Private Passions

[Pianorak]

IIRC he auctioned his cello for charity years ago!

[Bryn]

IIRC he auctioned his cello for charity years ago!

He can still play the instrument and, like his hero Terry Milligan, the trumpet, though he does not, of course, blow his own. Heaven forfend!

[Pianorak]

He can still play the instrument and, like his hero Terry Milligan, the trumpet, though he does not, of course, blow his own. Heaven forfend!

[gradus]

He can still play the instrument and, like his hero Terry Milligan, the trumpet, though he does not, of course, blow his own. Heaven forfend!

Would that be Spike?

[Bryn]

Would that be Spike?

Terence Alan Milligan KBE, indeed.

[David Samuels]

In late December 1997, MB interviewed a 112 year-old Viennese percussionist named Manfred Sturmer (AKA John Sessions) who had many scurrilous stories about Brahms, Clara Schumann, Wagner, Richard Strauss, et al. The whole programme was played straight, to the extent that many people (including some of my acquaintance) thought it was real. It was the funniest Private Passions ever broadcast.

Sadly, I can find no trace of it anywhere. Does anyone have any knowledge of this particular episode and why it might have disappeared?

[french frank]

In late December 1997, MB interviewed a 112 year-old Viennese percussionist named Manfred Sturmer (AKA John Sessions) who had many scurrilous stories about Brahms, Clara Schumann, Wagner, Richard Strauss, et al. The whole programme was played straight, to the extent that many people (including some of my acquaintance) thought it was real. It was the funniest Private Passions ever broadcast.

Sadly, I can find no trace of it anywhere. Does anyone have any knowledge of this particular episode and why it might have disappeared?

It's certainly listed by the genome, 12 noon. What else did you want to know?

[Richard Tarleton]

I remember it, and I seem to remember there was at least one more spoof with John Sessions, albeit not as funny.

[gradus]

I remember it, and I seem to remember there was at least one more spoof with John Sessions, albeit not as funny.

From memory it was a spoof Sir Thomas Beecham but I've forgotten the name used.

Those Sessions programmes were very funny, time for a new one?

[kernelbogey]

I don't listen regularly to this but I usually find the exposure to someone's personal tastes quite interestingly confrontative. I liked hardly any of Peter Tatchell's choices today but I learned a great deal more about someone who has been in the news for decades, and his choice of music. This is in itself uplifting - the human connection to the choices - even when one doesn't like the music.

The series has occasionally had its deeply moving moments.

[LMcD]

I don't listen regularly to this but I usually find the exposure to someone's personal tastes quite interestingly confrontative. I liked hardly any of Peter Tatchell's choices today but I learned a great deal more about someone who has been in the news for decades, and his choice of music. This is in itself uplifting - the human connection to the choices - even when one doesn't like the music.

The series has occasionally had its deeply moving moments.

Recorded this while watching the amazing goings on in Yokohama. Michael Berkeley always manages to get the best out of his guests, I think.

[Pulcinella]

Recorded this while watching the amazing goings on in Yokohama. Michael Berkeley always manages to get the best out of his guests, I think.

Haven't listened for a while; I gave up as I found him rather too 'knowing' (verging on patronising when dispensing his own wisdom) and rather too frequently reminding us that Britten was one of his godfathers.
But generally more interesting guests and music than on Desert Island Discs, I think, where the castaway seems too often to have to show that they are just ordinary like the rest of us, and so need The Lark Ascending and the Fanfare for the common man with them in their isolation.

[kernelbogey]

A remarkable programme in which the guest is David Nott, a Welsh surgeon who has worked in many war zones over numerous years. Extraordinarily humblling.

[oddoneout]

A remarkable programme in which the guest is David Nott, a Welsh surgeon who has worked in many war zones over numerous years. Extraordinarily humblling.

I heard this first time around and it was no less moving repeated. A bonus for me was hearing the original piano and violin version of Lark Ascending.

[kernelbogey]

I heard this first time around and it was no less moving repeated. A bonus for me was hearing the original piano and violin version of Lark Ascending.

I had a strong feeling that I had heard this programme before: not stated to be a repeat in the Sounds website, nor in the back-announcement at the end of the progamme.