- 5 weeks ago
Joseph Cooper invites viewers to match their musical wits against guests Joyce Grenfell, Robin Ray and Bernard Levin. With guest musicians Cyril Smith and Phyllis Sellick.
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00Hello, and here, ready to face the music with you, are Joyce Grenfell.
00:19Good evening.
00:23Robin Ray.
00:24Good evening.
00:28And Bernard Levin.
00:30Now, we're calling the first round of Ring Up the Curtain.
00:36Here are the beginnings of three operas.
00:38The music is immediately after the overture, if there is an overture.
00:42In other words, it's when the curtain goes up.
00:45First, Robin.
00:57Oh, dear.
00:58I do hate sitting in this chair.
01:03Well, at least I can get my first mistake over with.
01:05And what is even worse is that sitting to my left, not politically, but, you know, situation-wise,
01:12is Bernard Levin, who of course knows it because it's opera.
01:15I'm sorry, Joe, I'm very bad on opera.
01:17Are you scarpered?
01:18Oh, well, it was Tosca.
01:19Right.
01:21That was too helpful.
01:24Yes, it was much too helpful.
01:26Joyce, you're curting up.
01:27Well, an opera?
01:42Yes.
01:44Contemporary?
01:45Yes.
01:47Contemporary?
01:47Hmm.
01:48Is it by Britain?
01:49Yes.
01:51But which?
01:51Well, could you by any accidental circumstances recognize it?
01:55Accidental?
01:55What can that mean?
01:58Well, now, it's not the turn of the screw, and it's not the, um...
02:03Swallow hard.
02:06Oh, he's giving me so many hints, and I simply...
02:08Come on, help.
02:09It's a moot point.
02:12Oh, Peter Grimes?
02:13Yes.
02:13Is it?
02:14Yes.
02:15Is it Peter Grimes?
02:16It's the opening of Peter Grimes.
02:17Yes, there's no prelude or overture, and we hear that little theme,
02:20which we associate with Swallow, who's the by-law coroner.
02:23Yes, yes.
02:24Well, you helped me very, very much.
02:25I did think it was written from the word go.
02:28Yes.
02:28But I couldn't quite place it.
02:29Right.
02:29Now, Bernard, your curtain.
02:30It's coming.
03:00It's coming from the rigging, Joe.
03:02Yes, it is.
03:03It's the Steersman song, which is the beginning after the prelude of Tristan and Isolde.
03:11Quite correct.
03:13Excellent.
03:14I don't think that's nice.
03:18Okay.
03:19Now for the hidden melody.
03:22So soon.
03:22So soon.
03:23This is by Disguise, a well-known tune in the style of a composer,
03:29and you have to guess the tune and the style.
03:31Well, soon.
03:45I don't know.
03:46It's just a surprise.
03:48Bye.
03:49Yes.
06:49Future reference, it's in A-flat.
06:51It's in A-flat.
06:51And it's opus 55.
06:53Well, I knew that.
06:57Now, Joyce, a young and old composer for you.
06:59Well, no difficulty about the face.
07:29It's Benjamin Britten.
07:31And the music is very familiar to me, and it is not Britain, I don't think.
07:36It certainly isn't.
07:37But what is it?
07:38I...
07:38Is it American?
07:41No, it's awfully British.
07:42Awfully British?
07:43Yes.
07:44Oh, yes, I should have remembered you said it was British.
07:46Isn't Vaughan Williams?
07:46Yes.
07:47Yes, it is.
07:48But which Vaughan Williams?
07:49Any guesses?
07:50No help from me, friend.
07:51Oh, wait, wait.
07:52It's not...
07:52Is it...
07:53Does it come rather late?
07:54Not too late.
07:56It's not six?
07:57It's not number six?
07:58No, go back a bit.
07:59Five.
08:00Go...
08:00Oh, great!
08:01So, that was the romance from the Fifth Symphony.
08:08Incidentally, he dedicated it to Sibelius, without permissions, at the top of the score.
08:13Oh, I know.
08:14Fine.
08:14And lastly, Bernadette, a young and old composer for you.
08:16And lastly, Bernadette, a young and old composer for you.
08:44Well, the two faces were undoubtedly the two young and old faces of Vaughan Williams.
08:50Of that, there is no doubt in my mind.
08:52And I put it like that, not merely to emphasize there was no doubt in my mind,
08:55but to give myself another few seconds in which I might just possibly be able,
08:59by some miracle of ingenuity, or indeed cheating,
09:03to discover the identity of the piece of music.
09:06It hasn't come so far, but you never know.
09:08If I'd tread water a bit longer...
