Jeffrey Tate

Desert Island Discs

BBC

Society & Culture, Music Commentary, Music, Personal Journals

4.4 • 13.7K Ratings

🗓️ 12 February 1989

⏱️ 37 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The castaway in this week's Desert Island Discs is Jeffrey Tate, principal conductor of the English Chamber Orchestra and the Royal Opera House, and chief guest conductor of the Geneva Opera. Until the age of 27, his chosen profession was medicine, but once a fully-qualified doctor, he switched his career to become one of the most sought-after conductors of his time - both in Britain and abroad. This is an achievement impressive enough in itself, but doubly so given that since childhood he has suffered from a condition which has resulted in curvature of the spine and a paralysed left leg, which means that, for the most part, he conducts sitting on a high stool.

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

Sue Lawley will be talking to Jeffrey Tate about his transition from medicine to a stunning musical career and the problems he has overcome to achieve such extraordinary success.

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Transcript

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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 1989, and the presenter was Sue Lolly. My castaway this week is a British conductor of international renown. He began his professional life as a doctor and it
0:35.5	wasn't until the age of 27 that he gave up medicine for music. After only a year's formal
0:40.9	training he began work at Covent Garden from where he has developed into one of the most
0:45.2	admired and wanted conductors of the day. These are impressive achievements made more so in
0:51.5	his case by the fact that he has been crippled
0:54.0	from childhood with a paralyzed left leg and severe curvature of the spine.
0:58.8	He is Jeffrey Tate.
1:00.8	Jeffrey only a year's formal training does that mean that you were you are an
1:05.6	intuitive musician? I suppose it does I mean I began playing the piano when I was
1:10.8	about five and had lessons for about five years and then stopped
1:15.2	because my parents wanted me to concentrate on more important things so they thought.
1:19.6	And I just went on playing the piano.
1:20.6	That was instinctive I suppose and I used to go to my local library
1:23.9	and get out books of operas and I sang a lot and in a way therefore taught myself to perform.
1:34.0	But was there any history of it in the family at all?
1:36.0	Or were you a one-off?
1:39.0	Not really a one-off.
1:40.0	My mother played rather well actually.
1:42.0	I mean, she stopped playing when we were
1:44.6	growing up but I remember her playing some Mendelssohn when I was very small my
	...

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