Private Passions

Crime-writer Peter Robinson tops the best-seller lists year after year, across the world; in fact his detective, DI Banks, is probably even better known than he is. DI Banks is a straight-talking Yorkshire-man with dodgy dress sense and a frustrated love life, and he's been solving murders in Yorkshire for some twenty years now. There are now twenty-three Banks novels, and several series on television with Stephen Tompkinson in the title role. So DI Banks is hugely popular, and central to his character is that he constantly listens to music - in the car, at home, in pubs. There's a memorable line where Robinson says of his detective - "He did his best thinking when he was listening to music and drinking wine." This, Robinson reveals, is autobiographical.In Private Passions, Peter Robinson talks to Michael Berkeley about how music inspires his best thinking and writing, and why he's on a mission to get all his readers listening to the music he loves. He even creates online playlists of the music his detective listens to - including some of the music he chooses in Private Passions. Choices include Poulenc's Sextet for Piano and Wind, Beethoven's String Quartet in C sharp minor, Takemitsu, Miles Davis, and one of Schubert's last piano sonatas. Perhaps it's no surprise that he's drawn to last works - as a crime writer, his books begin with murder. Robinson confesses though that he regrets the increasing violence of the genre, and thinks the TV adaptations of his work go too far. And he reveals why Yorkshire is always the best place to hide a body.Produced by Elizabeth Burke A Loftus production for BBC Radio 3.

Sarah Lucas burst onto the art scene in the early 1990s, one of the wildest and most provocative of the Young British Artists. Her work was challenging, bawdy, revolutionary: her first solo show in 1992 was called "Penis Nailed to a Board". She challenged macho culture with sculptures such as "Two Fried Eggs and a Kebab" in which she constructed a naked female body - from a table, two eggs, and a kebab. Lucas makes sculptures from worn-out furniture, stuffed tights, fruit (particularly bananas), and cigarettes - she's a passionate smoker. In 2015 she represented Britain at the Venice Biennale, and the centrepiece with a massive yellow sculpture named after the footballer Maradona - part man, part maypole, with dangling breasts and a nine-foot phallus.In Private Passions, Sarah Lucas looks back on the wild days of the 90s, and her upbringing in North London "a childhood completely without ambition". She talks about leaving school at 16, becoming pregnant, but then deciding not to keep the baby; and how that decision enabled her to know clearly what she wanted to do with her life. She reflects on how the central relationships in her life lead to artistic collaboration - with her partner, the composer Julian Simmons, and with her girlfriends, whose lower bodies she cast in plaster. And Sarah Lucas reveals that the wild London party girl is now happiest in Suffolk, living at the end of a country lane, and listening to Benjamin Britten. How seriously are we supposed to take her work? "Just because you're funny doesn't mean you can't be serious too." Sarah Lucas's music choices include Purcell's King Arthur; songs by Benjamin Britten and Ivor Gurney; and music by her partner Julian Simmons.Produced by Elizabeth Burke A Loftus production for BBC Radio 3.

Stephanie Flanders is familiar to most of us from the years she spent as the BBC's Economics Editor, untangling graphs and statistics and treasury policies with great clarity and cheerful common sense. She left the BBC in 2013 and is now chief market strategist for Britain and Europe at JP Morgan Asset Management. But she's also the daughter of the late Michael Flanders, of Flanders and Swann, the writer of so many memorable comic songs - like "Mud, Mud, Glorious Mud".Michael Flanders died when Stephanie was only six, but she remembers the pleasure of pushing him around in the wheelchair he used after catching polio as a student. And because she didn't know him for long, she has spent time researching his life, combing through boxes in the garage, and re-discovering her father through his music. Music choices include some of her father's favourite songs, including a little-known song about gluttony which is a protest against the cruelty of foie gras. She includes too Glenn Gould's recording of a Haydn Piano Sonata which kept her going through long nights in Washington when she was writing speeches for Bill Clinton. The speeches were about impending financial crisis and, as an economist, Stephanie has weathered many financial crises, able to unpick the deepest workings of both the Treasury and the City and explain them to a mass audience. She is not afraid to shake up the status quo: an unmarried mother, she challenged David Cameron on tax breaks for married women, and her blog speaks out about "the over-mathematization of economics at the expense of common sense". The programme ends with a preview of a new recording of Donald Swann's "Bilbo's Last Song", setting words by Tolkien.Produced by Elizabeth Burke A Loftus production for BBC Radio 3.

Philippe Sands is a human rights lawyer who recently won the biggest non-fiction prize in the UK, the £30,000 Baillie Gifford Prize, for his book "East West Street: On the Origins of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity". It's the story of two leading lawyers fighting for justice after the Second World War in the Nuremberg trials - and a third man, Hitler's lawyer, who was personally responsible for the murder of millions. It's a detective story too, in which Sands tries to discover the identity of the mysterious "Miss Tilney" who rescued his mother Ruth as a baby, and managed to smuggle her out of Vienna to safety in London in 1939. In Private Passions, Philippe Sands talks to Michael Berkeley about the strange gaps in his family history, the secrets which impelled him to begin a seven year quest. He reveals the music that kept him going, songs he listened to daily, and how Bach's St Matthew Passion, which he's always loved, became intensely troubling for him to listen to when he discovered that Hitler's lawyer also adored it. Music choices include Mahler's 9th Symphony; Keith Jarrett; Bach's St Matthew Passion; Rachmaninoff; kora music from Senegal; and the Leonard Cohen song with Sands' favourite line: "There is a crack in everything - that's how the light gets in.".

Dr John Sentamu, Archbishop of York, is a special guest for Christmas Day.In Private Passions, he talks to Michael Berkeley about being the middle child of thirteen children, in Uganda. His father had a small gramophone and they all learned to sing Handel's Messiah with great gusto. John Sentamu practised as a lawyer and was a judge in the country's High Court by the age of 25, but when Idi Amin came to power the rule of law collapsed. Sentamu was imprisoned and tortured; "it was not so much a prison as a killing field". He heard his friends being shot. He talks movingly about how his Christian faith never wavered during his imprisonment and miraculous escape. He came to Britain in 1974 and trained as a priest, spending most of his career in some of the most deprived areas of London. Dr Sentamu became Bishop for Stepney and then Bishop for Birmingham; he was appointed Archbishop of York in 2005. Poverty and social inequality has always been at the heart of his Christian mission; he strongly believes he has a political role and a duty to speak out in a divided society. He talks too about his involvement in the campaign against knife crime in Birmingham, and being taken blindfolded to visit gang leaders. Dr Sentamu was Adviser to the Stephen Lawrence Judicial Inquiry and he chaired the Damilola Taylor Murder Review. Archbishop Sentamu reveals the music which has sustained him through an extraordinary and challenging life: Elgar's Cello Concerto, for instance: the Archbishop played the Jacqueline du Pre recording on the hour every hour from 6am to 6pm at York Minster for a week as part of a Vigil of prayers for peace. He introduces music from his local church in Uganda; and the choir of York Minster singing the Archbishop's favourite carol: "Hark the Herald Angels Sing". The programme ends with Ralph Vaughan Williams' Fantasia on Christmas Carols, as John Sentamu reflects on the great pleasures of Christmas - including his love of cooking. If all else fails, his children say, he could always open a restaurant. And his signature dish would be - brussels sproutsProduced by Elizabeth Burke A Loftus production for BBC Radio 3.

