Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Lauren Laverne and this is the Desert Island Discs podcast. Every week I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, book and luxury they'd want to take with them if they were cast away to a desert island. And for rights reasons, the music is shorter than the original broadcast. I hope you enjoy listening. MUSIC PLAYS
My cast away this week is the composer Mark Anthony Turnage. Celebrated as one of the most successful composers in modern classical music, he's known to thrill and surprise audiences with the intensity and imaginative breadth of his work. He's an Ivor Novello and Olivier Award winner who's also been nominated for the Mercury Prize.
His influences go way beyond the greats of the classical world, taking in jazz, visual arts and popular culture too. Francis Bacon, Beyonce and his beloved Arsenal FC have all made their way into his compositions. He grew up in Essex in a family who loved music and started composing when he was just nine. He gained entry to the Royal College of Music when he was 14 and there found the confidence to push himself and audiences too. He
He says, Mark Antony Turnage, welcome to Desert Island Discs. Thank you. Great to be here, Lauren.
So let's start with that idea, Mark, of listening to music as an active experience. Is it like that for you as a music lover as well as a composer? I need to be challenged. I know a lot of people don't and they want to just fall asleep to music.
I like things that are complicated and that's unusual, not unusual amongst sort of musician friends. So the idea of easy listening, when I was a kid I used to find that department or that compartment in a record store. I used to like, you know, easy listening, come on. It's a contradiction in terms for you. You have been obsessed with music since the very beginning, a very, very young age. How old were you when it really became an obsession and how did that manifest itself?
Initially it was football, strangely, but I wasn't any good. All my mates were much better than me. So I had piano lessons for the age of six. My parents sent me to a teacher called Mrs Chick, who was quite severe. She had this little annoying little poodle called Simone. You'd be a yap at your feet. And I didn't really like it that much at six. Something must have clicked. About the age of nine...
Something happened and it was all classical music in my household. My parents or my mum particularly listened to classical music. Something like a lightbulb moment. What changed between six and nine then? Because you were nine when you started writing. Was that it? Was it realising that music was something that you could create as well as...
Well, Realising It's Really Correct was difficult because I had no role models. I didn't know any composers. I was from a working class background. Nobody went to further education. So I didn't think you could do that. So I was improvising quite a lot. And that's how a lot of composers start. So I was playing little piano pieces that I had to practice over and over again.
And that was boring. So I just used to make things up. And I think my parents were probably fooled by that a little bit. But I didn't know how to write it down. I wasn't very good at music theory. So the idea of being a composer, you know, they're all dead and they're old. And I had these little ladybird books of composers like Hand or Bach. And I used to be obsessed with those. Didn't you used to go around knocking on doors in your neighbourhood asking people who their favourite composers were? Yeah, that was very odd. In a way, composers and composing...
sort of collide a little bit with football. I got less interested in football, but I used to have teams of composers. So I'd have Chopin at right back and I'd have Bartok in goal and I'd have Beethoven up front. You know, it was very strange. So I started off doing this, making lists of composers, composers,
And their dates. And I did this thing where I wanted to do a slight survey. So I don't know where I got the idea. It's like a collector's mentality. I can see that. That's a big attraction of sport for kids. Yes. And stamps. I didn't collect stamps, but I collected sort of information about composers. So I would go door to door and I'd have this clipboard with all the composers' names. And then, you know, I'd sort of, you know, lots of people obviously like Mozart and Scherzinger, but some people would just say, I don't like any of them. Lots of people...
shut their door and slam the door in my face. You know, it was just very odd. Thinking back, I was a very, very shy kid, but I still had the gumption to go knock on people's doors. Well, and that's interesting in itself, isn't it? Because that's the kind of classic artist combination. Look at me, don't look at me. You're shy, but you also have this compulsion to put out there what you're interested in.
Yes, and writing music is very exposing in that way. Tell me about writing now. What does a good day's work look like for you these days? When I'm really working hard on a piece, I would start probably five or six o'clock in the morning. I mean, I go for a walk quite often, but then I start work. I like working early in the morning because it's quiet.
And also I love the smugness of saying, oh, I've done four hours work before nine o'clock. It feels really good to just get that work done. I still work after that time. So a real intense day would be five to nine and maybe have a bit of breakfast and I'd start and do more work. It's obsessional as well. That's the thing that I see in composers that I really admire and I've known over the years. You've got to be obsessed with it. You've got to be...
Absolutely, you know, that's all you want to do. And are you still? Does it still feel like that to you? Yeah, because I love it.
