I’ve never quite become a ‘completist’ in any field, not one
of those fanatics who has developed the unruly compulsion to collect everything
by their favourite artist. I don’t leave a Thom Gunn item unbought if I can
help it, I’ll buy anything by The Magnetic Fields and catalogues of Maggi
Hambling’s work are snapped up from time to time but one can’t have everything
and I can’t see why one would want to. There lies yet another doorway into
madness.
Thus it is that it didn’t immediately occur to me to review
Sean O’Brien’s appearance on Radio 3’s Private Passions programme, the highbrow
Desert Island Discs. He’s been on the wireless before. But, why not. He is
among those artists who haven’t done much that there isn’t a copy of in this
house.
It is an interesting exercise to go through the anthology of
Desert Island Discs and see whose selections are closest to your own taste. It
isn’t always those that you might imagine. One of my biggest heroes, the
cricketer, Derek Randall, took The Sun Has Got His Hat On to his island with
seven other records that were not even as good as that. But music was obviously
not one of Derek’s main interests. He was a maverick middle order batsman. Oh,
yes, now I remember what it was we had in common.
So, of Sean’s choices on this programme, it shouldn’t come
as much of a surprise that I have only one of them. Steve Reich’s Different
Trains. The ones I don’t have were by Vaughan Williams, Prokofiev, Lowell
George, Debussy, Johnny Mercer, Schubert and Joseph Kosma. A bit louder,
slightly funkier and more addled than the music that I count as my favourite.
It’s probably true to say that most men’s choice of music is more macho than
mine. If you haven’t seen August Kleinzahler’s book on Music, it is worth a
look and then I’ll rest my case.
It was an interview that exemplifies why Radio 3 is by far
the most essential of the radio, and even television, channels, though. Sean’s
explanation of his fascination with Debussy as being the musical equivalent of
symbolist poetry was useful as well as his comments that followed. The insight
into the glorious Damascean moment in an English lesson at school where Mr.
Grayson introduced the poetry of Eliot that made Sean a poet was moving even if
the conversion was more gradual for some of us others. It might not matter if
you fall in love in a moment or over a long time but it is a blessing as well
as a cross to bear to have the feeling is that ‘poet’ is what you must be, for
better or worse. But Sean’s idea that he gave up being a drummer in a band to
get ‘a proper job’ only made me wonder which job that was.
Danny Baker’s eight records on Desert Island Discs were
nothing like what he would seriously want to be stuck with indefinitely but
were chosen on a theme. When I pick such a selection for fun, I am relentlessly
highbrow and only then allow myself a couple of pop masterpieces because that
is genuinely what I think I would want. Sean’s remit here wasn’t quite that,
though, and so it isn’t a question of whether this is the music he would want
to live with. But it wouldn’t be so bad if it was. These weren’t choices chosen
for effect. They are entirely credible. The Steve Reich piece is a great art
piece. It’s just that, for me, it’s like the Rembrandt that is a great painting
but you wouldn’t have it on your wall. Sean eschews the temptation of
advertising an interest in Coltrane (if he even has one) and remains on the
interesting left of centre, the challenging borders of the mainstream, without
ever saying anything that makes you think he’s trying too hard or is actually a
fruitcake. That is as much as one can ask.
