Hello I'm Krusty Young and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive.

For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music.

The program was originally broadcast in 1987 and the presenter was Michael Parkinson. A critic once described our cast away as the most remarkable Germanist of our time he said and I quote he's the journalist par excellence the purest living example of the English species

Few who have followed his career particularly those who read his column in the Times, would disagree with that assessment?

Here's Bernard Levin.

Bernard, knowing of your great love for music, would music in fact be the companion that you'd most acquire on a desert island?

It would be one of the two. I would have to have the printed word.

And I'm very glad you're allowing me the Bible and Shakespeare to start with.

But certainly music would be absolutely essential. I don't know what my life would be without

music. And how have you arrived at your choice of record? Are they all favorite pieces or is there a reason for them?

They're obviously favorite pieces in many ways,

but they've all got some particular quality.

I suppose they all appeal to me very deeply,

that's the first thing.

They aren't associated associated or most of them

aren't anyhow with particular episodes of my life but they're all they're all

certainly associated with with very deep things in my life feelings

senses qualities etc.

What about the first record them?

Well first of all Mozart plays a very considerable

and indeed consistently growing part of my life.

I once said that all life is an exploration of Mozart and what I meant by that is the

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