And what about when it's no longer a sound that's in your head and you hear a composition for the first time because you relish writing for a big scale, especially full orchestras. What's it like, you know, standing, hearing a piece of music come together, being played by a full orchestra that you created? I still get the buzz. It's nerve wracking. And I've heard a lot, especially of orchestral music. I've written a lot of orchestral music and I've had lots of performances by great orchestras.
Still, when they play that opening chord or opening moment of a piece, I still get the same buzz. But it's nerve wracking because even when you're experienced, you miscalculate things. So you spend a lot of time sometimes fixing little details. But again, it's a challenge. I don't like concerts. I don't like being in a concert because I'm always worried about people getting bored. I'm always aware of people around me.
of their reaction to the music. Yes, and I've had a few occasions where I've had people sort of like grumbling about it next to me or in front of me and they go, oh, this is awful. I mean, I've heard them say that and then I get up to take my bow and then when I come back to the seat, they look at me and think, oh, they're sort of horrified because they wonder if I, did they hear, did he hear me? And are you okay with that? Yeah, because I've got used to it. I mean, I had a funny couple of occasions. I remember like...
I went to the men's toilet in the QEH and there's two guys each side of me in the urinal. One guy said to the other guy, his mate, he said, what twisted person would write this sort of rubbish? And I felt like I'd put my hand up and go, it's me! Yeah.
But I just sort of skulked out of the loo and went back to my seat and didn't see him again. Well, speaking of difficult music, it must have been difficult for you to get your music list down to just eight discs today. Almost impossible. And I've thought about pieces that meant something to me in certain periods of my life. So, you know, there's loads of other things I love, but, you know, it was really hard.
All right, Mark. Well, we appreciate you putting the effort in. Let's get started with your first. What are you taking to the island first and why? It's the second movement from Beethoven's Symphony No. 9. So my mum was obsessed with Beethoven and just loved his music so much. So I sort of grew up with this, especially when I was very little. And there's something really amazing about the intensity of Beethoven's music, the rhythmic drive. It's not just that, but it just moves me hugely.
Part of the second movement from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, performed by the Berlin Philharmonic, conducted by Sir Simon Rowe.
Mark Anthony-Turnage, you were the eldest of three kids, born in Coringham, Essex in 1960 to Pat and Roy. And as you mentioned, your mum and dad both loved classical music. Did they play? My mum played the piano and...
The Cornet. She was in a brass band with her dad. My granddad, my mum's dad, he was musical and my dad sang. But classical music everywhere in the house, very present in your childhood. But also lots of religious music as well. So your parents, they were very religious. What was their faith and how much did that shape family life?
They were Pentecostal, which I've always struggled with because it was the sort of form in actually you see in America. So the Billy Graham kind of thing? Billy Graham. I saw Billy Graham five times when I was a kid at least. I went to one of those where everybody sort of moves forward to the front of the stage and, you know, when they're saved. In the Pentecostal church my parents belonged to, there was a lot of laying on hands and speaking in tongues, which when you're a little kid is pretty scary. Yeah.
I obviously went to church a lot. I went three times on a Sunday and sometimes Sunday school in the middle of the week. But I did find it very hard. And later on, I really, well, even to this day, rejected it. In a way, what happened with me is that music was a bit of an escape from it as well. I was allowed to do things during these really long, boring sermons about being burnt in hell because it was all hellfire.
and I was allowed to write music in when I was in. So I did sort of,
sit there writing music out. How would that work? Would you just be sort of thinking about it? Yeah, I'd actually be writing. I'd have a manuscript paper and I'd be writing things out. And that was my escape from that to some extent. I was able to sort of go into my own world. Because was that traumatic? I mean, you know, you're talking about the fire and brimstone. Were you scared of that? Yeah, I was very scared. It was all about the second coming. And I always remember this idea that you'd burn in hell, but also that you'd be left behind.
which is a thing as a kid, really scares you. And I remember like even up to the age of 17 or 18, which is, you know, I started to get disillusioned with it when I was 15 or 16. But even then I thought, you know, is this, and maybe I've got a residue of that now, but is something going to happen? Did you play organ in the church? No, I did later on. I didn't when I was little, but later on I did play the organ in the church. And how did you feel about that? I felt very conflicted because I felt like I was, my parents really wanted me to do that, but I never felt comfortable.
