- 5 weeks ago
Joseph Cooper invites viewers to match their musical wits against Arianna Stassinopoulos, Richard Baker and David Attenborough. With guest musician Erich Leinsdorf.
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00:00Hello, everyone. Our lady panellist on tonight's programme is Arianna Stasinopoulos.
00:23Good evening.
00:24And she's joined by Richard Baker. Hello.
00:27And David Andra.
00:28Hello.
00:28Our first round we've called On a Theme Of.
00:32You'll hear music which is a variation on a theme.
00:35Can you say whether the theme was written by the composer of the variation?
00:39First, Richard.
00:40We'll see you.
00:46MUSIC
01:12Well, it is lovely when you come back to a programme
01:15that you're extremely fond of, to be flawed, first go.
01:18But I think that more or less is the case with me.
01:21It sounds like a nursery tune, but it's not, is it?
01:24No. Is it Brahms? No, it's not, is it?
01:28No, no. The work itself, you mean?
01:30Yes.
01:31Shall we try and identify the theme, first of all?
01:33Bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum...
01:35Bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum...
01:38I'm totally and absolutely sunk.
01:41Well, as an 18th-century composer involved in the theme...
01:44Well, I think the answer to the question is no.
01:49You don't know anything about it?
01:51That wasn't the question.
01:52The question was, was it on the variation by the composer who wrote the tune?
01:56No, it's Mozart.
01:58No, actually, you're quite close, and the answer is no.
02:04The point is that that tune,
02:06it opens the A major sonata of Mozart,
02:11the one which has the Turkish Rondo as the last movement.
02:15And Rhaegar wrote a set of orchestral variations on it.
02:19Yes.
02:19I'm sorry, Dickie, that really was a very difficult first question.
02:22Well, it was, yes.
02:23Is it all like this tonight?
02:24No, it gets easier and easier.
02:26I hope so.
02:28Now, Arianna, a variation for you.
02:44I think the answer is no, because the theme is a theme by Paganini.
03:06Quite right.
03:07And the composer is Rachmaninoff.
03:08Absolutely right.
03:10Very good indeed.
03:16Would any of you, if I gave you an A,
03:19volunteer to sing the original Paganini theme?
03:22Slowly.
03:22Bum, peddle-le-lum, bum, bum, peddle-le-lee, bum.
03:26Jolly good.
03:27Is that it?
03:27Marvellous.
03:27A plus.
03:28Yes.
03:31Lastly, David.
03:31I'll see you next time.
04:01Well, the answer is yes, because the theme is an enigma,
04:06but the composer was Elgar.
04:09And is it the one about the bulldog?
04:11It's not the one about the bulldog, actually, David.
04:14It is the one called Troit, number seven.
04:17And there was this friend of Elgar's, Arthur Troit Griffith,
04:20who was an architect and was a terribly bad pianist.
04:23And Elgar said this variation is meant to mimic Troit's attempts
04:26at playing the piano.
04:28Well answered, anyway. Absolutely perfect.
04:36Now we come to the face, the musician.
04:39You will see pictures of three well-known musicians.
04:42Can you identify them?
04:43And do you associate them with the instruments that you hear?
04:47First, Richard.
05:01Well, that's not another, that's not a very easy one, either, Jonas.
05:16No.
05:17We were looking at Rostropovich.
05:18Yes.
05:19Who is a cellist.
05:20Correct.
05:21So he's not a female singer or a pianist.
05:23Except that, on that record, he might have been accompanying his wife,
05:27conceivably, Galina Vizhnevskaya.
05:29He was.
05:30He was?
05:31Yes.
05:32Good.
05:33You've absolutely redeemed your reputation.
05:34Back in the game, thank goodness.
05:35That really was a catch, because he does play the piano very well, and he was playing the piano on that record.
05:50Quite correct.
05:51It was a song by Tchaikovsky, by the way.
05:53Well, of course.
05:54I knew.
05:55Right.
05:56Now, Arianna, your face, the musician.
05:58Good.
05:59Welcome to the piano.
06:00Good.
06:02I missed the piano.
06:04Great.
06:06That is you.
06:08Good.
06:11Good.
06:13Good.
06:14Good.
06:16Good.
06:17Good.
06:18Good.
06:19Good.
06:22Good.
06:24Good.
06:25Good.
06:27Good.
06:28Well, yes, he is playing the instrument with which he is mainly associated, because that
06:45was Daniel Barenboim.
06:47Correct.
06:48And we are hearing, I think it was a Chopin piece, was it the Baccarole?
06:52The Baccarole, yes.
