Hello, I'm Kirstie Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive.

The program was originally broadcast in 1981, and the presenter was Roy Plumley. This week, our castaway is the writer Frederick Raphael.

Is music important in your life?

No, I think the answer is that it really isn't.

I'm consoled by the fact that Nabokov always said that music was a completely closed book to him,

and few other books, of course, were.

However, I do rather regret that it isn't.

I mean, I like to listen to music, and I could wish that I actually understood better what I was listening to,

but I fear it's too late to learn that particular language.

So the answer is, alas, I enjoy it, but with a kind of entirely illiterate enjoyment.

Have you ever tried to play an instrument?

Well, I think I was in my prep school orchestra with, I think they gave me the triangle.

Ah.

I think I played the wrong side.

Very responsible.

And I think I was soon dismissed for over-enthusiasm.

Do you play records a lot?

Yes, I do.

I used to play almost anything, often indeed the radio, when I was working.

But I can't imagine how I managed to do that.

And I can only assume that I either didn't listen or that what I was doing wasn't worth writing because now I find writing is rather too difficult to have that going on. So I don't play when I'm working, but I do very much enjoy playing music at other times, particularly sort of rather rough things like Italian opera, which I haven't actually chosen, but I like listening to it in extensor. I'm told that's a very vulgar taste that I like it. So do I. And what's your first record? My first record is the Beethoven Violin Concerto, played by Milstein. I know Milstein rates very highly, but I've chosen him for a rather literary reason, that is that there's a character in a book of mine called Linman, whose name is Milstein, who doesn't play the violin, and certainly not as well as this gentleman, but there it is.

... I'm I'm I'm I'm

...