Hello, I'm Kirstie 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 1992 and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

My cast away this week is a conductor. He's combined his knowledge of history with his love of

music to help pioneer a new approach to the work of the early great composers. While he was still

at Cambridge, he formed the Monteverdi choir and at the age of 25 he became the youngest person ever

to conduct a prom concert. He's famous for his performances and recordings using authentic

instruments through which he tries to bring a new excitement and vitality to musical works,

but he's not just an early music buff. His broad tastes have brought him important positions in

the world of music and many accolades for his recordings. He's the only conductor to have

equaled Herbert von Karian by winning three gramophone awards. He is John Elliott Gardner.

And on top of all that, John, you're a dorset farmer now which gets the greater share of your

time, the beef cattle or the music? Well, I like to think that I do music on the side that I'm

really a farmer, but unfortunately that's not true. In the sense that I always wanted to be a farmer

initially, but conducting soon became the most important thing in my life. And I've tried to combine

being a conductor with a love of the countryside and also for the last 10 years an active involvement

in farming again. And if you like your music authentic, what about your farming, is that organic?

It is. I actually unload the word authentic because I don't, I mean, it suggests something sterile

and sort of museum-like. And I know what people mean by it, but it's not really something

that means a lot to me personally. I mean, historically aware or something like that is

probably near the market. It is the problem isn't it that people, when you say you like authentic

instruments and original music, they people think it's going to be dry and dusty and academic and

...