I used to play the hymns apparently very fast, but maybe that's because I wanted to get them over with. Did you find anything in the music that was part of the services that you were going to? To some extent. It is interesting that I really like black gospel music. I love...
all that stuff because I love a lot of R&B and it all comes from that. So it is interesting that you think I wouldn't like that at all because that was part of my background that I really struggle with. But it's funny, I can sort of listen to that music without believing any of the words. The sincerity of it is amazing. I understand that. And sometimes I cry to it, but it's not because...
what they're saying is because of the actual intensity of the music. People talk a lot about the intensity of your music and it's very present that, isn't it? You've actually talked about creating a sound world that's almost overwhelming. I got swept up in that, you know, that's something I want to convey. Yeah. And all of that does call to mind an almost kind of religious zeal, doesn't it? Yeah, and I suppose possibly
Part of me has sort of tried to cut it off, but it's come out in other ways. The music is almost like a religion to me. It's something that is so vital. Well, I think we better have some music on that note, Mark Anthony Turnage. What are we going to hear next? Well, I absolutely love Bach's St Matthew Passion. To pick anything by Bach is very hard because I think he's almost the composer's composer. He's perfect. Every note is perfect. And I feel the opening...
of St Matthew Passion, even before the chorus comes in, is perfect and it always just gets me every time.
Mark Antony Turnage, you were nine years old when you started composing, which is such a striking fact and sounds incredibly impressive. What was the reality of that? What were you writing? What kind of thing? Well, I wasn't very good at theory. I found it very hard. So a lot of things I was writing really didn't make sense. I was able to play things on the piano to some standard. You know, I wasn't a prodigy.
But again, it's a bit like the list of composers. I had a list of works I wanted to write and I had like 18 symphonic poems, five piano concertos, I don't know, 10 symphonies. I mean, I'd write the keys as well. I'd go, you know, symphony number three would be an E flat and, you know, and it'd be like this. I even wrote a piece once that was a tribute to Blue Peter. I was obsessed with writing down pieces
and so they'd have a lot... It'd look very black. The score would be, like, covered in notes. But nobody could play it, and it really wasn't thought out. It was just the idea of writing stuff down on paper. And I think I even thought you should write things with a quill because, you know, I'd seen in my Lady Bird book... Did you manage to get a quill? No, I don't think I did. I think I got a candle because I thought, you know, again, looking at these Lady Bird books...
All the composers like Handel, Mozart, Bach, they were writing by candlelight. So I had this idea that that would make me a real composer. What did your friends make of this ambition and who did you share it with? Because obviously, you know, you talk to your friends about your love of classical music, but did they know that you actually want to be a composer? Yes, it was very funny. I wasn't bullied at school and I still to this day can't understand why I wasn't. LAUGHTER
Because I was a really irritating child, I think. Well, I must have been at school and, you know, I convinced my schoolmates that my middle name was Wolfgang. Yeah.
Which is very odd. You were really committing to the bit. Yeah, I really was. So they believed that. So at school I was known as Wolfie. That was my nickname, which is very sweet. And they all knew that I write music and I used to play the piano. And I suppose that was fairly impressive for them. So I played to them. And what about your parents? Were they supportive? My parents were amazingly supportive. I mean, I've talked about the religious stuff, which was not great for me, but they both...
really believed in me. They really thought that I was going to be a composer. And it's tricky because I was at a school where actually the music teacher didn't believe in me and she thought I was a bit of a...
It was one teacher who actually liked him very much, but he was sort of depping on the school report. And by this time, I was at the junior department of Royal College of Music. Yes, so you started there at 14. At 14. I remember at the end of the school report, it ticked, tries hard. My parents were so horrified. They went up to the school and said, you know, he's just got into Royal College of Music junior department. What are you talking? And then he re-ticked the box, excellent. So that's the sort of strange teaching I had in a way. And I remember like, you know, the school colours changed.
just before I went to sixth form. And I remember there was a lot of my fellow students, some of them weren't that serious about music, and you've got a school tie. And I remember that all of them got that, and she just left me out. I was actually excluded. What was that about, do you think? I don't know. I still, to this day, don't know. I had an amazing English teacher called Keith Houghton, who did believe in me. They got me to write music for the plays, and I used to play the flute very badly. But they used to get me to...
do all this, but the music teacher wasn't interested or just actively opposed me. There was another teacher there who also went through a stage where I was obsessed with Johann Strauss and I was writing a lot of waltzes. And my parents went up to the school and said, you know, we want advice. So they went to not the music teacher because she was so against me. And he looked at the stuff and he said to me, well, you've seen Andre Previn on the TV. You just want to be famous. And I thought, what a strange thing to say to a child.
of like 13 or 14. Yeah, but luckily your talent was recognised by the Royal College of Music and you started there as a student when you were 14. Yeah. So you would make the trip to London. Was it every Saturday? Yes, every Saturday morning. You were studying composition? I was studying composition and piano. I want to find out what happened next, Mark, but I'm desperate to hear your next piece of music, if you wouldn't mind. It's disc number three. Yes. What have you got for us? This is by my teacher and great friend and composer Oliver Nusson.
