Hello I'm Krestey 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 1989,

and the presenter was Sue Lolly. My castaway this week is one of the great concert pianists of our age. Born in Nottinghamshire,

when he was 25 he shared the Moscow Chikovsky Prize with Vladimir Ashkenasi and seemed destined

for a brilliant career.

Ten years later, however,

brilliance turned to despair as he was overtaken by mental illness.

The virtuoso whose spectacular playing had thrilled audiences all over the world became a violent and

sometimes suicidal figure incapable of performing.

Gradually he has rebuilt that career. Today he does perform and he records and there are those who say his genius is as great as ever it was.

He is John Ogden.

Do you feel John at the age now of 52 that you play as well as ever you did?

Well, I hope so. I certainly enjoy playing and I hope that in some ways I'm playing a bit better.

And do you still practice for hours and hours every day?

Well about four hours I try to do and I feel I ought to and I do try and practice about that match certainly.

I take it then that your luxury on our Desert Island to begin where we normally end would

have to be a piano because you

couldn't live without one?

Well yes yes I think a piano would be a cynicuan own and I think that's a very

brilliant idea for luxury indeed.

Would you look forward to the peace that our island would provide in which to practice or would you

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