06:53Yes, so he was in fact playing the piano, but again there is a slight catch because he's
06:58becoming more and more famous as a conductor himself, Daniel Barenboim, isn't he?
07:02Yes, he is.
07:03So although he's primarily a pianist, he's doing more and more conducting.
07:06Well, apart from asking you the opposite number of the Baccarole, which I won't, you get 100%.
07:18Lastly, David.
07:23Well, that was Pierre Montaigne.
07:25Yes.
07:26The late Pierre Montaigne.
07:27Yes.
07:28The late Pierre Montaigne.
07:30A sensational conductor.
07:31Um.
07:32Well, that was Pierre Manteur, the late Pierre Manteur, a sensational conductor.
07:59I suppose every conductor must have been an instrumentalist at one time or another, and I have a feeling that Manteur was, in fact, a string player.
08:09Whether, in fact, he was playing that particular stringed instrument, said he hesitantly.
08:14Was that actually a viola or was it a fiddle?
08:16No, it was a violin.
08:17A violin, yes.
08:18Yes, that was a bit of a Brahms violin sonata.
08:20Oh, I was coming to that.
08:21Oh, were you?
08:22I was going to mention that.
08:23Perhaps you tell us which one.
08:24No, well, it's one of the middle period ones.
08:28One of the better ones.
08:29Yes.
08:30Well, anyhow, you've got the answer completely right.
08:32It's strictly speaking no, but as a young man he did play both the violin and the viola.
08:36Hmm.
08:37Now for the dummy keyboard.
08:46You hear the noise it makes, but you don't hear the music.
08:49And you have to judge what I'm playing from my movements and the rattle.
08:54And you at home will hear the music after a bit.
08:56And it's a free for all.
08:58Let's go.
08:59Let's go.
09:00Let's go.
09:01Let's go.
09:02Let's go.
09:03Let's go.
09:04Let's go.
09:05Let's go.
09:14I don't know what you said.
09:44Eek.
09:46We haven't finished.
09:51I missed that last bit.
10:14.
10:23.
10:30.
10:33.
10:38.
10:42Very good.
11:06Well, I think the pauses must have meant that it was a concerto.
11:10Yes, correct, David.
11:12Beethoven.
11:13Beethoven?
11:14Yes.
11:15C minor.
11:16Number three in C.
11:17Number three in C minor.
11:18Absolutely correct.
11:27This one I always call the Shallow End Concerto,
11:29because in the number four and the emperor, you get in straight away.
11:32The pianist starts straight away.
11:34But in this one, you come onto the platform, you take a bow,
11:37and then you sit absolutely still while the orchestra go away,
11:40play away for about two and a half minutes,
11:42and then you have to come in in the most horrible octaves.
11:51And it could easily be...
11:54With the greatest of ease.
11:55Everybody's done it once in their life, and everybody dreads that opening.
11:58It really is horrible.
11:59And then, after all, Beethoven, the next one starts...
12:07And the pianist takes it away.
12:08It's a much nicer feeling.
12:09Anyway, the answer was correct.
12:10It was the Beethoven piano concerto number three in C minor,
12:13Opus 37.
12:14Right.
12:15Now, funny instruments.
12:16This is where you hear a piece of music played on the wrong instrument.
12:19Can you say for which solo instrument it was originally intended,
12:23and also identify the piece?
12:25First, Richard.
12:27I'm going to sing doji Lala Lala Lala Lala Lala Lala Lala Lala Lala Lala ESOZI
12:29Which has to be the main as a 근데at dialect
12:54Yes, it's the Berlioz.
13:05No cheating going on here, of course.
13:11But what it was originally played on, I thought it was a cello.
13:14No. Was it woodwind?
13:16Yes, it was a solo instrument, which plays a solo originally.
13:20Coranglais. Coranglais, correct.
13:22It's the Roman Carnival.
13:24And to be fair, actually, the violas do play it soon after that.
13:28Yes. I think of it as a stringy sort of sound.
13:30Yes, well, you're quite right.
13:32It's all right, Dickie. We're still friends.
13:35Right, well, it's the Coranglais in Berlioz's Roman Carnival Overture.
13:39Now, Arianna, a funny instrument for you.
13:52It sounded rather lovely on the instrument it was being played on,
13:58but it wasn't meant to be played on that instrument.
14:00That is Greek prevarication, Arianna.
14:02And by now you may start suspecting
14:04that I don't know what instrument it was meant to be played on.
14:07Violin, Mendelssohn.
14:10Right.
14:13Well, you...
14:15Yes, thank you.
14:17You did me Berlioz for me, didn't you?
