BBC Radio 4 - Desert Island Discs, Sir David Attenborough

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Sir David Attenborough

Duration:: 45 minutes

First broadcast:: Sunday 29 January 2012

Kirsty Young's castaway for the 70th anniversary edition of Desert Island Discs is Sir David Attenborough.

He has seen more of the world than anyone else who has ever lived - he's visited the north and south poles and witnessed most of the life in-between - from the birds in the canopies of tropical rainforests to giant earthworms in Australia.

But despite his extraordinary travels, there is one part of the globe that's eluded him. As a young man and a keen rock-climber, he yearned to conquer the highest peak in the world. "I won't make it now - I won't make it to base camp now - but as a teenager, I thought that the only thing a red-blooded Englishman really should do was to climb Everest."

Producer: Leanne Buckle.

Francisco Yglesia Pajaro Campana or The Bell Bird
Composer: traditional harp music from Paraguay
This is Francisco Yglesia, Analogue Rock
Franz Schubert Impromptu No.1 in F minor
Artist: Imogen Cooper
Piano Sonata/Impromptus, Ottavo
George Frideric Handel And the Glory of the Lord
Artist: The Academy and Chorus of St Martin in the Fields conducted by Sir Neville Marriner
Handel: Messiah (excerpts), Decca
Lyre Bird Lyre Bird
Composer:
from the Life of Birds, BBC Sound Archive.
Johann Sebastian Bach 3rd of Bach’s Goldberg Variations
Artist: Murray Periaha
Goldberg Variations, Sony Classical
The Gamelan Orchestra Legong,
Composer: traditional Balinese
Music from Bali, Argo
Carl Michael Ziehrer Wiener Burger Waltz
Artist: The Vienna Philharmonic conducted by John Eliot Gardiner
Vienna Soiree, Deutsche Grammophon
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Soave sia il vento – Gentle be the breeze
Artist: Montserrat Caballe, Janet Baker and Richard Van Allen with the orchestra of the Royal Opera House conducted by Sir Colin Davis
Cosi Fan Tutte, Philips

BBC Radio 4Sun 29 Jan 2012 11:15 BBC Radio 4 FM only
BBC Radio 4Fri 3 Feb 2012 09:00 BBC Radio 4 FM only

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