George Martin appears on the BBC’s Desert Island Discs

George Martin’s first of two appearances on the long-running BBC radio series Desert Island Discs was broadcast on this day.

The Beatles’ producer was interviewed by the show’s creator, Roy Plomley, and chose the eight records, luxury item and book he would take if stranded as a castaway on a desert island.

His choices were:

• Judy Garland & Mickey Rooney: Good Mornin’
• Claude Debussy: Prélude à l’après midi d’un faune (London Symphony Orchestra; soloist Peter Lloyd; conductor Andre Previn)
• Flanders and Swann: A Song Of Patriotic Prejudice
• Domenico Cimarosa: Concerto in C Major For Oboe and Strings (Bamberg Symphony Orchestra; soloist Heinz Holliger; conductor Peter Maag)
• The Beatles: Here, There And Everywhere
• Peter Sellers: Any Old Iron
• The Beatles: In My Life
• Johann Sebastian Bach: St Matthew Passion – Kommt, ihr Töchter (Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra; conductor Herbert von Karajan)

Martin’s chosen book was a manual on practical engineering, and his luxury item was a clavichord. If he were allowed to keep just one record from the eight it would be Bach’s St Matthew Passion – Kommt, ihr Töchter.

He appeared again on the show on 19 November 1995.