October 2009

Ronald Harwood

Sunday, October 04, 2009

Ronald Harwood is one of the most accomplished and critically celebrated of all contemporary dramatists. Nominated for an Oscar for his screenplay The Dresser, he went on to win the Academy Award for The Pianist and scored a further nomination for The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. But some of his most interesting are three plays about conductors: Mahler, Furtwangler and Strauss.

In this wide ranging interview with host Gilbert Kaplan, Harwood reveals how he’s always fantasized about being a conductor (as a child he’d use his mother’s knitting needles to “conduct” the radio.) After he heard Mozart as a child, music has remained central to his life. His selections include works by Mozart, Mahler, Strauss, Beethoven and Verdi.