And it's the opening of the first minute of Tuagana. Why have you chosen it? Well, because I loved him. He was so amazing to me. He was my teacher and friend, but he believed in me.
I came from a situation, other than my parents, where people were suspicious of me. They didn't think I could do it. I didn't think I could do it, really. And he told me, he said, you are a composer. I remember going to the first lesson with him, maybe the first or second lesson, and he said, what is this about? Why are you so insecure? And he said, you are a composer. I know you can do this. And that was amazing. So this is the first movement of To All Ghana. piano plays
*music*
The opening of the first movement of Oliver Nussens' Two Organa, performed by the London Sinfonietta, conducted by the composer. So, Ollie, as he was known, a hugely important person in your life, Mark, and I think meeting him, it sounds like that was the turning point for you. It was totally the turning point, because he was a wonderful teacher, because he managed to...
teach me and criticise me as you, you know, I mean, I really couldn't do much, but do it in such a positive way. I'd always feel uplifted after every lesson. He was only eight years older than me. The most amazing thing, my parents didn't have a phone at that point. And I used to go out to a phone box and I used to phone him up
at least four or five times a week and reverse the charges and he'd talk to me for an hour and really talk me down from feeling bad about things or he had this amazing ability and he really cared and I remember like when I first met him I was I
I went to my first lesson, actually. I remember walking up the stairs at Royal College of Music and arriving at the room. And he was really tall. He was like six foot four, six foot five. Really big guy. And I'd heard one of his pieces sort of the previous summer. This was in January when I met him. And he opened the door and I said, oh, you're Oliver Nussan. And he went, oh, wow. And I know he was meant to be there, but still I'd recognised him from the picture in the prom's prospectus. And something clicked.
I always remember that I said to him, look, this is not going to happen for me. And he goes, you will be played by orchestras in America. You will be played by the Chicago Symphony. And now I think, how did he know that? That's happened. Well, he was in your corner from the beginning and for the rest of his life. Yeah. I miss him every day. He died in July 18. And he was just somebody who was kind and...
A really, really precious friend to treasure, definitely. So you stayed on at the Royal College of Music and you were studying composition there. But alongside your studies, you were also discovering a world of different sounds and different styles of music. You were the keyboard player in a band. What kind of music were you playing? To get away from Royal College of Music, because although I had a great time with Ollie, I found a Royal College of Music senior department, so professional.
So from the ages of 18 to 22, quite oppressive. And I was sort of slightly feeling, I know it sounds a bit sad really, rebellious. So I got into, it's sort of an Essex scene of like jazz funk. So I then started finding out about the history of jazz and jazz music from sort of early on.
And I became quite obsessed with jazz and I only listened to it. And yet I was at the Royal College of Music writing contemporary classical music and doing all my studies. But I think I was always looking for something that was kicking against things. Let's have some more music, Mark Anthony Turnage. What are we going to hear? This is Blue and Green by Miles Davis. Why this one?
I always knew if I ever appeared on Desert Island Discs, and a lot of people fantasise about it, let's be honest, I grew up with Desert Island Discs. Never mind a lot of people, have you been fantasising about it? We want to know. I have, yeah, to be honest. And this was always a mainstay.
I just love the melancholia of it. I love Miles. I love pretty much everything that Miles did, even the difficult later stuff, which people don't like very much. I still love that. And there's something so incredibly visceral, but also melancholic. It's so sad, but it just hits you. Miles Davis and Blue in Green.
Mark Anthony Turnage, you composed your first opera, Greek, when you were 28 years old. Now, it received a rapturous response at its world premiere in Munich, but when it came to the UK, it wasn't initially as welcome. Now, a few years later, the same critics who hadn't liked it changed their minds. It's now viewed as one of the best operas of the late 20th century. How did you feel about the reaction to it?
It was difficult because when I was writing it, I always knew, if I was really honest, it was going to create a stir because the subject matter and also because Stephen Berkhoff, whose play Greek is based on... So that's Oedipus Rex. So it's Oedipus Rex. It's got lots of swearing.
Swearing in opera seems to offend people. I mean, in theatre or in TV, you wouldn't think twice about it or being offended by it. But in opera, it's a real problem. When it's being sung at you quite forcefully by... Yeah, yeah. You don't have more welly, do you? I know how to set swear words. I'm a bit of an expert on that. I've said a lot of them. But the thing with Greek is that I wouldn't have got a commission in England at that point. It took my teacher and mentor, Hans von Ahenzer...
another connection with Oli, Oli knew him, introduced me to him and he had this festival in Munich and he said I want you to write an opera.
