Berthold Goldschmidt

Desert Island Discs

BBC

Music, Personal Journals, Society & Culture, Music Commentary

4.3 • 14.3K Ratings

🗓️ 13 November 1994

⏱️ 39 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is the composer and conductor Berthold Goldschmidt. Born in Hamburg 91 years ago, he enjoyed a brilliant early career working with many famous musicians in Germany and Russia. But he'll be telling Sue Lawley how, as a Jew, he was forced to flee the Nazis and take refuge in Britain. Sadly, the musical establishment of his adopted homeland found his music old-fashioned and neglected him until the 1980s, when his music started to be rediscovered and widely appreciated.

Now experiencing a highly-successful revival all over Europe and America, as well as having his work recorded and performed at the Proms, he is greatly enjoying his new-found recognition.

[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]

Favourite track: Goldberg Varations BWV 988 - No 26 by Johann Sebastian Bach Book: Joseph and His Brothers by Thomas Mann Luxury: Vanity case including metal mirror and shaving kit

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hello, I'm Krestey Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive.
0:05.0	For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.
0:08.0	The program was originally broadcast in 1994, and the presenter was Sue Lawley. My castaway this week is a composer, born in Hamburg 91 years ago he enjoyed a brilliant early career
0:35.8	as a conductor and composer working with many famous musicians and orchestras. But the
0:41.3	Nazis came to power and being a Jew he was forced to flee. He came to Britain and worked for the BBC and Glinebourne, but the musical establishment of his adopted homeland thought his music old-fashioned and neglected him.
0:55.6	Now in the declining years of his life he's found himself being rediscovered.
1:00.1	His work has been performed at the proms, recorded and is eagerly received by audiences in Germany, France and America.
1:07.5	He remains philosophical about this late fame, but admits, I miss my enemies, it would have been nice to show them he is
1:16.2	Bertold galtzmit which you laugh at which particular enemies do you have in
1:21.1	mind mr goshmrit well there are so many that I wouldn't start enumerating them.
1:27.0	But who was it who shut you out from the musical establishment?
1:31.0	That was actually after Morris Johnson ceased to be head of music and
1:38.2	William Glock was established. I had a very good personal relations with William Glop.
1:43.4	He took over as controller of music at the BBC in 59.
1:47.0	He has in the early 60s.
1:48.8	And he, together with a second Viennese school, or third Vienn school, established
1:57.2	the rigid rule that nothing has got to be performed, which has anything to do with the pre-Second World War cultural scene.
2:07.0	So it was only modern music, it was Benjamin Britain, it wasn't Bertold Goldschmidt? No, no, not Benjamin Britain. It was
2:15.0	performed and Hindemit was performed and Hindemit was performed.
2:18.0	Some of the well established names couldn't very well be swept under the carpet so to speak, but people who were not very
2:28.5	well known and could easily be disregarded had toarded, had to suffer.
2:34.0	So how does it feel these days to be fated once more?
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.