Private Passions

Yesterday's PP was excellent - the guest Melanie Reid, the award-winning journalist who writes unflinchingly and with great wit, humanity and compassion (and a fair amount of black humour) in her "Spinal Column" in The Times about her life as a tetraplegic - which began on Good Friday in 2010 when she had a riding accident. Michael Berkeley at his considerable best - he said how her column sometimes reads like a love letter to her husband Dave who, along with their son, provide her with support and purpose. I've admired her writing for a while, it was good to hear her in person. Highly recommended.

[kernelbogey]

An interesting PP today with Nicky Clayton who has extensively researched the behaviour of birds, increasing our understanding of their capacity for memory, planning and social interaction. Quite a bit on birdsong, too (and a bit of Messiaen).

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b051cc9b

I'm not sure if this was a repeat - it's well worth a listen.

I don't recall any guest of Michael's choosing a Bruckner symphony - I've always assumed that a bleeding chunk wouldn't work, but in fact the first eight minutes or so of the first Movement of Bruckner 9 challenged my prejudice.

[antongould]

Yes PP is hitting a bit of a purple batch.....I also enjoyed David Lan last week ...anyone who chooses Paul Simon and Keith Jarrett (playing Bach) has to be edgy.....

[Stanley Stewart]

Another fascinating Private Passions today, (26 Oct) to follow the substantial programme on 12 Oct with guest, Roy Foster, and his musings on WB Yeats, and his wide musical choice. Today, guest Kika Markham, discussed the distressing lapses of memory following serious illness which her husband, Corin Redgrave, struggled to overcome in the last years of his life as he learnt to cope with the processes of the brain which deal separately with music and speech on quite different sides. This subject is more widely tackled in her memoir, "Our Time of Day" - a copy now on order. Her choice, of course, included Frank Loesser's 'My Time of Day' - always a particular favourite with me - from "Guys & Dolls" - beautifully performed by Ian Charleson and Julie Covington in the 1982 NT cast recording and sounding much improved on what may be a remastered disc. Sheer serendipity in my case as, last night, I did a transfer to DVD from an off-air video, (9April, 1994) of a 25 mins Open University programme: Composer & Audience in which Stephen Sondheim and Michael Tippett, interviewed separately, discussed the process of the right choice of word and its placement, or removal, within the harmony or rhythm of a composition. In a separate South Bank Show, 50mins, Sondheim did a Master Class on his work with students at the Guildhall School of Music, performing numbers from 'Company', 'A Little Night Music' and 'Sweeney Todd' which, for me, added nuance and insight to his discussion with Michael Tippett from the performers point of view. I'm still trying to 'put it together' in my mind. Mr Sondheim has a fierce concentration!

Ha ha It was Ella Fitzgerald. I know a lot of people whose opinion I respect find something to admire in her, but I dislike the sound.

Me too.

I heard the first part of the prog, and the end, have to catch up on the bit in the middle.

Her predecessor was on PP in 2010, a perk of the job . Fiona Reynolds' (a viola player) taste impeccable (Bach, Elgar, Gerald Finzi, Janáček, Mozart, Shostakovich, Smetana).

[Mary Chambers]

Oh dear, a Cliff Richard track Mary?

I had you down as a Roger Whittaker fan m'self

Ha ha It was Ella Fitzgerald. I know a lot of people whose opinion I respect find something to admire in her, but I dislike the sound.

Oh dear, I spoke too soon. Our tastes are diverging now.....

Oh dear, a Cliff Richard track Mary?

I had you down as a Roger Whittaker fan m'self

[Mary Chambers]

She has excellent taste so far - much the same as mine

I couldn't guess the singer of the Mozart Et incarnatus est from the Mass in C Minor. Turned out to be Sylvia McNair. Wonderful.

Could live without the Johann Strauss, however.

Oh dear, I spoke too soon. Our tastes are diverging now.....

[Nick Armstrong]

I like the look of tomorrow's PP from RVW's gaff

National Trust Director General Helen Ghosh takes Michael Berkeley on a tour of Leith Hill Place, now a National Trust property but once the childhood home of Ralph Vaughan Williams.

She chooses his Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, as well as music by Britten, Mozart and Schubert. And her choice of Ravel reveals the alternative career she almost had - as a ballet dancer.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04f8l0t

There is a book - a printed 'archive' that goes up to about 2005

Annoyingly, the index covers guests, composers in order of frequency, copyrighted works....but you can't, as I recall, look up which works were requested by whom, and therefore how often......So you can't for example look up to see how often Nacht und Traume has been played (several times) and who requested it.

[eighthobstruction]

Thanks for that Tony and Mercia....I do have it on tape somewhere, but doubt it will play well....

[mercia]

Karen Armstrong

her DIDs are available though

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0093vvb

[Tony Halstead]

Such a shame there is no Private Passions archive....rhetorical ? really....

....if there was I should like to be listening to Karen Armstrong <ex-nun> (circa 2006)....one of best ever....

There is a book - a printed 'archive' that goes up to about 2005:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Private-Passions-Michael-Berkeley/dp/0571228844/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1397816352&sr=1-2&keywords=private+passions

[eighthobstruction]

Such a shame there is no Private Passions archive....rhetorical ? really....

....if there was I should like to be listening to Karen Armstrong <ex-nun> (circa 2006)....one of best ever....

so it was Filippa Giordano singing Casta diva
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNwnZVTv8SU

Yes mercia. 30 seconds on YouTube confirmed the identity of the culprit. It was also as much as I could stand. What a shocker!

I sometimes was discomfited by the Three Tenors who in, presumably, seeking to promote the operatic genre, in my view achieved little more than vulgarising it but at least Messrs Domingo, Carreras and Pavarotti were able to sing; a fundamental requirement yet to be achieved by Ms Giordano. It was at my wife's insistence that I have pursued this worthless matter - I'm glad I can now move on to aspects of life possessed of consequence. Car's due for MOT . . . .