That just wouldn't have happened in the UK. So what I can't think of was that you would have known it might cause a stir. You must have been wanting to cause a stir a little bit because this is a retelling of Oedipus Rex with the setting changed to the east end of London. You've got bundles of swear words, operatic Cockney accents, football hooliganism. I mean, there's a certain amount, that kicking against that you were talking about. Yeah. So me and Jonathan Moore, who wrote the libretto and also directed the show,
We thought, well, the Germans are just going to be just perplexed by this because of all the things you just mentioned. It's also anti-Thatcher, sort of saying how dreadful the UK was at that point. So it did go down very well in Munich. The UK premiere was at the Edinburgh Festival, I think. Your parents invited themselves along. My parents...
Yes, they did. How did that go? That was horrifying for me because I've never sworn in front of my parents. So every swear word that was coming out really hit me and sort of horrified me. My dad did say something very amusing. When I asked him what he thought, he said, well, I don't like the words, but I really like the music. And I thought, well, I said, well, I didn't write the words. But then part of me now thinks that I was doing a lot of this to sort of
in a sad sort of way, being quite rebellious, sort of kicking against something, even with them. Because, you know, all my operas, apart from Silver Tassie, and Coraline, I wrote this children's opera, have got really bad swearing in it. They're about families, but also they're about sort of extreme subjects. Let's go to the music. Mark Antony Turner, it's your fifth choice today. What's it going to be?
Living for the City by Stevie Wonder. Why this one? I think Stevie Wonder is probably the only living genius at the moment. I think Stevie Wonder is incredible. Not only an incredible musician, but just everything about him. I wish I could play the keyboards like that. You know, sing. I mean, imagine. I always think... He can do everything. I think, imagine being Stevie Wonder, just sitting there...
I love a lot of black R&B and soul. As soon as he starts singing, I find it very emotional, but it's just knowing his life and knowing that time, especially early 70s with all this incredible soul music. So I couldn't be without it. Boys born in hard-time Mississippi Surrounded by four walls that ain't so pretty His parents give him love
to keep them strong, moving in the right direction, living just enough, just enough for the city.
Stevie Wonder and Living for the City, Mark Antony Turnage. And your own music, like his, has never been afraid to have a social conscience. I wonder how much your personal politics influence how you approach your work and what you write. I'm not that public about it, but I think it does inform everything. I do things...
Quite privately, although I have talked to mum a little bit. I volunteer in a food bank on Tuesdays because I think that I really care about that and these amazing people I work with. I do feel sometimes that I should do more and I feel guilty for that. Well, you do quite a lot. So you volunteer at a local food bank. You've done that for years and you also have worked on music projects in prisons for a long time. Why is it important to you to do those things?
They're important because of meetings with people that I'd never usually meet. I mean, when I was, I worked a lot in work with scrubs, especially in the 90s, and you'd meet people that were sometimes from, I mean, I met one guy who was actually from the same area as me. He was in For Life. He'd murdered somebody.
So I worked a lot with lifers, which I found very emotional. They don't always tell you their life story, but you would hear things. And it was something that was very important to me. I believe in prison reform. The idea that you just let people rot in a prison... I mean, it's just so against what I believe in. I really found them very emotional. Quite often we'd do long projects, two-week projects, where at the end of it we'd have a performance and then the families of the prisoners would come in. And that was also... That was amazing to see people
the parents or the children of these people you've been working with for two weeks in a very intense situation and you really appreciated that you know I could get out at the end of the day and go home and they would start there and I know some of these people who did quite often you know really bad things but quite a few people I work with were actually came out on a pill and they were actually you know they were innocent and that's the other thing that I found very strong when we're working with people that
They were just born in the wrong place and their situation was so extreme. In the same way that when you're at a food bank, you meet people...
You think, I sort of feel so lucky. I feel so lucky what I was born into. It must have really brought home those projects in prisons, the function of music, like the power of it, what it can actually do for people. A lot of prisoners learn to play instruments, I mean, particularly guitar and keyboard, but, you know, there was one guy playing the clarinet. A lot of them like to learn theory as well because they're in there for a long time sometimes and they want to get the qualifications and stuff. I remember one day working with one prisoner. This really struck me.
He could play the piano and I remember there was quite a few of us and we were working with the London Sinfonietta and I remember laughing at something we'd come up with. We came up with a tune or something and I said, "Oh, that's really cheesy."
And this prisoner stopped me and he said, how dare you say that? He said, I think it sounds really nice, but you come from your background and you're just, you know, I wasn't taking the mic. I was just making a joke with a couple of people. But he just said, you know, you've got this gift. You've got to really make the most of it. And things like that happen in prison. There's these moments where people are, well, usually really honest and say things differently.
