Vernon Handley
Desert Island Discs
BBC
4.3 • 14.3K Ratings
🗓️ 10 November 1984
⏱️ 34 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Vernon Handley, Associate Conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra, has made his name through his devotion to British music. In conversation with Roy Plomley, he describes the long struggle he had to obtain regular work with professional orchestras and he chooses the eight records he would take to the mythical island.
[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]
Favourite track: The Garden of Fand by Arnold Bax Book: The Principles of Art by R G Collingwood Luxury: Sodastream and gas cylinders
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hello I'm Kirstie Young and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. |
| 0:05.0 | For Wright's reasons, we've had to shorten the music. |
| 0:08.0 | The program was originally broadcast in 1984 and the presenter was Roy Plumlee. This week our castaway is the conductor Vernon Handley. How well do you think you could endure loneliness? |
| 0:35.6 | I could for a short time. I'm a handyman, so I think I would enjoy it and it'd give me a chance to think, |
| 0:41.2 | but I'd want to get back. |
| 0:42.8 | You've made many discs yourself. |
| 0:44.6 | Do you play them? |
| 0:45.3 | Do you play other people's records? |
| 0:46.9 | Do you play your record player? |
| 0:48.5 | I don't play records as much as I ought, or as much as I'd like. |
| 0:51.7 | I'm afraid a conductor's career demands that he be conducting or preparing. |
| 0:56.0 | Did you find it difficult to choose just eight? |
| 0:59.0 | Terribly difficult if you'd said eighty it would have been difficult but eight was almost impossible but I had a few guidelines |
| 1:04.8 | you know I wanted to I wanted to choose works that had meant something to me when I was |
| 1:10.9 | first studying music and then works and ideas on record that |
| 1:16.6 | would keep me thinking while I was on that Desert Island. What's the first one? |
| 1:20.5 | Well the first one goes right back to my eighth or ninth year when I |
| 1:25.0 | started to teach myself to sing and it suddenly occurred to me one day that I |
| 1:30.1 | was hearing a line that I wasn't singing and the thrill of this quite intoxicated me |
| 1:36.2 | and I got hold of hymn books and funnily enough chamber music usually one comes to |
| 1:40.8 | chamber music rather later on in life but for me it was the first thing because |
| 1:44.5 | it was only a few lines that I'd got to look at and hear together, which is what I wanted to do. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.