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Desert Island Discs

Zubin Mehta

Desert Island Discs

BBC

Music, Personal Journals, Society & Culture, Music Commentary

4.314.3K Ratings

🗓️ 30 June 1984

⏱️ 36 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Zubin Mehta is the Musical Director of the New York and the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestras.

In conversation with Roy Plomley, he talks about his upbringing in India, where his father ran the Bombay Symphony Orchestra, his studies at the Vienna Academy which eventually led to him becoming conductor of the Montreal and Los Angeles 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]

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. Our castaway this week is the celebrated conductor Zubin Mato.

0:34.4

Mr. Mator, have you ever daydreamed about being alone on a desert island?

0:39.8

Yes, sometimes when I'm in the middle of a fugue on stage, either in an operatic situation or in a

0:48.2

symphonic one, sometimes I wish I weren't there. Did you find it very difficult to choose just eight pieces of music

0:56.4

to last possibly the rest of your life? Yes I think so. I had to do a lot of soul searching

1:01.6

also. Is your choice based mainly on the fact that the music is great or the memories are so personal?

1:07.6

No, I'm rather sentimental person.

1:09.6

Therefore, I like to be surrounded by my friends especially in the case of loneliness.

1:15.1

That's what my primary concern was when I chose the records I think.

1:20.3

What's the first one you have there? Well now the first one is a work that I have never conducted to this date and if I were going to be on a lonely island, that's the one thing I would study, and that's to be minor mass of Bach.

1:35.0

Which part of it? I'd like to play the Sanzas.

1:38.0

And which is your favorite recording?

1:40.0

Well, the one by Mr. Richter, is very good, I think. Song, Oh, Oh, uh, a, a, a, a, a,

2:23.0

a,

2:24.0

a, uh,

2:25.0

a, ... ... ... ...

2:26.0

...

2:28.0

... ... ... ... ... ...

2:31.0

... ... The The Sanctus from the Bach B minor Mass, Richter conducting the Munich-Bark Choir and the Munich-Bark Orchestra.

2:57.0

Mr. Meator, where were you born?

...

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