Sir David Attenborough

Kirsty Young's castaway for the 70th anniversary edition of Desert Island Discs is Sir David Attenborough.

He has seen more of the world than anyone else who has ever lived - he's visited the north and south poles and witnessed most of the life in-between - from the birds in the canopies of tropical rainforests to giant earthworms in Australia.

But despite his extraordinary travels, there is one part of the globe that's eluded him. As a young man and a keen rock-climber, he yearned to conquer the highest peak in the world. "I won't make it now - I won't make it to base camp now - but as a teenager, I thought that the only thing a red-blooded Englishman really should do was to climb Everest."

DISC ONE: Francisco Yglesia - Pajaro Campana or The Bell Bird
DISC TWO: Imogen Cooper - Franz Schubert’s Impromptu No.1 in F minor
DISC THREE: Academy of St Martin in the Fields, conducted by Sir Neville Marriner - George Frideric Handel’s And the Glory of the Lord (from The Messiah)
DISC FOUR: Recording of the Lyre Bird (from The Life of Birds)
DISC FIVE: Murray Perahia - Johann Sebastian Bach’s Goldberg Variations
DISC SIX: Balinese Gamelan performance of Legong
DISC SEVEN: Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Sir John Eliot Gardiner - Carl Michael Ziehrer’s Wiener Bürger Waltz
DISC EIGHT: Montserrat Caballé, Janet Baker and Richard Van Allan with the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, conducted by Sir Colin Davis - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Soave sia il vento (from Così fan tutte)

CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Murray Perahia - Johann Sebastian Bach’s Goldberg Variations
BOOK CHOICE: Shifts and Expedients of Camp Life, Travel and Exploration by W B Lord
LUXURY CHOICE: a piano

Producer: Leanne Buckle

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in January 2012.