09:10I don't, however, think it's by Vaughan Williams.
09:12Am I right or wrong?
09:15You're right.
09:15Yes, you see, it's not by Vaughan Williams.
09:17That's the important thing.
09:18It's not by Vaughan.
09:19Now, as a sort of trivial addition to that, I'll try and say who it is by.
09:23I think it's by William Walton.
09:25Right.
09:26Good.
09:26It's right.
09:27I think it's by Sir William Walton.
09:28That's what I think.
09:29Yes.
09:30That'll do, surely.
09:31Yes, all right.
09:32Would you like to add to it?
09:33No, I don't know what it is by Walton.
09:34Well, it's the First Symphony.
09:35There you are, then.
09:37Well done.
09:42Now we come to our funny ballet.
09:46This is where we show you a scene from a ballet with the wrong music attached to it,
09:50and the music will also be from a ballet.
09:52And you have to tell me the ballet you see and also the ballet you hear,
09:56and this is a free-for-all.
09:57Votally, you are.
09:58Please, come on.
09:59No,取ally.
10:06No,取ally.
10:40Can I say what I think it is in the way of a ballet that we're looking at?
11:03Yes.
11:04Romeo and Juliet.
11:05Right, yes.
11:06Ulanova.
11:07Correct.
11:08The Bolshoi production.
11:10Quite correct, yes.
11:11I didn't know the music until my friends told me.
11:14My belief is that music is by Defeyer.
11:16Yes.
11:17And that it is.
11:18So you're committing a musical solacism by calling him that?
11:20I don't care.
11:22Is it right or wrong?
11:26It's right.
11:27But then.
11:28Enough, enough.
11:29And I think it's a three-cornered hat.
11:31Three-cornered hat by Manuel Defeyer or Fire.
11:33Miller's dance.
11:34Yeah, right.
11:35There you are.
11:36Okay.
11:37What do you mean I was committing a musical solace?
11:39You shouldn't say Defeyer.
11:40You should say either Fire or Manuel Defeyer.
11:42There you are.
11:43Oh, look at him!
11:44Right.
11:45Now, we're going to have a travelogue.
11:57And this is where I give you a short travel diary with blanks which you fill up.
12:02You see, you've got your cards there from the musical clues.
12:05Now, on leaving, everyone wished me...
12:35I have a little note in my travel diary.
12:48Would you like to hear what it is?
12:50Yes, anything.
12:51It says, I left port and didn't want stormy weather.
12:54Right.
12:55Okay.
12:56Um, arrived in...
13:14Bernard seemed very happy about that one.
13:17Hmm.
13:18That's a prelude to a mistake by Bernard if ever I heard one.
13:21Had Picnic in Park but bothered by...
13:51Sorry to make you do all this swatting.
13:57Oh, I say.
13:59Joseph Cooper, you wouldn't be happy.
14:02We didn't need that.
14:03I'm trying to help.
14:04I know.
14:05Got lost and felt.
14:07Now who needs my help?
14:26now who needs my help oh everybody who's feeling the fool now right thank you very much
14:42felt foolish obviously but how could be the foolish symphony more than that bit more than
14:47that i'll do number four leave number four to me okay cool myself in trafalgar square by watching
14:55right now who would like to give the first one
15:24oh bernard wants to give the first one he's going on some dreary way about he knows it in german and
15:29he's so he's got to be allowed to answer it in german which won't mean anything to anyone
15:33as he stopped he probably says by manuel von feyer actually
15:38we all think it's by mendelssohn yes those do think it's calm sea and prosperous voyage
15:46in a sense they're right but strictly speaking it's the habitual mere stiller und glücklicher
15:52fart so there yes anyhow we let your new stiller und glücklicher fart go and say a calm sea in a
15:59prosperous voyage by mendelssohn okay arrived in guess is it prague no no no no but it's by the
16:09the same composer isn't it it's a bit of careful careful not not that danger danger careful heiden
16:17yes heiden heiden where did hide oh it's uh we're whole hard hold hard it's not the london symphony
16:24well how many london symphonies are there just the warm oh no no is it the other london symphony
16:30other well how many 12 to choose from 12 london really yes it was london he wrote all these
16:37symphonies for for salomon that's right that's right presario brought him over to do will you buy
16:42that is this one of those yes it's one of those it's the number 97 in c well it was london anyway
16:47and had picnic in park but was bothered by wasps yes you might say who the wasps is by vaughan
16:54williams correct after the play of aristophanes got lost and felt robin a perfect fool gustav holst
17:01oh i say how clever what's a clever fellow she's rather good isn't it how about that you've come
17:06to mention it goodness cool myself in trafalgar square by watching the
17:10fountains yes ravelle jadelle quite correct i'll just recap those answers i'm leaving everyone
17:18sorry on leaving comma everyone wished me a calm sea in a prosperous voyage mendelssohn's
17:24overture the one incidentally quoted by elgar in the enigma variations number 13 arrived in london
17:29the finale of haydn symphony 97 in c that's one of the 12 symphonies written for london had picnic
17:36in park but bothered by the wasps the overture by vaughan williams for a performance of aristophanes's
17:40play got lost and felt the perfect fool host's ballet music cool myself in trafalgar square by
17:46watching the fountains ravelle's jadeau okay lovely trip nice trip yes now you can rest after
17:54your recent travels for it's time for our guests to face the music and i didn't say guest because
17:59this week we're breaking custom by having two instead of one guest and there are two british
18:05pianists and nowadays we can hardly think of one without the other we welcome phyllis selick
18:09now phyllis and cyril your first question on this piece there are some words written at the head
18:27of the score which might have a special significance for you both what is the piece and what are the
18:32words
18:33well i think it's ladies first it's by schubert
18:37yes i think it's a rondo it is
18:55Well, I think it's ladies first.