Royal Ballet Principal Edward Watson talks to Michael Berkeley about his life in dance and shares the music that has inspired him both professionally and personally.Known for his dramatic flair and astonishing dedication and stamina, he has become one of the Royal Ballet's best-known dancers, and has consistently championed new repertoire, working closely with many contemporary choreographers. Ed talks about his passion for creating new roles and his extraordinary creative partnership with Wayne McGregor, illustrated by music from Max Richter's Infra. His other music choices reflect the diversity of his career in dance - pieces by Schoenberg and Liszt from Macmillan ballets, and songs from Martha Wainwright, Bev Lee Harding and Concha Buika. And no ballet dancer's Christmas is complete without revisiting The Nutcracker. Producer: Jane Greenwood A Loftus Production for BBC Radio 3.

Chris Hadfield has described going into space as 'strapping yourself on top of what is essentially a large bomb'. He is one of the world's most respected astronauts, and his career has included Space Shuttle flights and helping to build the Mir Space Station, as well as serving as Director of NASA's operations in Russia and as Commander of the International Space Station during his final five-month mission. If that wasn't enough he's also a bestselling author and an accomplished musician - indeed he plays in an all-astronaut band. His cover of David Bowie's Space Oddity - which he recorded while orbiting the earth on the Space Station at over 17,000 miles an hour - has had more than 33 million Internet hits. Chris talks to Michael Berkeley about his route to the stars, about overcoming fear and extreme danger - and the difficulties of playing a guitar in zero gravity. He chooses music by Strauss, Rossini and Hans Zimmer, which he associates with particular space missions. He talks about his admiration for William Herschel, the eighteenth-century astronomer and composer. And an astronaut's Private Passions would not be complete without music from Holst's Planets Suite. Producer: Jane Greenwood A Loftus production for BBC Radio 3.

Charlie Phillips is a Jamaican-born photographer whose work has been exhibited across the world, and is part of the permanent collections of The Tate and the V&A. He's best known for his photographs of the area of London where he arrived to live as a boy: Notting Hill. His images are full of the atmosphere of Notting Hill in the late 50s and 60s: slum housing, market traders, churchgoers, children playing on the streets - and they're now valued as a unique record of the experience of that Windrush Generation. Later in the sixties, Charlie Phillips photographed the student protests in Paris, pop festivals and rock stars, while making a living as a paparazzo, chasing Elizabeth Taylor around. Simon Schama has described him as a "Visual Poet - chronicler, champion, witness of a gone world - one of Britain's great photo-journalists." But Charlie Phillips didn't set out to be a photographer; instead, he wanted to be an opera singer, and during his time as a paparazzo in Milan he achieved his ambition, singing from the stage of La Scala in Verdi's Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves.In Private Passions Charlie Phillips talks about his passion for opera, and about the racism he encountered when he first arrived in Britain. And although Charlie Phillips has now left West London, he goes back to Notting Hill almost every day - he can't afford to live there any more, but it's where he feels most at home. Musical Choices include Verdi, Puccini, Dave Brubeck, and a rarely-performed opera by the African-American composer Scott Joplin, about the importance of education in the black community. Phillips also loves hymns and chooses "How Great Thou Art", a rousing evangelical hymn he has planned for his own funeral. Produced by Elizabeth Burke A Loftus Production for BBC Radio 3.

Geoff Dyer is a writer who joyously defies categorisation. The winner of many literary prizes, and frequently described as one of the most original writers of his generation, he surprises at every turn with his blending of fiction and non-fiction, and with his subjects, which range through travel, film, sex, photography, war, romance - and music.The book that cemented his reputation, in 1991, was about jazz - with the memorable title But Beautiful. It's a series of fictional vignettes of musicians from the great age of American jazz, including Bud Powell, Chet Baker and Thelonious Monk. Geoff talks to Michael Berkeley about how his life-long passion for jazz has taken him on a musical journey from Miles Davis, to Keith Jarrett playing Bach, and Indian classical music - and he explains why Beethoven's Late Quartets appeal so strongly to a lover of jazz. Producer: Jane Greenwood A Loftus production for BBC Radio 3.

Thérèse Oulton burst on to the scene in 1984, fresh out of art school, with a highly-praised solo exhibition, which was followed three years later by a nomination for the Turner Prize.From the very beginning she has challenged the orthodoxies of both abstract and figurative painting. And her recent highly detailed landscapes find beauty even in a damaged, fragile earth, evoking both familiarity and strangeness.Her work is highly prized by collectors and is in major public collections around the world, including the Tate and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.Thérèse talks to Michael Berkeley about her passion for Wagner, the physicality of music and painting, and the pleasure of listening to live music. Her music choices include Britten, Shostakovich, Wagner, Brecht and Mary Lou Williams - inspired by the time she spent waitressing at Ronnie Scott's as an art student.Producer: Jane Greenwood A Loftus production for BBC Radio 3.

Helen Oyeyemi wrote her first novel The Icarus Girl, about a mixed race child and her imaginary friend, in secret, while she was still at school studying for her A levels. Four more novels have followed and, most recently, What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours, a collection of short stories. She appeared on Granta's Best of Young British Novelists list in 2013. Helen's twisted fairy tales possess a heightened reality, blurring the everyday and the fantastic, making her readers question what is real and what is unreal. In her world it's not just narrators that can be unreliable - even geography and time are unstable. She talks to Michael Berkeley about the pleasures of storytelling, the power of fairy tales and her passion for her adopted city of Prague, reflected in music by the Czech composer Martinu. And she chooses music that sparks her imagination from Rimsky-Korsakov, Offenbach, Elgar, and a South Korean rock band.Produced by Jane Greenwood A Loftus production for BBC Radio 3.

Paterson Joseph bunked off school when he was thirteen and spent the next two years going to the local library instead, reading his way from Agatha Christie through to Alexander Pushkin. It was a good training for someone who's become one of our most versatile and successful actors. Paterson Joseph is well known from numerous Shakespeare productions at the RSC and the Royal Exchange Manchester, and from Casualty and Dr Who. He achieved notoriety as the grotesque boss Alan Johnson in Peep Show. Paterson Joseph has recently been touring America with a show that he's written himself, about one of his heroes - the black 18th-century London grocer and composer Ignatius Sancho. He talks to Michael Berkeley about why Sancho has been unjustly neglected, and what he thinks about "colour-blind" casting. Music choices include Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin, Louis Armstrong, Bach, Charlie Mingus, Billie Holliday - and Ignatius Sancho. Produced by Elizabeth Burke A Loftus production for BBC Radio 3.

