Ian Bostridge

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the tenor Ian Bostridge. He is regarded as one of the great Lieder singers of our time and has delighted audiences in opera houses and concert halls the world over. But for him, music wasn't a straightforward career choice. He started out as a historian, and for years led two parallel lives, spending term times at Oxford, writing about witchcraft and magic, while in the holidays he'd throw himself into an operatic production.

Eventually, his book on witchcraft was finished just before his debut with the English National Opera. Magic appeals to people in a way that is both mysterious and irrational and so it is, he says, not so different to music.

[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]

Choices

1.

Franz Schubert

Das Wandern (from Die Schöne Müllerin)

Soloist: Dietrich Fischer Dieskau

Others who chose this artist

2.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Countessa’s Aria (from The Marriage of Figaro)

Soloist: Gundula Janowitz

Others who chose this artist

3.

Castaway's favourite

Ludwig van Beethoven

Piano Sonata No. 31 in A flat major, Op. 110 - 3rd movement

Soloist: Artur Schnabel

Others who chose this artist

4.

Bob Dylan

Don't Think Twice, It's All Right

Others who chose this artist

5.

Benjamin Britten

Now, until the break of day (from A Midsummer Night's Dream)

Soloist: Alfred Deller, Peter Pears Conductor: Benjamin Britten

Others who chose this artist

6.

Robert Schumann

The Opening of Schumann’s Piano Quintet in E flat

Orchestra: The Beaux Arts Trio

Others who chose this artist

7.

Thomas Adès

The Quintet from the end of Thomas Ades’s opera The Tempest - 2007

Orchestra: Members of the Royal Opera House

Others who chose this artist

8.

Johann Sebastian Bach

Cantata No. 51: Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen

Soloist: Emma Kirby Choir: The English Baroque Soloists Conductor: John Eliot Gardiner

Others who chose this artist

Book

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

Others who chose this author

Luxury item

A solar computer loaded with pictures of my family and friends

Others who chose a similar luxury