One of the benefits of doing more face to face work again is being back on the road much more. I find this time, alone in my car, is the perfect opportunity to think and I cook up lots of creative ideas there. The only downside is the inability to write anything down - if inspiration strikes I have to hope that great idea sticks in my head until I reach my next stop! Today’s post is one such idea, germinated during a long drive to Wales last month, while listening to a repeat of Desert Island Discs featuring the late Charlie Watts, drummer of the Rolling Stones.
Photo by Bastian Pudill
I’ve often wondered what I might choose as my ‘Desert Island Discs’ if I were to be invited to share them. Of course, I’m under no illusion that I’d ever be interesting enough to be asked, but I’m sure we’ve all had similar thoughts as we’ve listened to the show. For those who aren’t familiar with the BBC Radio 4 programme of the same name, in each episode a well known figure is asked to choose the eight discs they’d take with them if they were shipwrecked on a desert island, along with a book and a luxury item. Hearing their thoughts on why they’ve chosen particular pieces of music is fascinating and often very revealing too.
For my take on Desert Island Discs I’m going to focus solely on music with connections to the recorder. Some of my tracks feature the instrument centre stage, while in others it’s a team player. I will say up front that in the unlikely event of me being invited to do this for real, my selection would be rather different. It changes from year to year, but would undoubtedly include an eclectic mix of the Elgar Piano Quintet and a Shostakovich Symphony, alongside The Beatles’ Penny Lane, something by ABBA and definitely some Bach. No one ever said a recorder player’s listening diet has to be limited solely to early music!
I’ve tracked down videos of all bar one of my choices today (so you can hear and see them without having to search), but in the interests of staying true to the programme’s original concept, all are also available as digital downloads or CDs.
So let’s get cracking…
Disc 1 - Telemann Fantasia No.3 in D minor, performed by Frans Brüggen
I’m sure Frans Brüggen is a hero to many recorder players. A leading light in the early music revival of the 1960s, he quickly became known as a virtuoso on recorder and flute, performing both early music and avant garde works. By the 1980s he’d made a shift into conducting, and continued directing orchestras until the year before his death in 2014. I soon learnt about Brüggen’s exquisite playing when I became serious about the recorder in my teenage years. At the age of 16 my parents took me to a concert he gave with harpsichordist Gustav Leonhardt at Eton College and this just increased my hero worship of him. I went backstage afterwards to ask for his autograph and still have the Selma Canzona he performed (which I was learning at the time) with his signature inside the cover.
I could have chosen any number of Brüggen’s performances and I came close to picking the Telemann Concerto for recorder and flute, which was a favourite during my student years. However, discovering this video of him playing the third of Telemann’s Fantasias confirmed my choice.
Frans Brüggen was a tall man and always preferred to play sitting because he felt this better suited the intimate tone of the recorder. A completely valid choice, but show this video to any recorder teacher and you’ll have them harrumphing about his appalling posture! Posture aside, his playing is elegant, stylish and absolutely effortless - I dream of one day having finger technique that minimalist! Of course, this choice also covers a composer I couldn’t leave out of my Desert Island Discs - Georg Philipp Telemann. A recorder player himself, his music effortlessly treads that line between being playable and utilising all the potential of our favourite instrument. Ironically, this is originally a flute piece, but it’s often stolen by recorder players - myself included.
Disc 2 - J.S.Bach - Cantata no.106, Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit
I just had to include something by the genius of J.S.Bach in my list, although it took a while to narrow down my choice.
Bach composed this glorious cantata at the tender age of 22 for the funeral of Adolph Strecker, former Mayor of Mühlhausen. Written for singers plus a small instrumental group of two viola da gamba, two recorders and basso continuo, it feels so intimate. The opening recorder parts are uniquely written, beginning in unison before winding sinuously around each other, creating delicious passing discords. I was lucky enough some years ago to play alongside one of my students in a performance of this cantata at St. Luke’s Church, Chelsea, playing to hundreds of children who’d been invited along from local schools. It was such a luxury to be able to work on a piece like this with a school ensemble and one I will remember for years to come.
Disc 3 - Paul Leenhouts - Report upon “When shall the sun shine?”, performed by the Amsterdam Loeki Stardust Quartet.
One of my first encounters with the Amsterdam Loeki Stardust Quartet was a Sunday morning coffee concert they gave at the Wigmore Hall when I was a teenager. I clearly recall listening to them, awestruck at their impeccable ensemble and flawless tuning. Never before had I heard a recorder ensemble so perfectly in tune - they sounded like a immaculately tuned pipe organ. Formed in 1978, the ALSQ’s reputation was boosted three years later at the Bruges Early Music Competition. Pushing the boundaries of the rules of a competition intended for early music, they performed this unusual take on Stevie Wonder’s song, You are the sunshine of my life and were rewarded with first prize!