19:01It's by Schubert.
19:02Yes.
19:03I think it's a ronder.
19:04It is.
19:06And there's some words above the score in French,
19:08but I'll settle for English.
19:12Something about friendship, is it?
19:16Our friendship is unchanging.
19:18That's it.
19:19Not amitié et invariable,
19:22or invariable, however it's pronounced.
19:23That's right.
19:24Well, I felt this had a definite significance for you both,
19:28and if Phyllis doesn't mind just going quietly, blushing away,
19:32perhaps Cyril could tell us in a few brief words
19:35how you actually met originally.
19:37How we met?
19:38Yes.
19:38Well, that would be a very, very long story.
19:40To make it quite short,
19:42I rather fell for her in the final of a national piano playing contest,
19:48and I wrote to her, found her name and address.
19:51Were you both in the contest?
19:53Yes, we were both in the final.
19:54We were both playing.
19:56And I wrote to her saying,
19:58what about playing on two pianos together?
20:01She wrote back saying, not at all a good idea.
20:05Sorry.
20:05Oh, I broke it down after a bit of trouble, you know.
20:08Yes.
20:10Could you just go one stage further?
20:12I mean, I don't want to turn into a This Is Your Life,
20:13but I feel that was so very peremptory of Phyllis
20:16that there must have been some stage where you made ground
20:18that you'd like to tell us about.
20:20Well, yes, but that kind of thing is not to be said on the mic.
20:25All right.
20:26You both had a piano competition.
20:27She didn't want to play duets with you,
20:29but she's made a jolly good duet ever since.
20:31Fine.
20:31Lovely.
20:32Now, your next question.
20:33Here are four pieces,
20:34and how many hands are playing in each one?
20:36Here's the first one for you, Cyril.
20:38Here's the first one for you.
21:09Yes, it's one hand playing in the Ravel piano concert.
21:11Yes, would you like to say which hand?
21:13Left hand, indeed.
21:14Left hand, yes.
21:15The Ravel piano concert.
21:15Quite correct.
21:16Well done.
21:17Now, how many here?
21:18Phyllis.
21:38Two, probably these two.
21:48Those two?
21:48Well, quite right.
21:49Yes.
21:50Walton, Symphonia concertante.
21:52Yes, it's your recording, actually,
21:53and I'm delighted to say the L78s have been brought out on an LP.
21:56Yes.
21:57Very well it sounds, isn't it?
21:57Jolly nice.
21:58Not bad.
21:58Right.
21:59That was easy.
22:01Now, Cyril, how many here?
22:02Well, it's clearly quite eight, or say ten, but I think I know what it is.
22:25What?
22:25It's Horowitz.
22:26Quite right.
22:26Horowitz, two hands.
22:27Yes, the one and only Horowitz, playing the Stars and Stripes one.
22:30The one and only Horowitz, yes.
22:31Lastly, Phyllis, how many here?
22:33It depends which recording it is.
23:00Which do you think it is?
23:01Well, I hope it's ours.
23:03Yes, it is, but how many hands?
23:05Well, it'll be three, because, you know, now that Cyril can't play with his left hand,
23:10we have to play for three hands, so it's for three hands.
23:13You're quite right, it is.
23:14It's the three-handed version.
23:15And it's the carnival of the animals.
23:16But who's doing what?
23:17Oh, by the way, it's the wild asses, isn't it?
23:19Wild asses.
23:20But who's doing what in that?