Lara Feigel made her name writing about the relationship between life, love, literature and history in London during the Second World War with her wonderfully titled and highly praised book The Love Charm of Bombs.Her latest, The Bitter Taste of Victory, returns to the 1940s and looks at British and American attempts to impose culture from abroad in the hope of 'civilising' post-war Germany. She talks to Michael Berkeley about what it was in her family history that drew her to writing about the Second World War, the perils of romanticizing it, and the emotional toll of engaging with such a distressing period of history. As well as Bach and Beethoven, Lara chooses music which reflects preoccupations and personalities in post-war Germany - Furtwängler's recording of Tristan und Isolde, a song from Marlene Dietrich, and music by Richard Strauss. Producer: Jane Greenwood A Loftus Production for BBC Radio 3.

Grayson Perry burst into the public consciousness in 2003 when he accepted the Turner Prize with the words: 'It's about time a transvestite potter from Essex won the Turner.' Since then he's become celebrated for his beautiful, intricately decorated vases, which juxtapose images of innocence, obscenity and humour. He's worked across many other media as well - from tapestry to bronze, print-making to architecture, and the outrageously flamboyant frocks he wears when he goes out dressed as a woman are works of art in their own right.He chooses Tchaikovsky, Philip Glass, Marcello and Kathleen Ferrier and explores with Michael Berkeley the emotional power of music and memory; escaping an unhappy childhood; the fun of demystifying the art world; and the joys and perils of moving from rebel to national treasure. Producer: Jane Greenwood A Loftus production for BBC Radio 3.

As BBC Radio 3 celebrates 70 years of pioneering music and culture, Michael Berkeley travels to Sussex to meet Dame Joan Plowright for a special edition of Private Passions. Dame Joan's extraordinary six-decade career has taken her from the Royal Court Theatre to international movie stardom, via the West End, Broadway and the National Theatre. Along the way she has won a panoply of awards, including an Oscar nomination for The Enchanted April. In a moving and wide-ranging interview, Dame Joan shares memories of a life well-lived: from her childhood in Scunthorpe, to her work with figures such as Franco Zeffirelli, and the man who was to change the course of her life: Sir Laurence Olivier, whom she married in 1961. Looking back to the Third Programme, Private Passions has unearthed a clip of one of Dame Joan's signature performances, Margery Pinchwife from Wycherley's The Country Wife, broadcast in 1960. (Laurence Olivier himself was a leading member of the 'Third Programme Defence Society'.) Dame Joan reveals her love of music, with her since childhood, and now especially important since she lost her sight a few years ago. Many of her choices are associated with special friendships in her life. Where better to start than with 'Nimrod' from Elgar's Enigma Variations, a series of musical sketches depicting some of the composer's closest friends? Other music includes Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, and William Walton's Cello Concerto. We also hear Olivier's electric (and highly musical) delivery of the St Crispin's Day speech, before Dame Joan herself recites, from memory, a Shakespeare sonnet: 'Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments...'.A Loftus production for BBC Radio 3 Produced by Jane Greenwood and Oliver Soden.

A former Turner Prize-nominee, George Shaw is renowned for his highly detailed approach and suburban subject matter, and for his idiosyncratic medium - Humbrol enamel paint, typically used to colour model trains and aeroplanes.Armed with a sketchbook, the teenage Shaw made regular day trips from his home in a caravan on a Coventry council estate to the National Gallery in order to draw from works by artists he found inspiring. He's now back at the National Gallery with a major exhibition, My Back to Nature, the culmination of a two-year residency. He has developed into one of Britain's most inspiring contemporary painters, a close observer of nature, with the sharp eye of a Freud or Hockney.He talks to Michael about the music that inspires his life and work and chooses works by Schubert, Elgar, Purcell and Brian Eno.Producer: Jane Greenwood A Loftus production for BBC Radio 3.

On this, the 15th anniversary of 9/11, Michael Berkeley's guest is Daniel Libeskind, a world-renowned architect, known for concert halls, opera sets, museums, hotels and universities. In 2003 Libeskind won an international competition to produce an overarching vision for buildings which would stand on the site of the Twin Towers. That vision is now almost complete, and includes a memorial to those who were killed in the attacks. He's called his plan "a site of memory, a healing of New York". Daniel Libeskind had already made his reputation with buildings that symbolised and preserved tragic histories, such as the Jewish Museum in Berlin, and the German Military Museum in Dresden. In Private Passions, he talks to Michael Berkeley about the day he first visited the site and climbed down into the crater left in the earth. He says that experience changed his life - he began to hear the voices of the dead. He talks about how he decided this should be a "sacred site", and that the footprint of the twin towers should never be built on. He reveals his concept of a light memorial to the dead, created by using shafts of light filtered through the spaces between skyscrapers. The sun strikes the ground at exactly the same times as the planes hit the towers. Daniel Libeskind is extraordinarily musical; in fact, a gifted accordionist, he was something of a musical prodigy. He decided to follow architecture instead, but is still inspired by music. His music choices include Renée Fleming singing "Amazing Grace", Perotin; the contemporary Finnish composer Saariaho, and Mark Padmore singing Bach's Cantata for the 16th Sunday after Trinity - so the right cantata for 11 September 2016. Produced by Elizabeth Burke A Loftus production for BBC Radio 3.

Steve Silberman is an award-winning investigative reporter based in San Francisco; he writes for The New Yorker, Nature, Wired and Time Magazine. He has spent ten years researching the untold history of autism for his book "Neurotribes: The Legacy of Autism and How to Think Smarter About People Who Think Differently". Published last year, it won the biggest British prize for a non-fiction book, the Samuel Johnson prize, as well as many American awards. The book sets out to answer a deceptively simple question: why is so little understood about autism, 70 years after it was first discovered? Since writing it, Silberman has become an ally to thousands of people with autism who haven't had a voice, and for what's become known as "neurodiversity".In Private Passions, Steve Silberman talks to Michael Berkeley about his time listening to people with autism, trying to understand the world from their point of view. He discusses the connection between autism and eccentricity, and between autism and musical ability. He reveals too his own sense of being an outsider, growing up gay, and reminisces about years spent working as an assistant to the poet Allen Ginsberg. Steve Silberman's music choices are fascinating and unconventional, ranging from the 13th century to Steve Reich. He includes music by the contemporary American composer Lou Harrison, who was wonderfully eccentric - he built an American version of a gamelan out of hubcaps! Other music choices include Bill Evans with "Peace Piece" and "Timeless" by Oregon. Produced by Elizabeth Burke A Loftus production for BBC Radio 3.

Michael Berkeley welcomes the Poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, as his Private Passions. The first woman, the first Scot, and the first openly gay person to hold the post, she was appointed in 2009, having won many awards for her poetry collections since taking first prize in the National Poetry Competition in 1983. Most recently, 'Rapture' (2005) won the TS Eliot Prize, and her latest collection, 'The Bees', won the 2011 Costa Book Award for Poetry.Born into a Roman Catholic family in the Gorbals, a poor area of Glasgow, Carol Ann developed a passionate love of literature at school, and for a decade from the age of 16 she lived with the Liverpool poet Adrian Henri. She had two plays performed at the Liverpool Playhouse and received an honours degree in phoilosophy from the University of Liverpool. In 1996 she was appointed a lecturer in poetry at Manchester Metropolitan University and later became creative director of its Writing School. She was appointed Poet Laureate in 2009. Her work as laureate includes poems on the MPs' expenses scandal, the deaths of the last British servicemen who fought in World War I, David Beckham's tendon injury, and the wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton. Her poems, which explore everyday experience and a rich fantasy life, are on the school curriculum in the UK.A keen music-lover, Carol Ann Duffy learnt the piano as a child. Her choices include Chopin's E major Etude Op.10 No.3, which her mother loved to hear her playing; extracts from Mozart's 'Marriage of Figaro' and and Christy Moore singing a song with words by W B Yeats. This edition, first broadcast in June 2012, is part of Radio 3's celebration of British music - Private Passions' guests this month are four poets from across the UK.