14:19Thank you, yes.
14:20Fair exchange.
14:22It was the finale from the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto.
14:25Now, David, here's one for you.
14:55Very harmonious.
14:58Wasn't it Handel?
14:59Yes, it was.
15:00And was it a blacksmith in a more harmonious moment?
15:02It was.
15:03That's quite right.
15:04For the piano?
15:05Yes.
15:06For the...
15:07For the...
15:08The piano doesn't?
15:09Well...
15:10Well, halves, of course.
15:11The keyboard.
15:18I'm sure all the purists watching would like me to tell you
15:21that, of course, the harmonious blacksmith
15:23was not the nickname of Handel's own.
15:25It was a tune from his suite number five,
15:27but it's always called the harmonious blacksmith.
15:29Right.
15:30Well, now, you can have an interval in your labours,
15:32and it's time for our guest.
15:33And tonight, he is one of the outstanding
15:35international conductors of the day.
15:37He was born in Vienna,
15:39but perhaps we mostly associate him
15:41with his conductorship of the Boston Symphony Orchestra,
15:44which he held for many years.
15:46We welcome Eric Leinsdorf.
15:48May I say I enjoyed very much what I watched so far,
16:05and your rendition of Beethoven's Third Piano Concerto
16:08was masterful.
16:09Thank you very much.
16:10Have you ever heard the story of the tour of the orchestra
16:15with the pianist,
16:16when one night they had Piano Concerto No. 4,
16:20and one night they had Piano Concerto No. 5,
16:23and that supposedly really happened.
16:25Now, No. 4 starts the way you played with the piano alone,
16:30but No. 5 has a big orchestral chord,
16:33and there is sort of the courtesy,
16:36the courtesy of the battle.
16:38The conductor looks at the pianist if he is ready,
16:41and the conductor thought it was No. 4,
16:43and that particular night the pianist thought it was No. 5,
16:47neither had looked at the program.
16:49So the conductor turns around and waits for the pianist,
16:52and the pianist says, yes, please do start.
16:55The conductor turns and says, please start.
16:57Gaston and Alphonse, until they finally consulted
17:00and decided which piano concert was being played.
17:05So forgive the interruption, but it was too tempting.
17:07Thank you very much.
17:09Now, Maestro, your first question.
17:11Why are there extra strings attached to this?
17:30It's a pity to stop here.
17:53Yes, it's beautiful.
17:55The appigione and, of course, the instrument had six strings.
18:00Yes.
18:01These are the extra strings.
18:02It is frequently transcribed
18:04and has become one of the most popular audition pieces,
18:08not only for cellists but for violists.
18:10Yes.
18:11There's a very good viola transcription.
18:12You haven't said what the work was, in fact.
18:14The appigione sonata by Schubert.
18:16Yes.
18:17Yes.
18:18We asked you the question because in your early days you were a cellist.
18:20I studied the channel, yes.
18:22Yes.
18:23Now, how did it come about that you became assistant to Toscanini
18:26at the Salzburg Festival very early in your career as quite a young man?
18:31It happened in a rather strange way.
18:36I was watching his rehearsals with the Vienna Philharmonic very avidly.
18:41Of course, it was the greatest man one could possibly watch.
18:46Yes.
18:47And one day he was preparing the Vienna Orchestra for a concert
18:50at which a choir and soloists from Budapest were going to join the orchestra.
18:55The program was the Psalms Ungaricus by Kodai,
18:58followed by the Choral Symphony of Beethoven.
19:01And the president of the Vienna Philharmonic, during an interval of rehearsal,
19:07ran wildly about trying to find a rehearsal pianist for the Psalms Ungaricus.
19:13And I thought this couldn't be so difficult when he said nobody either knows the work
19:18or has the courage to play it with a day's notice in front of Toscanini.
19:23And I said, well, if you want me to, I'll be glad to come and play.
19:26Well, I had two years earlier been a chorus pianist, accompanist for the chorus
19:32which Anton Webern conducted in Vienna.
19:35And so I knew the work really for many weeks.
19:39Every Tuesday night, I'd done it for hours.
19:42And that was the way I met Toscanini playing the Psalms Ungaricus in rehearsal for him.
19:49And after that, he invited you?
19:51Well, from that, it all came almost by itself.
19:55And then for the following three years, I was his assistant
20:00and prepared the soloists and the chorus
20:04and played stage rehearsals and piano rehearsals.
20:08And I'm very happy that you give me a chance to say a word
20:14because I think Toscanini, in some of the writings, has been misrepresented.
