Private Passions

[LMcD]

Yes that episode was a welcome repeat . A remarkable woman doing a very demanding and vital job .

The extra 30 minutes allow us (and MB) to find out more about the guests and the reasons for their musical choices, and we also hear more of those choices.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Today's very moving, but also inspiring, Private Passions served as a useful reminder of just how comparatively trivial my own problems and concerns are. The decision to give this programme an extra 30 minutes has paid off and definitely deserves a ,

Yes that episode was a welcome repeat . A remarkable woman doing a very demanding and vital job .

[LMcD]

Today's very moving, but also inspiring, Private Passions served as a useful reminder of just how comparatively trivial my own problems and concerns are. The decision to give this programme an extra 30 minutes has paid off and definitely deserves a ,

[Ein Heldenleben]

It was paragliding, which has an unframed sail like an oblong parachute(hence the name presumably), whereas hang gliding has a rigid one.

Yep it’s advisable to give up hang-gliding at 90 for safety reasons, whereas paragliding can be enjoyed well into the late nineties .
What an incredible woman !

[french frank]

I've just looked at the playlist. An enthusiastic communication to the controller might be the ideal introduction to a letter of otherwise disapproval. It's not all carping.

[oddoneout]

... giving up her childhood bed for Furtwangler - disappointed that Richard Strauss wasn't the Waltz King 'and looked just like a farmer' - and somehow typical that when she was doing her doctoral research into pre-Colombian archeology, who did she bump into in the British Museum basements but Henry Moore? And at 92, she's only just given up on hang-gliding (have I got that right?) - just amazing, lovely, life-enhancing...

It was paragliding, which has an unframed sail like an oblong parachute(hence the name presumably), whereas hang gliding has a rigid one.

[vinteuil]

... giving up her childhood bed for Furtwangler - disappointed that Richard Strauss wasn't the Waltz King 'and looked just like a farmer' - and somehow typical that when she was doing her doctoral research into pre-Colombian archeology, who did she bump into in the British Museum basements but Henry Moore? And at 92, she's only just given up on hang-gliding (have I got that right?) - just amazing, lovely, life-enhancing...

[Ein Heldenleben]

Wasn't it just? My head is still buzzing.
The link between John Lewis stores and Daniel Barenboim (worthy of a quiz I think) seems to sum up the amazing way things have happened in her life and, as a result, for other people.
The music choices came in sizable portions and all with substantial connections to Ursula Jones.
Well worth listening to.

I missed a chunk and listening again this evening . One of those programmes which make you wish there were more Ursula’s around in the music world !

[oddoneout]

What a lovely programme that was. What a wonderful life enhancing person. From the blurb :

Wasn't it just? My head is still buzzing.
The link between John Lewis stores and Daniel Barenboim (worthy of a quiz I think) seems to sum up the amazing way things have happened in her life and, as a result, for other people.
The music choices came in sizable portions and all with substantial connections to Ursula Jones.
Well worth listening to.

[LMcD]

[QUOTE=Ein Heldenleben;n1330533]What a lovely programme that was. What a wonderful life enhancing person.

I couldn't agree more! Private Passions is one of the few programmes on Radio 3 that I never miss.

[smittims]

Thanks for that notice. I had never heard of this lady but she sounds interesting, so I'll catch up with the programme. It's a long time since I listened to Private Passions. I think Edward Fox was the last, who turned out to have a profound understanding of music, one of his being Schwarzkopf and Furtwangler in Hugo Wolf . In the film The Shooting Party, he is seen playing part of Schubert's Klavierstuck D946 no.2, rather well, too. .

[Ein Heldenleben]

What a lovely programme that was. What a wonderful life enhancing person. From the blurb :

“Ursula Jones is “nothing short of a musical icon” – at least according to the Royal Philharmonic Society, who made her an honorary member last year at the age of 92. She has devoted her life to music, and has long championed the work of young performers – she gave Daniel Barenboim his first break as a conductor in London, when he was just 23.

Ursula was born in Lucerne in 1932, where her father was one of the founders of the Lucerne Festival, so famous musicians, including the likes of Richard Strauss, were never far away.

She came to London in 1954 and worked as a secretary for the Philharmonia Orchestra, moving on to co-found the English Chamber Orchestra in 1960. She married the eminent trumpet player Philip Jones, and later managed his Brass Ensemble.

Music isn’t her only fascination: she completed a doctorate in archaeology at the age of 60, and in 2021 she cycled 100km to raise money for the charity Brass for Africa.

Ursula's choices include music by Britten, Mozart and Handel”

[smittims]

For some reason ,opera seems to attract silly, ill-informed remarks by people who ought to know better (symphonies and sonatas seem mercifully free from this). I felt it a wasted opportunity when Radio Times invited two guests to give their opposing views on opera (for and against) . Actor David Threlfall's remarks made it clear he was referring to Lieder rather than opera , while Katie Derham talked about Handel's Saul, which is not an opera but a oratorio.

[Barbirollians]

I have always had similar issues with her on radio but I would recommend listening to Kirsty Young’s podcast Young Again with her in which in discussing her recent illness the mask drops somewhat .

[oddoneout]

I am another who likes this programme and particularly enjoyed Paul Collier.

An antidote to the fatuous Miranda Hart the other day, who smugly told us that she couldn't enjoy Bach because she associates him with posh drinks parties, then that she has no interest in opera because they are sung in a foreign language so that to her, they might as well be singing the praises of a delicious ham sandwich. The latter foolish remark quoted some days later, in admiration, by a presenter who will remain nameless.

Listening to Miranda, one remembered Mark Twain and "If I wuz as ignorant as you, Huck Finn, I'd keep mighty quiet"...

My issue with the Miranda Hart episode was that I have never been able to find her brand of humour funny,(not because it isn't necessarily but because to me it says other things that I find difficult to deal with, related to my life experiences) and to me it seemed as if her responses were all 'in character' rather than as one person talking to another. Perhaps that is the way she is, but constantly portraying oneself as inept, ignorant etc, regardless of the situation, I don't find easy to take.
In terms of the Bach/opera comments, two things she said suggest that her initial responses were the 'brand' response to something uncomfortable - deflect/make someone laugh. She mentioned that she doesn't think that there is emotion in Bach's works, and that she doesn't know where to start with opera - not uncommon views. MB has undertaken to rectify both those with a listening list for Bach and suggestions as to operas to go to - hence her remark about homework at the end. I wonder if she'll go through with it.
But yes, it wasn't one of the better PP episodes as far as I'm concerned - but others who are Hart fans may have enjoyed it.