Michael Berkeley welcomes the actor, playwright and director Steven Berkoff, renowned for the visceral quality of his plays such as East, West, Decadence, Greek, Sink the Belgrano, Scumbags, Ritual in Blood and Messiah. He has also adapted and directed for the stage Kafka's Metamorphosis and The Trial, the Greek tragedy Agamemnon, and Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher. His plays, adaptations and his one-man show have toured widely abroad, from the Far East to the USA.As an actor, Steven has appeared in films ranging from A Clockwork Orange, Barry Lyndon, Octopussy and Beverly Hills Cop to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. On TV he has been seen in The Professionals, Star Trek and Jonathan Creek, among others. He has published a variety of books on the theatre, and an autobiography, Free Association.His eclectic musical choices range from music for the stage - Milhaud's ballet La création du monde, Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet, Britten's opera A Midsummer Night's Dream and incidental music to Brecht's Mother Courage - to music that reflects his love of travel - Buddhist chant and an unusual Monkey Dance from Bali. There's also Ivo Pogorelich playing the second movement of Beethoven's Piano Sonata No.32 in C minor, Op.111, and Chet Baker with the Rogers and Hart classic My Funny Valentine.First broadcast in April 2012.

Michael Berkeley's guest on Private Passions this week is the best-selling children's author Judith Kerr. Now 89, Judith was born into a distinguished pre-war German Jewish intellectual family: her father, Alfred Kerr, was a well known journalist and critic, and her mother, Julia, a composer. The family fled from Berlin in 1933 after Hitler's rise to power, and lived in Switzerland and Paris before reaching London in 1936. In the 1950s Judith met and married Nigel Kneale, author of the famous BBC TV science fiction series Quatermass. Their son Matthew Kneale has followed in his parents' footsteps, becoming an acclaimed novelist, while their daughter Tacy is an artist.Judith is both a writer and an illustrator, best known for her children's books, including the much-loved Mog series (about a cat), 'The Tiger Who Came to Tea' and the novel for young adults 'When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit', which is based on her own experiences as a child refugee, and won the 1974 Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis.Judith's musical choices include a fragment of an opera about Einstein written by her parents; an excerpt from the final scene of Mozart's opera Don Giovanni; the Jewish Memorial Prayer El Malei Rachamim performed at the 2001 International Holocaust Memorial Day in London; Beethoven's Seventh Symphony, which was a favourite of her father, and was played at his funeral; part of 'Mars' from Holst's The Planets, which served as the theme music for Quatermass; The Dance of the Knights from Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet, which was a favourite of her husband's, and finally her own personal favourite, the Kyrie from Mozart's Mass in C minor, K427.

Michael Berkeley's guest this week is the filmmaker, writer and playwright Mike Leigh, who began his career in the theatre and with TV dramas such as 'Abigail's Party' and 'Nuts in May', and went to to produce a string of original, award-winning films including 'Life is Sweet', 'Career Girls', the Gilbert and Sullivan biopic 'Topsy Turvy', 'Naked', 'Secrets and Lies', 'Happy Go Lucky', 'Vera Drake', and most recently, 'Another Year'. Many of his films involve an element of improvisation, and Mike Leigh has launched the careers of an impressive array of distinguished British actors, including Alison Steadman. Brenda Blethyn, David Thewlis, Sally Hawkins, Liz Smith and Jane Horrocks. His play 'Ecstasy' is currently enjoying a West End revival.Mike Leigh's choices begin with two extracts by Gilbert and Sullivan. He starts with a comic duet from 'Ruddigore' (I once was a very abandoned person)l, and goes on to 'The World is but a broken toy' from 'Princess Ida', which he loves for its sentimental charm. Mike Leigh sees Mozart's 'Cosi fan tutte' as essentially a comic opera, and has selected the gorgeous trio 'Soave sia il vento' from Act I. Then comes another facet of comic opera - the Doll's Song from Act II of Offenbach's 'The Tales of Hoffmann', which he used as the background to the brothel scene in 'Topsy Turvy'. There's also the original 1928 recording of the Ballad of Mack the Knife from Weill/Brecht's 'Threepenny Opera', an extract from a film score by Shostakovich, Jeanne Moreau singing 'Le Tourbillon de la vie' from Truffaut's famous film 'Jules et Jim'; 'Blue in Green' from Miles Davis' 'Kind of Blue', and finally the Rondo from Beethoven's Violin Concerto (Mike Leigh used Beethoven to great effect in 'Abigail's Party').

Michael Berkeley's guests is Jasper Conran, one of Britain's best-known fashion designers. In 1978, Conran began producing women's clothing, and has since concentrated on such diverse fields as home furnishings, crystal and china, as well as designing costumes and sets for ballets, plays and opera.His musical choices encompass singers such as Kathleen Ferrier, Ella Fitzgerald, Bessie Smith and Cat Stevens, as well as works by Mozart, Schubert, Chopin, and his favourite composer, Handel.M Berkeley: The Wakeful Poet (Music from Chaucer) (pub OUP) Beaux-Arts Brass Quintet BBQ BBQ 003, Tr 10 Duration: 25sTrad: Blow the Wind Southerly Kathleen Ferrier (contralto) Kathleen Ferrier DECCA 417 192-2, Tr 3 Duration: 2m20sSchubert: Impromptu No 4 in A flat, D899 Melvyn Tan (fortepiano) Schubert EMI CDC 7 49102-2, Tr 4 Duration: 6m48s Elizabeth Welch: Stormy Weather (Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler) LP Elizabeth Welch WORLD RECORDS SH 233 S1 B6 Duration: 3m23sHandel: Where'er you Walk (Semele - Act 2, Sc 3) Anthony Rolfe-Johson (tenor) English Baroque Soloists John Eliot Gardiner (conductor) Handel Semele ERATO 4509-99759-2 CD1, Tr 2 Duration: 4m58sBessie Smith: You Gotta Give Me Some (Spencer Williams) Clarence Williams (piano) Eddie Lang (guitar) Bessie Smith BBC BBCCD602 8 Duration: 2m45sMozart: Laudate Dominum (Vesperae solennes de Confessore, K339) Carolyn Samson (soprano) Choir of the King's Consort The King's Consort Robert King (conductor) Mozart HYPERION CDA 67560, Tr 5 Duration: 4m16sElla Fitzgerald: Undecided (Charles Shavers and Sid Robin) Chick Webb and his orchestra CDR The Very Best of Ella Fitzgerald STARDUST B001GIILLA, Tr 1 Duration: 3m17sChopin: Waltz in G flat, Op 70 No 1 Dinu Lipatti (piano) Chopin EMI 566904-2, Tr 6 Duration: 1m53sHandel: Comfort Ye My People (Messiah) Mark Padmore (tenor) The Sixteen Harry Christophers (conductor) Handel Messiah CORO COR 1606-2 CD1, Tr 2 Duration: 3m11sCat Stevens: Morning has broken (words Eleanor Farjeon; music arr Cat Stevens) Teaser and the Firecat ISLAND IMCD269, Tr 7 Duration: 3m16s.