Mark, you went through a very difficult time in 1995 that I want to ask you about. Your younger brother, Andy, died from a drugs overdose and it came as a complete shock to you and your family. How did you cope? And when you look back at that time, what do you remember? It was a real surprise because he was a gentle soul and
barely drank you know if you go out in the evening he'd nurse a half a lager clearly got in with the wrong people at some stage in his life and we still don't really know what happened as kids although I did all my music and I was involved in all that
We're only two and a half years apart and we used to be dressed quite often in the same matching clothes. We weren't twins and he was blonde and I looked more like my dad, I looked more like my mum. I think the drugs, from what I hear, because he sort of cut himself off from the family for a while, I think the drugs gave him confidence. Yeah.
You meet people who've lost siblings and you talk to them and they say, in some ways, part of you still thinks they're going to turn up. It remains unresolved. It does, yeah. And I still can't believe it happened. And I sort of wrote pieces. I played a piece for his funeral. Is that Elegy for Andy? Elegy for Andy, which I played and...
I don't mind talking about it, but it is hard. I've got a picture of him above my work desk and I look at it, but I still think maybe he's still all right. I don't know why. Isn't that ridiculous? I know he's dead. Does writing about it help? Because you have written Elegy for Andy and Junior Addict as well. Yeah.
You know, he's made his way into your music. Yeah, and I think that's the thing I do. I write a lot of memorials. You know, obviously, as you get older, you lose friends. And writing pieces about it or in memory of people, friends and colleagues, is a way of dealing with it to some extent because you can just... You know, I did that with Ollie when he died in 2018. I wrote a little piano piece and then I expanded it. I didn't really know how to cope with that at all. I found myself crying all the time, but also...
writing pieces that just got out of my system or just sort of helped. It really helped and I think they do help. It's like, you know, it's marking something but also it's just helping my grief, I suppose. I also write pieces for people's birthdays. That's quite good. Especially when you add less money, you can just say, oh, people really like that because I write it out quite neatly and they sort of frame it. Oh, that's a lovely idea. Yeah, I do that a lot, actually. Oh,
All right, let's have some more music, Mark. It's time for your sixth disc today. What have we got here next and why are you taking this one to the islands? I love Puccini. I sort of discovered opera quite late and Puccini is a composer that's just so generous-hearted and a lot of people are snobby in classical music. I have big arguments with really good friends because they go, well, it's just too obvious, sentimental.
But I love that fact. I'm going to pick One Fine Day from Madame Butterfly because my brother really liked this and it was played at his funeral, so this means a lot to me. HE SINGS IN ITALIAN
Puccini, One Fine Day from Madame Butterfly, performed by Mirella Frani with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Herbert von Karajan. Mark-Antony Turnage, in 2021, you combined your two passions in life. Classical music and football.
when you were invited to write a score to accompany a famous Arsenal-Liverpool game from 1989. Now, Arsenal beat Liverpool to win the league, as I understand it, but apparently you weren't keen on this project at first. It sounds like a dream scenario for the boy who used to create imaginary football teams out of his favourite composers. Why didn't you want to do it? Well, because I thought I'd have to write 90 minutes of music to what is, apart from the goals, really not a very...
good match. In those days you could pass back to the goalkeeper so there's a lot of that going on in that match. 90 minutes of you know I'd have to write sort of you know there'd be like bass clarinet solos where the ball would go back to Luke Kitch. So I sort of kept batting it away. It was suggested by Hugh Humphries at the Barbican. I had a meeting with Hugh and
I remember. And he said, look, you don't have to do the whole lot. You can just do selected highlights. And I went, right, okay. And he said, I've got one other thing that I think you're going to absolutely want to do it if I tell you this. He said, I want you after the concert to be on a panel where you interview some of the players that are in the game. And I went, sign me up. Oh, hello.
I'll write whatever you want. I'd never met a real footballer, seriously. There was, of course, the practical matter, those creative nuts and bolts that we were talking about before, of having to translate the drama of the game into music. So the final piece is called Up for Grabs. And I actually went up to Salford to work with a guy who worked for Match of the Day and we had to just find the highlights and I managed to get 25 minutes of exciting stuff and
I probably enjoyed doing that piece more than any other piece I've ever written in my life because it was just sheer fun. It was hard because I had to do it to time codes. When Alan Smith kicks the ball over, when Michael Thomas scores the goal that won it, I was having to time how long that kick was. And also, there was a lot of in-jokes. It was the BBC Symphony Orchestra who I'd worked with a lot, and I knew that the principal clarinet was a massive Tottenham fan. LAUGHTER
so I thought I'm really so I'd have clarinet so I was about to have clarinet solos you added in clarinet yeah yeah no solos for him to play oh that is cold but do you know what happened in the end he took the gig off he didn't do it he didn't have a go because I don't blame you if you're talking to a fan you don't want to be there
I mean, I really respect Kenny Dalglishan, but I did have sort of slightly jokey moments when he was looking and looking a bit sad when the... Well, certainly when the first goal went... It was just amazing. And then just to meet and then do... I did an interview and I was sitting there just watching these players thinking, I'm up on the stage with these...
