Hello, I'm Christy Young, and this is a download from the Desert Island Discs archive.

This edition may be slightly different from what was actually broadcast, but it's the only version we have.

It comes from the British Library's radio collection. It was

archived without the music, so although the Castaways choices are introduced,

they're not part of this recording. Full details can be found on the Castaways page on the Desert Island Discs website.

The program was originally broadcast in 1981, and the presenter was Roy Plumlee.

Our castaway this week is one of our major and most fertile composers, Edmund Rubbera.

Now Dr Rubbera, we are celebrating your 80th birthday today. Happy birthday to you.

Thank you very much.

And this seems a good time to look back at your long career and it has been a long career,

isn't it?

Yes. Possibly a little career, isn't it? Yes.

Possibly a little unfeeling to have you spend your 80th birthday on a Desert Island,

but you will have 8 discs to make things a little better.

Do you play records a lot? I used to but not so much now.

Somehow I don't like to be influenced by other people's music now. I didn't mind at one time but nowadays I don't

listen to them so much. Well you have your little pile of records there. What's the first one you've chosen?

The first one I've chosen is by Monteverdi, a composer whom I didn't know of, and I think the majority of people didn't know of, until the late 1930s, when Orfeo was published,

his opera Orfeo was published in a piano and vocal form. This I liked very much and was very

excited about it and when the Magrigals appeared some few years later by a group of singers conducted by Nadia Valanger.

I was captivated by the sound of them and I've never forgotten the first impression I had of them and that's why I would

like one of the materials now.

...