Liana’s habit of taping the literary and musical activities of her family extended to making a number of recordings of their life at home. Sometimes haphazard and incomplete but usually illuminating, the collection includes music-making, poetry reading, informal conversations, accidental taping of answer-phone messages and often the sounds of a typewriter. Here is a compilation of poetry, jokes and music made as a present for a family friend, including a conversation between Anthony and Liana Burgess and the Italian film-maker Franco Zeffirelli and their young son Andrew practising the crumhorn. Note Liana’s sign-off at the end of the Browning poem.

Answer machine (Franco Zeffirelli conversation with Anthony Burgess)

Answer machine (Franco Zeffirelli conversation with Liana Burgess)

Anthony Burgess jokes and plays the piano

Liana Burgess reads a story in Italian

Anthony Burgess reads Robert Browning

Young Andrew Burgess practises the crumhorn

Quick links: On A Clockwork Orange | On his novels | On Shakespeare | On the airwaves | At the podium | On his early life in Manchester | Anthony, Liana and Andrew Burgess at home | Musical writing | And popular music | Stage musicals | At the piano | Back to the Anthony Burgess On Tape home page

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