23:21Well, we're both playing an octave apart, in unison, an octave apart.
23:25Yes.
23:27And for the person using two hands, Phil.
23:30Four notes each.
23:31Four notes right hand, four notes left hand.
23:34Scampering up and down, yes.
23:35And what are you doing?
23:37He has to do the whole thing with one hand.
23:39Even the notes that come down, right hand and right?
23:40Yes, yes, indeed.
23:41Don't you lend her a few notes to the lower one?
23:43No, not a single one.
23:45It's fantastic.
23:45Not a single one.
23:47Cyril, to ask a very personal question, it sounds so incredibly polished, and you've had such a fantastic success over so many years with this three-handed thing.
23:55I just wonder, was there ever a time when you felt that it was a sort of hopeless dream, a kind of an appalling struggle that would never materialise?
24:01Or did you always think from the word go you'd make a success of it?
24:04It had its problems of playing.
24:08Yeah, I didn't mean that, quite.
24:10No, well, I don't think there's a moment of hopelessness in any sense, no.
24:13No.
24:13I think the moment we started doing it, and we found that it worked really quite well, there are advantages in having three hands.
24:21When you have four hands playing on two pianos, or even on one piano, there tend to be too many notes in the bass, and the bass part of the piano, as you see, is a long, heavy note.
24:32And really, if you're using four hands, you really have to rather cut down your left-hand efforts in any case.
24:38I see.
24:38In a sense, it's easier for us to achieve a better balance.
24:41Better balance, that's very interesting.
24:41With practice, of course.
24:43And we cut out all doubled notes, you know, composers often put the same note in each part.
24:48Well, of course, those go.
24:49Do you ever lose any notes at all?
24:52Not many.
24:54No, not many.
24:55It certainly doesn't sound like...
24:56I mean, we make life very difficult for ourselves by trying to play them all.
24:59Certainly, you could have fooled me if you ever miss any.
25:02Right, now, let's get on.
25:03How many metamorphoses has this work undergone?
25:05What a good one of the richest and favorite路 me that I thought was my favorite place for, how love goes home.
25:07Right.
25:11What a good one of the best.
25:13What a good one.
25:17I'm so glad to see you follow the panel and do a little bit of mutual cheating.
25:42Well, we are a pair. They're not a proper team in the same sense at all.
25:49Right. Well, I think I know the answer.
25:52I played it for two hands before the war, and then, well, you must remember, Joe,
25:57since you helped Lorne Williams to do it for four hands, which we also played together,
26:02and now we've had it done for three hands, and we're hoping to learn that now this summer.
26:08Who's done it for you?
26:10John Odom.
26:11Yes. Is he the one that does all your arrangements, sir?
26:13Most of them, yes.
26:14And you're going to perform this. It'll be very interesting.
26:16Well, I hope so.
26:17Yes, I hope so.
26:18I should think the first movement must provide the most terrible problem.
26:22Well, it will provide a lot of problems because, having played it for four hands,
26:27we're now going to have to play it for three, you see.
26:29Yes.
26:30Which means relearning.
26:31What was there?
26:32That was the Vaughan Williams Piano Concerto.
26:34I'm sorry if we didn't make that quite clear, but it was the Vaughan Williams Single Piano Concerto,
26:38which incidentally was written for Harriet Cohen, dedicated to her, and Cyril played it first,
26:43and then I helped to arrange it for them, the concert at the Albert Hall in 1946,
26:47and now they're having it arranged for three hands.
26:49Sorry.
26:50Very lovely too.
26:51Gorgeous piece.
26:52Lovely.
26:53Right, well, anyhow, thank you very much indeed, Cyril and Phyllis,
26:55and please stay with us for the rest of the programme.
27:11Now, back to the panel for The Face of the Musician.
27:14Could the face, sorry, could the music you hear be played by the musician whose face you see,
27:20and can you identify both?
27:22First, Robin.
27:35No, it couldn't.
27:37That's Paul Tortellio, the cellist, and the instrument we were hitting was not a cello.
27:41I always remember him being on this programme once, and we went for dinner afterwards,
27:45and I said to him, what's happened to your cello?
27:47And he said, oh, I've just left it, he's all right in the clock room.
27:50And I said, really?
27:52He said, be all right?
27:53Oh, yes, be all right.
27:54So I said, Yehudi Menuhin had his violin with him when he had dinner with us after the...
27:58Oh, he said, I'll go and get my cello at once.
28:00It's a little bitter, a little...
28:08Really, it only means that I'm filling in because I think the music we heard was played on the harpsichord.
28:13That's right, that's all you need to know.