Michael Berkeley's guest on Private Passions is the novelist and short story writer Michele Roberts. The child of a French mother and English father, she was brought up and still divides her time between the two countries. She studied English at Oxford University, worked for the British Council, and then became a writer. She is currently Emeritus Professor of Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia.She is the author of twelve highly acclaimed novels, including 'Daughters of the House' (1992), which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and won the W H Smith Literary Award; 'Flesh and Blood' (1994), 'The Looking Glass' (2000), 'Reader, I Married Him' (2005), and her latest novel, 'Ignorance' (2012), a war-time novel set in France. She has also published a memoir, 'Paper Houses', dealing with the themes that inform her novels - love, feminist ideals and the legacy of her Catholic upbringing; and a collection of short stories of sex and love, entitled 'Mud' (2010).Music has always played an important part in Michele Roberts's life, and her choices begin with Bach's Magnificat and continue with an aria from Handel's cantata 'Donna, che in ciel di tanta luce splendi', in praise of the Virgin Mary. Michele says she wanted to be a nun as a teenager, and became fascinated by female mystics and saints, including Hildegard of Bingen. She loves Kathleen Ferrier's voice, singing Handel's 'O Thou that tellest good tidings to Zion', which she finds very comforting. She also appreciates the voices of Alfred Deller, Jacques Brel and Bob Dylan, as well as an Italian women partisans' song, Bella Ciao, which appeals to her republican sympathies, and the Portuguese fado singer Mariza. Her choices end as they began, with Bach.

Michael Berkeley's guest is the historian, biographer and critic Lucy Hughes-Hallett, whose books include a cultural history of the ancient Egyptian queen Cleopatra and a story of heroism told through eight famous lives from Achilles and Odysseus to Francis Drake and Garibaldi. Her latest book, The Pike, deals with the controversial life of the Italian poet and occasional politician Gabriele d'Annunzio, who evolved from romantic idealist to radical right-wing revolutionary, culminating in his dramatic attempt to seize political power in the Croatian city of Fiume (now Rijeka). Through his ideological journey, Lucy Hughes-Hallett examines the political turbulence of early 20th-century Europe and the rise of fascism.Lucy's musical enthusiasms range from Byzantine chant through operas by Monteverdi, Handel and Verdi to The Rolling Stones, and an extract from Debussy's Le martyre de Saint Sébastien.

George Steiner discusses his personal music choices with Michael Berkeley in 2002 - drawn from the archive to mark 20 years of Private Passions.

Marina Lewycka, a post-war baby born to Ukrainian parents in a German refugee camp, has lived in England since she was one. Her parents settled in a village near Pontefract, and she has lived in south Yorkshire for much of her life. She read English and Philosophy at Keele University, enrolled for a PhD at Kings College, London, and then spent many years as an unpublished writer, before finally achieving huge success, at the age of 58, with the novel 'A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian'. Her two subsequent novels, 'Two Caravans' and 'We Are All Made of Glue', also deal with aspects of immigrant life, treated with wry humour and great poignancy.Her musical passions, as revealed to Michael Berkeley, begin with two classics of the Baroque repertoire, Bach's First Brandenburg Concerto, and the aria 'I know that my Redeemer liveth', from Handel's Messiah. The Sibelius Violin Concerto was as great favourite of her father, who died recently; while Marina herself has attempted to play her next choice, Mozart's Piano Sonata in F, K332. She loves music that tells a story, and has chosen the March to the Scaffold from Berlioz's 'Symphonie fantastique', for its narrative energy. She says that all writers aspire to the ability to draw joy out of sadness, which Mozart does to consummate effect in the Countess's aria 'Dove sono' from 'The Marriage of Figaro'. Marina's own origins are referenced in the traditional Ukrainian folksong 'The Black Raven', while her deep love of nature is reflected.

Michael Berkeley meets Turner Prize-nominated conceptual artist and film-maker Sam Taylor-Wood, whose latest work, Nowhere Boy, documents the early life of John Lennon. Much of her work has been inspired by music, from opera to Bach, and her choices range from the opening of Gluck's opera Orfeo ed Euridice, the Kyrie from Mozart's Requiem and the opening of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony to an Indian raga and Nina Simone singing Wild Is the Wind as well as film scores by Ry Cooder and Michael Nyman.Sig: M Berkeley: The Wakeful Poet (Music from Chaucer) Beaux Arts Brass Quintet (Berkeley/OUP) Duration: 0m26sMozart: Introitus (Requiem in D Minor, KV626) Marie McLaughlin (soprano) Bavarian Radio Chorus and Symphony Orchestra Leonard Bernstein (conductor) DG 431 041-2 Tr 1 Duration: 6m39sRavi Shankar: Prabhati Ravi Shankar (sitar) Yehudi Menuhin (violin) Alla Rakha (tabla) (Shankar, based on Raga Gunkali) Menuhin meets Shankar EMI CDC7490702 Tr 1 Duration: 4m06sGluck: Ah ! Se intorno a quest'urna funesta (Orfeo ed Euridice) Orfeo ...... Bernarda Fink (mezzo-soprano) Rias-Kammerchor Freiburger Barockorchester Rene Jacobs (conductor) HARMONIA MUNDI HMC90174243, CD 1 Tr 2 Duration: 3m18sJohn Lennon: Love Lennon/Lenono Music/BMG Muic Publishing Ltd The John Lennon Collection PARLAPHONE CDP7915162 Tr 7 Duration: 3m19sBeethoven: Symphony No 9 in D minor Op 125 (1st mvt - excerpt) Staatskapelle Berlin Daniel Barenboim (conductor) ERATO 4509 94353-2 Tr 1 Duration: 5m25sRy Cooder: Paris, Texas (Paris, Texas - film sountrack) Ry Cooder, Jim Dickinson, David Lindley (Cooder/Tonopah and Tidewater Music Co BMI) Original Film Soundtrack WARNER 9252702 Tr 1 Duration: 2m56sNina Simone: Wild Is the Wind Nina Simone (piano/voice) Rudy Stevenson (guitar) Lisle Atkinson (bass) Bobby Hamilton (drums) (D Tiomkin, N Washington arr Nina Simone, Famous Music Corp) Work Song (The 60's vol 3) MERCURY 8385452 Tr 8 Duration: 6m58sMichael Nyman: The Heart Asks Pleasure First (The Piano - film soundtrack) Michael Nyman (piano) Nyman/Chester Music Ltd The Piano VENTURE CDVE919 Tr 4 Duration: 1m33s.

