The seventh in a series of nine music features about great 20th-century musicians. The First 70 Years Are the Worst
A portrait of the English composer Elisabeth Lutyens
ELISABETH LUTYENS has written more than 100 works for the concert hall and has kept going with more than 200 scores for radio, theatre and the cinema.
In this film, made to celebrate her 70th birthday in 1976, she talks about her life and times as a composer with a characteristically barbed wit.
'I made a vow when I was about nine of poverty, chastity and endurance and I think that is the only time one would voluntarily make that vow, though I must confess it has been rather forced upon me in later life ...'
Her music is played by the LONDON SINFOMETTA conducted by Elgar Howarth with Robert Tear (tenor)
Producer BARRIE GAVIN
Written and directed by PETER WEST