28:14You needn't say what it was.
28:15I couldn't say what the piece was.
28:16No, it was a piece called Les Barricades Mysterieuses by Cooperin.
28:19Yes.
28:20Don't let that worry you.
28:21Anyway, couldn't have played it unless he's been practising on the side.
28:23No, but it was played by George Malcolm, in fact, just for the record.
28:26Same it, Miss George.
28:27Now, Joyce, you'll face the musician.
28:44Well, was that Gillell's?
28:47Yeah, it was, actually.
28:48Well, he may... Maybe he does play the cello. I didn't know.
28:51I didn't know either.
28:53Well, then, he may have a sideline on the cello, but at the moment, I would say, no, he didn't play the cello.
29:00Quite right.
29:01Yes.
29:02Would you like to say, in fact, what we were listening to, or is that...?
29:03Unaccompanied Bach.
29:04Right.
29:05Now, Bernard, your face the musician.
29:08Unaccompanied Bach.
29:32Assuming that the musician in question is the big fella, not the little fella,
29:38the big fella was Andres Segovia, and he was playing what we were listening to, wasn't he?
29:43Well, he wasn't actually playing, but it was his instrument.
29:46It was, in fact, John Williams. I don't let that worry you.
29:48It worries me rather a lot.
29:50I mean, you might have found a bit of Segovia's recording to go with it, surely.
29:54Anyway, strictly speaking, he could indeed have been playing on the guitar.
29:58Scarlatti.
30:00Scarlatti, yes, it's a transcription of a keyboard sonata.
30:03Incidentally, he was 77 in 1970 when that picture was taken,
30:08and he had a daughter by his second wife, she was only 31.
30:11That was his child?
30:12That's his child, yes.
30:18Well, I can only tell you the story of the Oxford Union debate about modern art,
30:25and at that time, Picasso's then wife had just given birth to, I think, his fourth child,
30:32when he was 86, and one undergraduate in the debate
30:36rose to an instance as an example of the continuing potency and strength of modern art,
30:42the fact that Picasso, that very day, had had another child born to his wife,
30:46with which another undergraduate asked on which side of its face the infant's two eyes were.
30:57Now for the dummy keyboard.
30:59You see the movements and you hear the clatter,
31:01but, of course, you don't hear any music,
31:03but you at home will hear the sound after a bit.
31:05Now, can you guess the piece I'm playing?
31:07And I'll simply say for a start, it's a piece for solo piano.
31:37but, at the same time, when my wife sent 20s,
31:39they walked out of the silence...
31:40they were still near the silence and fracas they looked to save the white väl,
31:42where she was behind the silence!
31:43but, again, they looked and seen the curtain between the silence.
31:44Yeah, they looked at the silence was fixed.
31:45For example, theonne Mariini shot five years later
31:46because I thought it slowly a lot of laughter struggle all the time,
31:47I thought of it, it was confidence that the hope of Guild inter 처� 병
31:48I always been doing.
31:49After that, соiğdem Valerie had a great time…
31:50it's a great time maybe?
31:51For instance, it's a long time not being seen.
31:52More things next to me in the silence,
31:53you link, you'll earn aыми-to-around job together!
31:55And he's so싶 love to Runей.
32:56It's so obviously a waltz, but the problem about this particular one is I have forgotten the title of it.
33:04The question is, have you forgotten the opus number?
33:06It's got no opuses. This fellow didn't have opuses. He deigned them.
33:10It's a gentleman who's about to be...
33:12He did. He said, I don't want opus numbers.
33:14That's not Dane, you silly fellow.
33:16You mean spurned.
33:18He spurned.
33:19Right.
33:19He spurned opus numbers.
33:20Can we come back to the point?
33:21Yes.
33:23This is by a gentleman who's about to be given the treatment by Ken Russell, and it's going to be marvellous to see what he does with him.
33:28It's by Franz Liszt, and it's a waltz in A-flat, and it's called the Forgotten Waltz, or waltz oublier.
33:35Everything perfect except that it's not in A-flat.
33:37I'll swap you for A-major.
33:39It's F-sharp, actually.
33:41Oh, you played the F-sharp version.
33:46You mean the simplified version, Jeff.
33:49I have to have them transposed down as I get a little old.
33:53And on that note, I'm afraid it's time to wind up.
33:56So it's goodnight from Joyce Grenfell, from Robin Ray, Bernard Levin, Siddle Smith, Phyllis Ellick, and myself.
34:07From recent encounters to more memorable moments from the archives, famous faces are in conversation, choosing their Desert Island Discs.
34:28Listen now on BBC Sounds.
34:37Thank you very much.