Private Passions

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Private Passions is a weekly music discussion programme which has been running for over 10 years on BBC Radio 3, presented by the composer Michael Berkeley. The one-hour show is broadcast almost every Sunday in the UK, and is available on demand through the BBC website.

Every week Berkeley interviews a notable guest about their life and musical interests and plays a selection of their favourite pieces. The emphasis is on classical music but also embraces jazz, world music and popular song.

Is a production of classical arts

The show's guests range from celebrities to musicians, academics and physicians. The "life and works" aspect of the interview is generally secondary to the discussion about musical passions, and Berkeley often aims to explore a guest's unexpected musical interests, such as the classical music passions of John Peel.

In December 1997, one of Berkeley's guests was 112-year-old Viennese percussionist, "Manfred Sturmer", who told anecdotes about Brahms, Clara Schumann, Richard Strauss, Arnold Schoenberg and others so realistically that some listeners did not realise that the whole thing was a hoax perpetrated by Berkeley and John Sessions.[citation needed] As a tie-in to Comic Relief, other Sessions creations have appeared on Berkeley's show, such as Argentinian opera impresario and cocaine smuggler "Pilar Woffington" and dissolute and politically incorrect conductor "Sir Jimmy Disprin".[1]

Private Passions may be regarded as the Radio 3 equivalent of Desert Island Discs on BBC Radio 4. Writer Ian McEwan has described it as "musically and psychologically irresistible. Probably the best programme on radio in Britain."[2]

A book about the first ten years of the programme, written by Berkeley, was published in 2005.[3]

The 600th edition of the programme was marked on 23 March 2008 with guest Vanessa Redgrave.[4]

The programme's theme tune is Michael Berkeley's "The Wakeful Poet" (from Music from Chaucer) performed by the Beaux-Arts Brass Quintet.[5]

[edit] 2011 guest list

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[edit] 2010 guest list

‡ denotes repeated broadcast

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[edit] 2009 guest list

‡ denotes repeated broadcast

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[edit] 2008 guest list

‡ denotes repeated broadcast

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[edit] 2007 guest list

Includes repeated broadcasts

[edit] References

  1. ^ Alive, alive, O! | Spectator, The | Find Articles at BNET.com
  2. ^ Faber & Faber
  3. ^ Michael Berkeley - Private Passions (Faber and Faber, 2005) ISBN 978-0571-22884-3
  4. ^ BBC Private Passions: Vanessa Redgrave
  5. ^ BBQ: BBQ 003 T10

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Private_Passions&oldid=470908688"
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