A decade later I played with a recorder quartet while studying at Trinity College of Music and we used the same piece to enter the Students’ Union chamber music competition – the only competition the college’s recorder players were then eligible to enter. We had such fun preparing for the performance and gave it everything we had. As we waited for the results, the brass players we’d competed against stood around the hall, looking utterly confident they’d done enough to secure first place. Imagine their shock when we snatched first prize from under their noses! Although we don’t often play together now as a quartet, the four of us remain firm friends and this recording couldn’t help but make me smile on my desert island.
Disc 4 – Anthony Holborne - The Fairie Round performed by David Munrow and the Early Music Consort of London
Have you ever wondered whether alien civilisations (if indeed they exist) play music or what they might make of our own earthly music? Back in 1977 NASA scientists launched the Voyager 1 and 2 probes into space, to explore our solar system, using a unique alignment of the planets that year to slingshot them deeper into space than any manmade vehicle had previously travelled. Before they sent the probes on their way, the scientists decided each one should carry a record made of gold plated copper, containing sounds and imagery of life on Earth. Alongside sounds from our natural world, the discs include a selection of music, from traditional tunes from around the world, to popular and classical music. One of these pieces is Anthony Holborne’s galliard, The Fairie Round.
Holborne’s collection Paueans, Galliards, Almains and Other Short Aeirs, published in 1599, is a wonderful musical resource, often used by recorder players, and I frequently delve into them. Some of the dances are particularly special, and with The Fairie Round Holborne was wonderfully imaginative in his use of rhythm, creating an endlessly shifting combination of duple and triple rhythms.
Learning that this particular dance is winging its way into outer space caught my imagination and I find it intriguing to think that one day, perhaps in millennia to come, an alien civilisation may discover it and learn about their interstellar neighbours. At the time the gold discs were made David Munrow and his Early Music Consort of London were leading players in the early music revival. With changes to the way we interpret early music today and developments in playing techniques, modern performances of The Fairy Round may be more polished, but I felt this was the performance that needed to join me on my desert island.
Of course, the Voyager golden discs are a snapshot in our own planetary time, sharing music and sounds we felt was representative of Earth back in 1977. I wonder what might be included on an equivalent disc today – what would you include?
Disc 5 – Brian Bonsor Tango, performed by The Amici Recorder Ensemble and James Letham.
The record choices of the BBC’s desert island castaways, spanning some eight decades, are remembered for different reasons. The author PL Travers, for instance, chose to take no music at all – just spoken word recordings, while poet Ian MacMillan picked the sound of silence, selecting John Cage’s famous (or infamous) 4’ 33”, where the ‘music’ is created solely from ambient noise at the time it’s performed. However, one castaway, the soprano Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, is notorious for having chosen seven of her own recordings. I don’t have a large enough catalogue of recordings to do this but I am going to have a moment of self-indulgence, selecting just one track I participated in!
When Brian Bonsor passed away in 2011 the Society of Recorder Players chose to celebrate his life by commissioning a CD of his music. Brian was Chairman of The Recorder Summer School for a time and it was he who invited me to join the tutoring team in 1993. Naturally, I said yes and the course has played a huge part in my working life ever since. I owe Brian a debt of gratitude for having faith in my abilities as a tutor, fresh from college, and have many happy memories of working and playing alongside him. I was of course thrilled when the SRP invited me to oversee the recording project and I carefully chose an ensemble of players who would rise to the occasion, including pianist James Letham, who was a close friend and colleague of Brian and his wife Mary.
When it came to selecting music for the CD, there was a vast array from which to choose, from solos to recorder orchestra pieces. One piece immediately went to the top of my shortlist – Brian’s Tango. It had long been a favourite of mine, and one of my school ensembles had recently performed it in Chichester Cathedral. To my delight Mary told me it had always been Brian’s favourite too and that sealed the deal! Brian could often come across as a rather serious character, but much of his music reveals a sense of fun and an encyclopaedic knowledge of different musical styles too. In the Tango, Brian reveals a passionate streak with this emotional Spanish dance which never fails to make me smile and want to dance. Maybe my sojourn on a desert island will be the moment I finally learn to dance, with Brian’s Tango as my soundtrack…
Disc 6 The Fool on the Hill, performed by The Beatles
One of my other musical hobbies as a teenager was playing the guitar. I never studied the classical repertoire, but learnt folk guitar at primary school and kept it going when I moved on to secondary school. The guitar group at my high school was run at lunchtimes by my English teacher, one Mr Pering, who was a huge Beatles fan. His enthusiasm for the fab four rubbed off on me and I soon found a love for songs like Penny Lane and A Day in the Life. Of course, one of their songs, The Fool on the Hill, features the recorder heavily and it was always going to feature on my shortlist here.