Michael Berkeley's guest today is the sitar player and composer Anoushka Shankar, one of the stars of world music today. She studied exclusively with her father, the great Indian sitar player Ravi Shankar, made her debut at age 13 in New Delhi, and released her first solo recording in 1998. In 2001 her third album, Live at Carnegie Hall, was nominated for a Grammy award. In 2002 she appeared at the Royal Albert Hall in a tribute concert to the late George Harrison, conducting a new piece by her father which featured Eric Clapton on solo guitar. Until 2005 she was primarily a solo performer of Indian classical music, but in that year she branched out with her fourth album, Rise, a fusion of East and West employing both acoustic and electric instrumentation, on which she appeared as composer, arranger and producer. It won her another Grammy nomination. She toured extensively in the wake of the new album, forming the Anoushka Shankar Project to present her new non-classical ensemble works to a live audience, and in 2007 released another album, Breathing Under Water, in collaboration with the Indian-American producer Karsh Kale It features guest appearances by her father and her half-sister, Norah Jones. She now applies her expertise as a fine Indian classical musician to working with top-quality musicians from a range of traditions to create innovative music that appeals to a wide audience. She has just released her next album, Traveller.Her eclectic choices for Private Passions include piano pieces by Debussy and Erik Satie; the Andantino from Faure's Piano Trio, Op.120; a piece by Ali Farka Toure and Toumani Diabate, a collaboration which she particularly admires; a raga played by her father; a flamenco piece, and Nick Cave's song 'Into My Arms'.

Broadcaster, John Peel discusses his personal music choices with Michael Berkeley in 1996 - drawn from the archive to mark 20 years of Private Passions.

Philosopher, Isaiah Berlin discusses his personal music choices with Michael Berkeley in 1996 - drawn from the archive to mark 20 years of Private Passions.

Michael Berkeley's guest is Anna Pavord, the distinguished writer about gardens and landscape. Her best-known book is The Tulip, a biography of the bulb that created a mania in the 17th century, but she's written extensively about plants, and places, and spent years as gardening columnist of the Independent. Her latest book "Landskipping: painters, ploughmen and places", is an exploration of how, through the ages, we have responded to the land. The programme is recorded on location in the landscape of west Dorset where Anna Pavord has lived, and gardened, for much of her life. She talks about what this landscape means to her, and why it is that we respond to certain kinds of natural beauty. She discusses her scholarly research into landscape mania in the 18th century, and tells moving personal stories too, such as the time she refused morphine after an operation for cancer, discovering that a mask of sweet peas was more effective - and much more pleasurable. Walking round her garden, Anna Pavord reflects on the therapeutic value - and marvelous madness - of a life spent gardening.Music choices include the Welsh Hymn Cwm Rhondda; the poet R.S.Thomas reading his own work; Bach's Wedding Cantata; two pieces by Schubert; Elgar's Cello Concerto - and a 1929 recording by Cleo Gibson: "I've got Ford engine movements in my hips".

Stephen Hugh-Jones is a fellow of King's College Cambridge and has spent 45 years researching - and living among - the Amazonian Indians who live on the Equator, in South-Eastern Colombia. They are still one of the most remote peoples on earth, and when Dr Hugh-Jones and his wife Christine first went to live there, in the late 1960s, this was a people, and a culture, completely untouched by modern life. This was partly because people were afraid of them; they had a reputation for being dangerous and cannibalistic.In fact, Dr Hugh-Jones discovered that really they were a pacific people, with a very sophisticated set of religious beliefs. And music is a key part of their religious ceremonies. For Private Passions, Stephen Hugh-Jones brings along musical instruments that he has brought back from Colombia, and recordings he has made of music there. He chooses, too, music which he took with him to listen to when he was living so far from home, particularly Bach - who caused a surprising reaction in the Amazon. Other choices include Purcell, Alfred Brendel playing Schubert, Beethoven's String Quartet No 15 in A minor, and Cuban music played by an African band. Produced by Elizabeth Burke A Loftus production for BBC Radio 3.

Janine di Giovanni has spent more than two decades reporting from some of the most dangerous places on earth: Sarajevo, Sierra Leone, Rwanda, Iraq, and Syria. She's the Middle East Editor of Newsweek, and writes for the New York Times, as well as for glossy magazines - winning numerous prizes, including two Amnesty International Media Awards. She's also written seven books - including most recently "Dispatches from Syria: The Morning They Came for Us", a moving account of the horror, and boredom, of war: War means endless waiting, endless boredom. There is no electricity, so no television. You can't read. You can't see friends. You grow depressed but there is no treatment for it and it makes no sense to complain-everyone is as badly off as you. It's hard to fall in love, or rather, hard to stay in love.When she's not travelling, Janine di Giovanni lives in Paris, with her 12-year-old son. For Private Passions, Michael Berkeley met her earlier this summer on her brief visit to the Hay-on-Wye festival. In a moving interview, di Giovanni reveals how she deals with danger, and her deep belief in her Guardian Angel. The youngest of a large Italian-American family, Janine di Giovanni's sister died as a child; she talks about being brought up in the shadow of that death, feeling that she and her brother were lost, like Hansel and Gretel in the fairytale. She reflects too on love, and particularly her love for her son, and how they both cope with her journeys to the front line.Janine di Giovannni's music choices include Humperdinck's opera "Hansel and Gretel"; Glenn Gould playing Bach's "Goldberg Variations"; Schubert's Trio Op 100 (which she says captures the horror and pity of war); Mozart's Clarinet Concerto; and Jimi Hendrix's "Little Wing". Produced by Elizabeth Burke A Loftus production for BBC Radio 3.

Timberlake Wertenbaker is one of our leading playwrights, adapters and translators. Her parents were American, but she was brought up in Basque country in France and has spent much of her life in Greece. Not surprising, then, that her major theme is exile, displacement, flight. She's best known for her play about convicts in 18th century Australia, "Our Country's Good", which was first staged in the late 1980s and which was revived recently at the National Theatre. It has become a set text in schools, and in fact Wertenbaker's own daughter had to study it (refusing all help from her playwright mother).Timberlake Wertenbaker is well known to Radio 4 listeners as the adapter of the recent "War and Peace"; and her new work is a dramatization of "My Brilliant Friend" by the cult Italian writer Elena Ferrante, which will be broadcast as the Classic Serial on 31 July.In Private Passions, Timberlake Wertenbaker talks about her childhood in Basque country, and how that sense of being part of a political minority has influenced her life. She chooses music by Ravel which was inspired by a Basque dance, and a protest song by the Basque musician Mikel Leboa. She talks about the moving experience of seeing her work performed in prisons and chooses the prisoners' chorus from "Fidelio". And she reflects on how little has changed in the theatre since she began writing in terms of how few women playwrights ever get their work on stage. With Schubert, Beethoven, Nina Simone, Ravel, Leboa, and a moving work by the Greek composer Mikis Theodorakis. Produced by Elizabeth Burke A Loftus Production for BBC Radio 3.

