PRIVATE PASSIONS

'''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.
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. 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 Disperin".^[1]
''Private Passions'' may be regarded as the Radio 3 equivalent of ''Desert Island Discs'' on BBC Radio 4.
A book about the first ten years of the programme, written by Berkeley, was published in 2005.^[2]
The programme's theme tune is Michael Berkeley's "The Wakeful Poet" (from ''Music from Chaucer'') performed by the Beaux-Arts Brass Quintet.^[3]

Contents

2007 guest list

References

External links

2007 guest list

★ Dr Miriam Stoppard, physician

★ Charlie Higson, actor and author

★ Colin Wilson, author

★ Henry Goodman, actor

★ James May, TV presenter

★ Stephen Venables, mountaineer

★ Diana Quick, actress

★ Alex Jennings, actor

★ William Dalrymple, historian

★ Audra McDonald, soprano

★ Annalena McAfee, writer and journalist

★ Clemency Burton-Hill, violinist and actress

★ Victoria Hislop, novelist

★ David Rintoul, actor

★ Martin Rowson, political cartoonist

★ Vernon Bogdanor, professor of government at Oxford University

★ Kenneth Cranham, actor

★ Mark Ravenhill, playwright

★ James Lovelock, scientist

★ Liz Calder, publisher

★ David Yallop, writer

★ Gyles Brandreth, humourist

★ David Harsent, poet

★ Lenny Henry, comedian

★ Linda Colley, historian

★ Scott Stroman, jazz trombonist

★ Joanna David, actress

★ Colm Toibin, writer

★ Felicity Kendal, actress

★ Joan Bakewell,TV presenter

★ Simon Heffer, journalist

★ Alexander Armstrong, actor and comedian

★ Michele Hanson, journalist
(Includes repeated broadcasts.)

References

1. http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3724/is_199903/ai_n8840015
2. Michael Berkeley - ''Private Passions'' (Faber and Faber, 2005) ISBN 978-0571-22884-3
3. BBQ: BBQ 003 T10

External links

★ "Private Passions" website

★ BBC Radio player