Hello, I'm Christy 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 1982, short story writer and critic Brian Aldis.

How well do you think you could endure loneliness?

Well, I've been rather a solitary person in many ways,

so I suppose I would put up with it.

I would miss my family and all the adjuncts of civilisation

that I suppose all your castaways say they would miss.

How much do you think music would help?

It would help more than the books, I think.

Just to have the sound, other than your own voice, would be extremely necessary.

Do you have any musical skill yourself?

Unfortunately not, no. No. At one time I had an ambition to be a honky-tonk pianist, but it never came to anything.

Do you use music while you're working as background?

Yes, to a certain extent I do.

I used to do a lot more when one could get Radio 3 more easily.

So on the whole, now, silence.

What's the first disc of the list of 8 you have there?

Well, I think we'll begin with Borodin's Symphony number two for its superb, romantic, melancholy, plus challenge, plus oriental landscapes.

Music I'm I'm I'm The The

The and the The opening of Baudine's second symphony,

Nikolai Malco conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra.

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