Alexandre Desplat is one of the world's leading composers of film music, with more than 120 scores to his name. His big breakthrough came in 2007 with Girl With A Pearl Earring, and since then he's been nominated for innumerable awards, including eight Oscars. 2015 was a particularly interesting year as Alexandre was Oscar-nominated for two films, with The Grand Budapest Hotel beating The Imitation Game on the night. Alexandre talks to Michael Berkeley about the pressures of writing up to ten film scores a year, the complex relationship between director and composer, and his craving for silence.His choices of music reflect his diverse musical influences - Boulez, Haydn, Miles Davis, Janacek, and his mother's Greek heritage which is often reflected in his film scores. Producer: Jane Greenwood A Loftus production for BBC Radio 3.

Julia Donaldson began her working life busking and writing songs, and when one of her songs became a children’s book, her phenomenally successful career as an author was born. She’s been the biggest selling author in Britain for the last six years. This will come as no surprise to anyone who has anything to do with young children, who adore her vibrant and funny rhyming picture books - which include A Squash and a Squeeze, The Snail and the Whale, and the tale of that much-loved monster, The Gruffalo.Julia talks to Michael Berkeley about the origins of The Gruffalo – which has sold an astonishing 10 million copies – and the secret of writing for children. She remembers her student days busking with her husband-to-be in Paris and how much they enjoy singing and performing her stories together today. Julia’s music choices reflect her intensely musical background - her father’s cello playing, her mother’s love of lieder, and her own piano playing in pieces by Schubert, Haydn and Handel. Her love of storytelling is reflected in songs by Georges Brassens and Flanders and Swann.Producer: Jane Greenwood A Loftus production for BBC Radio 3

For three decades Glenda Jackson was one of our most acclaimed actors, winning BAFTAs, Golden Globes and Emmys, and two Oscars - for Women in Love and for A Touch of Class. And alongside her film career were ground-breaking stage performances for directors such as Peter Brook and Peter Hall, and a television career which included an astonishing portrayal of Elizabeth I - a performance few of us will forget. But in 1992 she gave it all up to become the Labour MP for Hampstead and Highgate, eventually becoming a Junior Transport Minister. She stepped down as an MP last year, two days before her 79th birthday, and now, after a 24-year gap, she's back on stage this autumn playing King Lear at the Old Vic.Glenda talks to Michael Berkeley about researching Elizabeth I, arguing with Ken Russell about Shostakovich, and how she turned down tickets to the Proms, prefering to listen on the radio at home. Her love of 20th-century music shines through with pieces by Stravinsky, Vaughan Williams, John Adams, Steve Reich and Stevie Wonder. Producer: Jane GreenwoodA Loftus production for BBC Radio 3.

Andrew Solomon is Professor of Clinical Psychology at Columbia Medical Centre in New York, and a writer with a wide-ranging interest in families. He spent ten years talking to parents who faced extraordinary challenges, because their children had turned out so very different from them: either through disabilities, or because they were musical prodigies - or because they had committed serious crimes. The resulting book, "Far From the Tree - Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity" has won many awards, and millions of people have watched Solomon's TED talks. Solomon first made an impact with another prize-winning book, about depression, "The Noonday Demon", a moving account of his own illness.In Private Passions, Andrew Solomon talks to Michael Berkeley about how both books are grounded in his own experience; he had a hard time growing up, and being accepted by his parents - and his peers - as gay. He reveals that at one point he was so depressed that he couldn't get out of bed, and thought he'd had a stroke. It was his father's love and care which saved him. He talks too about how he met his husband, and became a father himself - albeit as part of a marvellously complex and unconventional family.Music choices include Mozart's "The Marriage of Figaro"; Strauss's "Der Rosenkavalier"; Bryn Terfel singing Vaughan Williams's "Songs of Travel"; Rachmaninov's 3rd Piano Concerto, and love songs by Reynaldo Hahn, Strauss and Britten.

The scholar and critic John Sutherland talks to Michael Berkeley about his passions for film, music, and Victorian literature. An unsuccessful career at school and a backbreaking job laying railway tracks were an unlikely start in life for the future Lord Northcliffe Professor Emeritus of Modern English Literature at University College London.John Sutherland is hugely respected for his academic work on Victorian literature, but his infectious passion for books has led him to write for a popular audience too - he is a regular contributor to the Guardian and other papers, and his many books include Can Jane Eyre Be Happy?, How to Read a Novel, and most recently an entertaining quiz book: How Good is Your Grammar?He talks to Michael about his difficult childhood, the later devastating effects of alcoholism, and the books and music that he's loved throughout his life - including Vaughan Williams, Britten and Mahler.Producer: Jane Greenwood A Loftus Production for BBC Radio 3.

Tanita Tikaram became an overnight success when she was only a teenager; her debut album "Ancient Heart" sold four million copies in the late 80s and gave her hit singles like 'Twist in My Sobriety'. Since then she's gone on to release eight more albums, with some rather interesting silences in between - when she almost gave up on music altogether. In 2016 she toured Europe with her ninth album, 'Closer to the People'. In Private Passions, Tanita Tikaram talks to Michael Berkeley about the effect of that massive early success, and about going to live in Italy to escape the rock music world. It was a wilderness moment, when she wasn't even sure she should be a musician. At this point, in her 30s, she began to discover classical music, through the work of legendary performers like pianists Rosalyn Tureck and Clara Haskil. She talks about how Bach opened up a new musical world to her, and how listening to classical music - and taking classical singing lessons - helps her find her "groove" when she is composing her own songs. With Bach, Vivaldi, Ravel, Mozart's Piano Concerto No.23, Canteloube's Songs of the Auvergne, and Duke Ellington. Produced by Elizabeth BurkeA Loftus Media production for BBC Radio 3.

Jane Goodall was only twenty-four when in she went to live among the chimpanzees of Gombe National Park in Tanzania, and she went on to spend more than 55 years there. She has done more than anyone else to transform our understanding of chimpanzees - and beyond that, her work has raised questions about how we treat these highly intelligent primates, and indeed about the rights of all animals. Now in her early eighties, she's on an extraordinary mission travelling round the world to protect chimpanzees from extinction.During a rare stay in Britain, Jane Goodall talks to Michael Berkeley about her life and ground-breaking discoveries. She reveals that the chimpanzees she lived with also had a darker side, and were sometimes violent, stamping on her. She remembers difficult times after the kidnapping of some of her workers, and the death of her second husband - and how music sustained her, and transformed her view of the world.Music choices include Beethoven, Bach, Schubert, Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto and Richard Burton reading the Dylan Thomas classic 'Under Milk Wood'. She also introduces some very excited chimpanzee speech, and speculates about what kind of music chimpanzees enjoy.

Rose Tremain is one of our finest writers, and her bestselling books - both novels and short stories - are garlanded with prizes. She defies categorisation and is equally at home with historical and contemporary fiction: she has created characters as diverse as Merivel, the physician turned fool at the court of Charles II; a 19th-century gold miner in New Zealand; and a transsexual growing up in rural Suffolk. Rose talks to Michael Berkeley about her latest novel, The Gustav Sonata, the story of a long and loving relationship between someone who is profoundly musical and somebody who isn't. She chooses music which inspired the story and which features in it: by Schubert, Beethoven and Mahler, as well as music she loved as a teenager and as a student in Paris.And Rose remembers her inspirational piano teacher, Joyce Hatto, whose career ended in disappointment and scandal many years later.Producer: Jane Greenwood A Loftus Media production for BBC Radio 3.

