archive

I have only just discovered this, and what a resource. If you want to hear musicians talking about themselves, there careers, their lives and their music-making, you'd be hard pressed to beat this. Hours of fun await... You can search by year, musical selections made or names. Am about to listen to Roy Plomley interviewing Reginald Goodall now!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/features/desert-island-discs/find-a-castaway

[Prommer]

Sorry, just found this thread, having just started one myself...! The podcasts go back many more years now into the 70s etc., which is as far as I have investigated as yet!

[Prommer]

They seem to go back (with a few omissions) to the mid 1970s now, and then much more sporadically to the early 1950s. The earliest one of a musical nature that piqued my interest is the programme with Sir Malcolm Sargent in 1955. I know, don't all rush at once...

[Prommer]

Have just realised that Charles Mackerras appeared on DID a whopping THREE times...! Is that a record? And why?! Good stories...?

[Nick Armstrong]

I have only just discovered this, and what a resource. If you want to hear musicians talking about themselves, there careers, their lives and their music-making, you'd be hard pressed to beat this. Hours of fun await... You can search by year, musical selections made or names. Am about to listen to Roy Plomley interviewing Reginald Goodall now!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/features...ind-a-castaway

Yes they've extended it backwards since I began this thread! Perhaps frenchie (when she has a mo) could amend my heading accordingly?

You're dead right about the musicians' programmes!! Fascinating. This slightly controversial thread of mine was sparked by exactly one such!

http://www.for3.org/forums/showthread.php?5380-The-joy-of-having-one-s-preferences-validated-by-a-higher-authority

[Osborn]

Caliban
Aren't you devaluing The Radio 3 Forum by gleefully announcing your voracious appetite for Bleeding Chunks with a lot of chatter in between?

[Mary Chambers]

Thank you so much for the link. I've just spent a happy hour and a half listening to the two Peter Pears programmes, from 1969 and 1983. At the time I found the 1983 one quite sad - it was after Britten's death and his own stroke, and he chose only recordings that featured either himself or Britten (not the case in 1969) - but on listening to it again I don't think it's sad at all. It is simply that, as he says, he wants to remember 'a very happy life'. In fact he sounds a lot more relaxed than in the earlier programme.

I'll have another look through the archives tomorrow. I'm not worried by the 'bleeding chunks' aspect. The point is what they choose and what they say.

[Nick Armstrong]

Caliban
Aren't you devaluing The Radio 3 Forum by gleefully announcing your voracious appetite for Bleeding Chunks with a lot of chatter in between?

Not at all, it's a talk show on Radio 4. As Mary says, it's about what they say and what they choose. The few seconds of music that are played by way of (abbreviated) clips are almost neither here nor there (and mercifully brief if the individual's preferences are a bit duff )

[mercia]

sorry if this has already been said - do we think every edition of the programme will be available eventually, or have some been lost forever?

the downloadable Sargent one dates from 1955 but there are more recent ones not (yet) available e.g. Boult 1960, Beecham 1957 etc. etc.

[Nick Armstrong]

In response to a question on the Clifford Curzon thread, I thought it was worth bumping this thread now that the archive is complete (so far as BBC records allow) back to the 1940s.

The various tranches of DID archived programmes are accessible via the series of links provided towards the bottom right of the programme page here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qnmr

I've just finished listening to the prog. on Sir Adrian Boult in 1979 on the occasion of his 90th. Interesting choices!

On recent travels, I've loved listening to Clifford Curzon, Gene Wilder, Viscount Montgomery, Lotte Lehmann, Erich Leinsdorf, Alfred Hitchcock, Benny Hil, Richard Dimbleby, Dennis Brain...

Such treasure trove.




PS: and as Prommer pointed out back in May, the archive is searchable, for immediate listening to a particular programme: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/features...ind-a-castaway

[johncorrigan]

On recent travels, I've loved listening to Clifford Curzon, Gene Wilder, Viscount Montgomery, Lotte Lehmann, Erich Leinsdorf, Alfred Hitchcock, Benny Hil, Richard Dimbleby, Dennis Brain...

Such treasure trove.

One of my favourites is Philippe Petit.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/features/desert-island-discs/castaway/478d2f42

[Nick Armstrong]

One of my favourites is Philippe Petit.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/features...taway/478d2f42

Look forward to that!

[Flay]

Such treasure trove.



PS: and as Prommer pointed out back in May, the archive is searchable, for immediate listening to a particular programme: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/features...ind-a-castaway

They can be arranged alphabetically, but only in first name or title order, e.g Pinter is under Harold. Adrian Boult is under Sir.

Mustn't grumble though, it's very impressive.

[Thropplenoggin]

Why can't CD Review do this with past BaLs???!!!

I've emailed the show to ask if they were considering it. No response. If you've got a spare minute, put fingers to qwerty: cdreview@bbc.co.uk. What a wonderful resource that would be!

[Petrushka]

[COLOR="#0000FF"] Viscount Montgomery

Thanks for the reminder. I remember listening to the original broadcast of this one in 1969 and it will be great to hear it again.