Paul McCartney plays the recorder on this track and has subsequently used the istrument on some of his solo albums too. Admittedly, the playing may not exhibit a polished professional technique, but it has the perfect feel of joyful abandon, and it never fails to make me smile.
Disc 7: Antonio Vivaldi – Concerto in C, RV443 performed by Dan Laurin
Vivaldi Recorder Concertos, Dan Laurin and the Drottningholm Baroque Ensemble, BIS 1993
Vivaldi was an astonishingly prolific composer, writing over 500 concertos for a wide variety of instruments. A number of them feature the recorder and RV443, in C major, is perhaps the best known. More often played on the sopranino recorder, for this disc Dan Laurin chose to perform instead on the treble and I think the mellower tone brings added depth and beauty.
I bought this disc when it was released in 1993 and was blown away by Laurin’s charismatic playing and his utterly gorgeous ornamentation in the slow movements. With this as one of my desert island discs it would perpetually inspire me to be more creative in my playing. I’ve picked the C major concerto for its heartbreakingly beautiful Largo (to be found at 3 minutes & 45 seconds in the video above), but I’d also recommend you explore the C minor concerto, RV441 too(also included on this disc), which is one of his finest.
Disc 8: Louis Prima – Sing, sing sing performed by the Flanders Recorder Quartet and Saskia Coolen
5 [Five] - Flanders Recorder Quartet with Saskia Coolen, Aeolus Music 2017
I just had to finish with some unashamed fun and I think this fits the bill perfectly. The recorder isn’t best known for being a jazz instrument, but the Flanders Quartet show here that it can be a perfect fit in the right hands. This jazz standard dates back to 1936 and became closely associated with clarinettist Benny Goodman and his big band (you can find his version here for comparison). I defy anyone to resist the infectious energy and sense of fun in this video from the quartet’s recording session!
To complete the full Desert Island Discs experience of course I also need a book at a luxury, so here are my recorder related choices…
Book: Johann Joachim Quantz – On Playing the Flute
Choosing a single book to take along with me to the desert island was a tricky one. There are plenty of books about the recorder but I wanted something which would keep me entertained and stimulated, both musically and intellectually. On Playing the Flute is an invaluable resource for anyone who plays Baroque music and I feel sure it would provide me with inspiration for a long while.
Although Quantz, wrote this with flautists in mind, it contains vast amounts of information which is transferrable to any instrument of the period. He talks about the mindset required to be a musician, the physical demands, how to practise efficiently and he shares endless advice on techniques, musical style and ornamentation. I have to confess I have yet to read it from cover to cover, but often dip in for advice on specific topics and I recommend you do the same. If you’ve never come across this book before, I can wholeheartedly recommend Sarah Jeffery’s introduction, where she picks out salient points and some her favourite highlights.
Luxury: Bressan tenor recorder by Stephan Blezinger
Many years ago I tried one of Stephan’s beautiful tenor recorders and knew that one day I wanted to own one. I struggled for a long while to justify buying a really good wooden tenor when I balanced how much I would use it against a rather large price tag. Instead I persisted with a Yamaha plastic tenor which was very good, but not hugely inspiring.
In 2017 I finally gave into temptation and purchased a Blezinger Bressan tenor at the Early Music Festival and I’m so pleased I did. While based on a Bressan original, Stephan’s interpretation of the design includes beautiful keywork, which makes it a comfortable instrument to play. It’s long, wide bore offers me wonderfully full and fruity low notes, while the top register sings effortlessly – a tenor recorder player’s dream! There may not be a vast solo repertoire for tenor recorder but there’s absolutely no reason why I shouldn’t play Telemann Fantasias, Vivaldi Concertos, Debussy’s Syrinx or anything else on my instrument during my desert island life – after all, no one apart from the birds will be listening!
So there you have it – my recorder themed Desert Island Discs. If I were to reconsider in a few months time I might well choose differently, but it’s snapshot of my recorder related musical choices in 2021.
I’d love to hear what you might pick for your desert island companions. Would you pick just recorder music, or might your choices be more eclectic? Do click on the comments below and share your ideas – it’ll be fascinating to hear what you’d take with you.