with these you know legends mark you are on record as saying that we don't celebrate classical music enough in this country why do you think that is and what would you like to see happen because obviously talking to you about that piece that's an example of you playing your part in trying to take that music out there to different audiences and new ears well i think people are scared about the formal aspect of it you know i've got people in my family are not
Do you mean they kind of come into the concert dressing up and sit down and clapping at the right place and all that kind of thing? Yes, I think people are worried about how they should react and how they should behave. I mean, I hate that when people... Sometimes when you get people clapping in between movements, say of a symphony, and then people going, or like looking really horrified, and I think that's awful.
because, one, historically that happened anyway, but also people just feel intimidated. I understand all these things, but I've grown up and been to concerts for so long that I'm sort of used to it. But I think people do find it tricky, and I think they particularly find it tricky when they go to opera, because opera is really intimidating. So what needs to happen to open it up to people? I don't know. I've thought about this all my life, really, and I don't know if I know the answer. Yeah.
I mean, the LSO is doing these sort of relaxed concerts. I mean, they're doing concerts where you don't have to be so formal. You can, I don't know if you sit on your phone. I hope not really, because I hate phones and concerts. But just to be a bit less precious about it is tricky. Taking drinks in.
Sometimes you can do that. Well, what about this? As a composer, how do you like to see your work performed? What's the perfect kind of venue audience experience for you then? Let's reverse engineer it. Well, I'm just glad it's been played in the first place anyway, but I've noticed that in less formal situations, it's more fun. It's time for your penultimate disc, Mark Anthony Turnage. It's the...
Final moments, actually, of Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms. I'm sort of obsessed with Stravinsky. Why? I love every note. I love all the periods that, you know, he went through different things, not just the Rite of Spring. I love the way it sounds. I love the effect it has on me. I love everything about his life. I mean, he wasn't probably such a nice guy, but...
I found picking a piece of Stravinsky harder than anybody else, really, because I love all of his music. There is something that happens at the end of Symphony of Psalms, and again, it's not what they're singing about. It's just the way...
The oral thing, something happens with... It's a technical thing, but the chords, the way they move. And something happens with the bass notes as well. It's very unique. But yeah, that's the thing about Stravinsky. Even though he went through different stages in life, writing different sorts of music in a way, he always sounds like himself. And so he's such a huge personality. And I think a lot of composers...
generations before me but my generation it's hard to get away from him because he was so towering he's a towering figure for all of us and it has everything really it has this incredibly moving harmonic it has a rhythmic drive which of course is in the Rite of Spring but it has this thing that I find the sound world I just love the sound world I love being sort of enveloped in this sound world but the thing is it's hard to get away from it in a way
Stravinsky, Symphony of Psalms, performed by the English Bach Festival Choir and the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Leonard Bernstein.
Mark Antony Turnage, one of the things that people who work in contemporary classical music worry about is that although there are premieres of new works, it can be quite difficult to get further performances. You're nodding. So is that something you fret about? I mean, what can you do? It does happen. Strangely, the pieces that I've had played the most, the things I thought I'm least likely to get performed again, you can't worry about it. It's just one of those things.
For instance, having pieces that are played at the proms, quite often you perform with standard repertoire, which I really like that very much.
There's a lot of opposition. I remember once reading, I think it was GQ magazine, where it listed the biggest turn-offs and contemporary classical music was number one on the list. Number one. Number one. And I was like, that was my world. And I was thinking, oh, come on, that's sad. I mean, I don't write music that's... It's not Stockhausen. It's not really, really difficult music. But still, it doesn't get played much or at all on Classic FM.
And what's that about, do you think? What's the resistance about there? I don't know. I think when people are in concerts, I think they're trapped or they feel they're trapped. If you go to an art gallery and there's a picture you don't like, you just move away straight away. But...
If you're in a concert where this music is being played, you're in the middle of the row. People are polite, they don't walk out. And so I think people feel a bit oppressed by it. I do actually understand it. I mean, and I have difficulty with a lot of contemporary classical music, obviously naming no names. You've been composing since you were nine. Yeah. You're now in your 60s. Does the job get any easier, do you think? Yeah.