Roger Allam is an actor equally at home with Shakespeare, musical theatre, detective shows, and comedy on both radio and television. From the Globe Theatre to Game of Thrones, through Endeavour, The Thick of It and Cabin Pressure, to the RSC and the West End, he refuses to be typecast.He talks to Michael Berkeley about his lifelong passion for music and why he became an actor rather than an opera singer. And he explains how he overcame his initial reservations about the Globe Theatre to play Falstaff there (a performance that won him the Olivier Award for Best Actor). Roger’s musical passions are predominately 20th century, with music by Britten, Messiaen and Ravel, but he also chooses Bach, Schubert and a mesmerising piece of medieval music. Producer: Jane Greenwood A Loftus Media Production for BBC Radio 3

Sir Jonathan Bate is one of the leading Shakespeare scholars of our time. He's also a biographer, broadcaster and critic, and a passionate advocate of the importance of the humanities in education. Provost of Worcester College and Professor of English Literature at Oxford University, he is the author of many influential books on Shakespeare and the joint editor of the RSC Shakespeare: Complete Works. And he's turned playwright himself, with the one-man play Being Shakespeare, written for Simon Callow. He's also written extensively about English literature in the 400 years since Shakespeare's death, and last year, in a blaze of publicity, he published a controversial biography of Ted Hughes. Jonathan takes us on a journey through 300 years of music inspired by Shakespeare, including works by Linley, Mozart, Berlioz, Wagner, Strauss - and Taylor Swift. And we hear Shakespeare performed by Alex Jennings, Simon Russell Beale, and Claire Danes. Producer: Jane Greenwood A Loftus Media production for BBC Radio 3.

Melly Still is a theatre and opera director whose work has been described as inventive, ambitious and magical. She stages the unstageable - mermaids, angels animals, underwater realms - putting whole worlds of myth and magic into the theatre or opera house. She came to fame 10 years ago with Coram Boy at the National - the play about Handel, his Messiah and the Foundling Hospital. Since then she's directed at the Proms and Glyndebourne, and her new production of Cymbeline for the RSC opens later this month.And music is central to her private life too, with two pianists and a DJ in her family. She chooses music by Dvorak, Janacek and Wagner associated with her theatre and opera productions, jazz performed by her partner, and tantalizing music performed on instruments made of ice. Producer: Jane GreenwoodA Loftus Media production for BBC Radio 3.

Professor Sunil Khilnani is the Director of the India Institute at King's College London and the presenter of Radio 4's epic history of India: 'Incarnations: India in 50 Lives.' His books include an accompaniment to the series and the acclaimed The Idea of India. He talks to Michael Berkeley about his musical passions, which reflect a life lived all over the world, and chooses music by Mozart, Berg and Beethoven, as well as a ghazal from 13th century India; a piece of southern Indian classical music played on the saxophone; and a joyful piece of African music from his childhood. Running through his music are the ideas of compression and the perfection of the miniature - themes that emerge time and time again in the cultural history of India in the lives of poets, musicians and miniature painters. Producer: Jane Greenwood A Loftus Media production for BBC Radio 3.

For Easter Sunday, Michael Berkeley's guest is Melanie Reid, who writes a weekly column in The Times about her life as a tetraplegic. Six years ago, on Good Friday 2010, she was out cross-country riding in the Scottish countryside near her home in Stirlingshire. The horse refused a jump and she was thrown off - flipping her body. She broke her neck and back. Since then Melanie Reid has been paralysed from the armpits down.When you're well and young, or young at heart, and busy devouring life, working, playing, laughing, eating, drinking, you assume you're in control. Things change though when the world topples from its axis and your glorious certitude that tomorrow will be as good as today is exposed as pitiful complacency.In Private Passions, Melanie Reid talks about adjusting to life after her accident, 'a painful rebirth'. Although music has been important to her since childhood, after the accident she found that for several years she could not listen to it - the emotional effect was unbearable. Now, though, she finds music inspiring and sustaining. Her choices include Jacqueline du Pré playing Bach's 1st Cello Suite; Beethoven's 'Emperor' Concerto; Gustav Holst's 'Planets' Suite, Nielsen's Violin Concerto, and Strauss's 'Four Last Songs'. In an inspiring conclusion to the programme, Melanie Reid talks about the happiness she has re-found recently, and the way her life has slowed down so that she can appreciate the beauty of nature, and the changing seasons. And she pays tribute to her loving husband and son, who both play the bagpipes - a cue to play a very untraditional take on the pipes from the Red Hot Chilli Pipers.Produced by Elizabeth Burke A Loftus Media production for BBC Radio 3.

To mark International Women's Day, Michael Berkeley's guest is Martha Lane Fox. At the age of only 25 she co-founded Lastminute.com, which floated at the peak of the dot-com bubble and was sold seven years later for £577m. Since then, Lane Fox was appointed, at 40, the youngest female member of the House of Lords (she's a cross-bencher) and the Chancellor of the Open University. She's also championed digital inclusivity and has recently founded Doteveryone. Voted one of the most powerful women in Britain by Woman's Hour, she has a mission to make the internet industry more open to other women - as she says:'The "internet industry" is only 30 years old. Yet what is supposed to be a democratising force is built on a platform of profound gender imbalance. Women occupy just 17 per cent of tech jobs in the UK. The people building the internet, the services we all use, are overwhelmingly men. We have a national digital skills crisis. There are 600,000 vacancies in the sector, forecast to rise to 1m by 2020. If we do not understand why, and try to rectify it, we are missing out on half the talent pool.'In Private Passions, Martha Lane Fox talks to Michael Berkeley about how and why, as the daughter of an Oxford don and gardening writer, she came to be a pioneer of the internet industry. She reveals her passion for karaoke. And she talks about the effect on her life of a car accident in Morocco. Music choices include Beethoven's Fidelio, Chopin's Nocturnes, Verdi's La Traviata, Scott Joplin, Ella Fitzgerald and Judy Garland's 'Get Happy' - a personal anthem.

A chance to hear Michael Berkeley talk to the veteran journalist, Katharine Whitehorn, who died in January 2021 at the age 92. In this programme from 2016, Katherine Whitehorn talks about the music she loved all her life. She’s often quoted as saying: ‘Find out what you like doing best and get someone to pay you for it.’ Katharine explains that she had quite a few false starts along the way - running away from school, failing as an architecture student, dabbling in modelling - until she found her true vocation of journalism and began a career that has spanned Picture Post, the Observer and Saga Magazine. She was also known to millions as the author of Cooking in a Bedsitter, first published in 1961 and still the bible of student cookery. Her music choices include Finlandia, invoking memories of another - happy - false start; a piece of Chopin played by her father; Mozart and Beethoven symphonies; and one of the few songs she and her much-loved husband Gavin Lyall both enjoyed. Producer: Jane Greenwood A Loftus Media production for BBC Radio 3