20:19Well, he's always represented, misrepresented, you may say, I'd like to hear this, as a tiger,
20:24as a man who lost his temper and was always outraged at this and that.
20:30Very, very rarely in the times I had the fortune to observe him.
20:37I have seen very little of the tantrum of Toscanini.
20:40He was the most astute, the most astute observer and judge of the caliber of musicians.
20:48And once he said to me, because whatever he did, he was very conscious of what he did.
20:52He said, you know, I come to an orchestra and let us assume there's a big oboe solo
20:57and the oboeist plays it.
20:58Yes.
20:59First Brahms, second movement.
21:02And he plays it well, it may not be my way, but it makes sense the way he does it with conviction.
21:09I don't say a word, I let him do it.
21:11Isn't that my fault?
21:12Well, that is not a tyrant, that is not an ogre.
21:14Now, your next question, and I want you to listen to the English of it because there's a catch.
21:19What or which addition has the composer made here?
21:48Mr. Cooper, how do you spell witch?
21:52Well, let's spell it W-I-T-C-H in this case.
21:57This is the upgrading, the inflationary procedure of Verdi, you know, that inflation is not a modern invention.
22:07He took three witches and made them into a choir.
22:10And this is Macbeth.
22:11Yes, quite right.
22:12And did you recognize that that was your own recording of it, or was it too short a passage?
22:17I think there is now a second one.
22:20Is there?
22:21Yes, but for a long time it was the only one.
22:24And, you know, that reminds me of a story, if I may tell it.
22:27A man comes to a restaurant and the waiter says, you will enjoy the Wiener Schnitzel today.
22:32And the man says to the waiter, and how do you know I'm going to have Wiener Schnitzel?
22:36He said, that is the only thing we have on the menu.
22:39Since it was for a long time the only record on the market, it would not have taken much to recognize.
22:47I would like just to ask you about one thing I've been reading about.
22:52Yes.
22:53And that is a new venture you have in mind, the training of conductors, a school of some sort, a master class.
23:02What to tell us about this?
23:03I have found in the last few years that through the magnificent widening of the interest in recordings, professional musicians have begun to abuse the record for study purposes.
23:20But in the process over a couple of generations, I find that the ability to read music among professional musicians is very much on the decline.
23:30And I found this particularly in the Berkshire Music Center, which was the educational project of the Boston Symphony, which I had it for seven summers,
23:41that the aspiring conductors, men in their mid-twenties, really, according to anybody's definition, could not read music.
23:49No.
23:50And it frightened me, and I thought I would like to try something along those lines to show what reading music as opposed to reading notes means.
24:01Yes.
24:02Yes.
24:03Maestro, thank you very much indeed.
24:05It is a great pleasure.
24:16Please stay with us and join in if you want to.
24:18With pleasure.
24:19Thank you very much.
24:20Right.
24:21Now for our funny ballet.
24:22This is where we show you a scene from a ballet with the wrong music.
24:26The music you hear will also be from a ballet.
24:29Can you say which ballet you see and which ballet you hear?
24:31And it's a free for all.
24:33There's a canon that was going on.
24:34It's a ultimatum.
24:35It's a much more smile.
24:36Even when it's a ballet.
24:37All right.
24:38You've got to do this now.
24:39I guess I have to take it.
24:40But it's a beautiful.
24:41Well, it's a beautiful.
24:42The ballet, the ballet.
24:43This is so beautiful.
24:44And it's a beautiful.
24:45I've got to get a little bit of a ballet, blend of a ballet.
24:46That's all.
24:47You've got to get a little bit of a ballet.
24:48That's all.
24:49You've got to get a little bit of a ballet
25:23Right, who's going to be spokesman?
25:33Well, we can share it, I think.
25:35Okay.
25:35Let me start by saying that we're listening to Stravinsky's Petrushka.
25:39Correct.
25:39And we're watching...
25:41Well, Romeo and...
25:42Juliet.
25:43Juliet.
25:43What struck me was the way it fitted.
25:54Yes.
25:56It sometimes is the case, isn't it, when we have our funny operas or funny ballets.
26:00You actually find that thing works.
26:01Well, Walter Todds and I do have a lot of fun trying to get them to match in some rather obscure way.
26:06Fine.
26:07Now, for the hidden melody.
26:14This is where I hide a tune in the style of a composer, and you guess the tune in the composer.
26:19Sometimes I write these down, but tonight I'm just going to improvise it, and so here goes.
26:23Anything may happen.
28:48Thank you so much.
29:05Listen to Radio 3 Unwind on your digital radio and BBC sounds
29:10and escape with a captivating, restorative, eclectic mix of music to soothe the soul.
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