I'm not sure. I think certain aspects of it get easier. I mean, I think you get to a stage where you think, well, I can do this. I'm thinking about solving puzzles, but also loving what I do. I absolutely love it. I love writing music. And in a way, it's when, to some extent, it's when I'm the happiest in my life. Well, what you're doing next, Mark, I can actually tell you because we're about to cast you away to a solitary life on your desert island. How do you feel about the prospect?
Well, I like being on my own, if I'm honest. I mean, I found the pandemic sort of, I wouldn't say I found it easy, but there's certain aspects of solitariness because that's what I do. I'm not very practical, though, so that would be a problem. The survival skills side would be the challenge rather than the psychological, the isolation, the loneliness. I'm sort of useless, really, at doing any of that. What will you miss the most? Family. That would be very hard. I'd probably miss Arsenal as well.
Will you still write on your island? Yeah, definitely. I can't think I'd ever stop writing. That's something that would... Even if I didn't have manuscript paper, I'd probably still think things...
dream up things in my head. Well, we'll let you have one more track before you go. What's it going to be? Well, it's sort of a joint venture, really, with the jazz guitarist John Schofield. Me and John wrote this piece called Scorched, which is Scorched meaning scow, because that's John Schofield's nickname, scow orchestrated, scorched.
We thought that was very clever at the time. I don't know. I was always worried about this because I thought, I'm not going to pick a piece of my own. It's not by me. So the tune is by John Schofield, but I orchestrated it. And it's a tune called Let's Say We Did. I love John Schofield's playing. He is my favourite guitarist. And when we worked together on Blood on the Floor in 1996...
A bit like with the Arsenal players, I was like, oh, I can't believe I'm working with John Schofield. I mean, John Schofield was with Miles Davis in the middle 80s. When we were working on Blood On The Floor, I knew it was music inside out. And I said, well, I'd love to work with you, like just working on your tunes, just mucking around with them. And he just gave me permission. And this is what came out of that. And I'm so, this tune is so beautiful. And John is such a beautiful person. You want to have it on your island. Yes.
Let's say we did. Composed by John Schofield and Mark Antony Turnage and performed by John Schofield, John Patitucci, Peter Erskine, Frankfurt Radio Symphony, HR Big Band and Hugh Wolfe.
So, Mark Antony Turnage, it's time to cast you away to the island. I'm sending you away with your discs, of course, but you can also have three books, The Bible, The Complete Works of Shakespeare and anything else that you like. What do you fancy? Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier. Why? I just love it. I think she's a really underrated writer and I love all her work. And I sort of discovered it a bit late, really, because I really got obsessed with Dickens and Harlowe.
although I read quite a bit when I was younger, but particularly in the last couple of years, but I was really struck by this book. It's very atmospheric, it strikes me, and you've got quite an atmospheric music list here too. Yeah, I suppose so. I didn't really think of it like that, but I recommend it to everybody. You
You could also have a luxury item, something for sensory stimulation or to make your time on the island more enjoyable. What would that be? A grand piano. Oh, of course. I've never owned a grand piano, but I always thought if I had less to do, as I probably would have on a desert island, I'd like to practice more because my technique as a pianist has really sort of gone down the drain. I mean, I wasn't bad when I was...
but to have a piano and I thought about it as you know if I retired if I never am going to retire I'd love to practice the piano like six hours a day like I did when I was 13 the only problem of course is tuning it oh so do you think the desert will be a difficult environment for that but also how do you tune a piano I'd have to have a manual as well if you'd allow me that okay yeah I think
I can do that would you need what like a tuning fork as well no I think you need well you need all those sort of you need a little kit you need a kit you need to yeah the things to tighten the strings but you'd have so many hours to sort of learn that really so that'd be quite you could come back with a trade yes perfect it's yours and finally and I know this is perhaps going to be the most difficult question of all for you which of these one discs would you choose to save above the others
This is almost the hardest, but I think I'd pick Bach's St Matthew Passion. Why? Just because it's perfect. And it's just that opening. You can't beat that. Mark Antony Turnage, thank you very much for letting us hear your Desert Island Discs. Thank you. It's great to be here. A real pleasure. MUSIC PLAYS
Hello. It was lovely to chat to Mark and I hope he's happy on his island, practising on the piano and learning how to tune it. There are more than 2,000 programmes in our archive that you can listen to. We've cast other composers away over the years including Sir James Macmillan, Errol and Wallen and Sir John Rutter. You can hear their programmes if you search through BBC Sounds or on our own Desert Island Discs website. The
The studio manager for today's programme was Duncan Hannant. The production coordinator was Susie Roilands. The assistant producer was Christine Pawlowski and the producer was Sarah Taylor. Join me next time when my guest will be the artist and musician Laurie Anderson. MUSIC PLAYS
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