Private Passions

David Wilson has spent his life working with violent men – particularly those who have committed murder and serial murder. Currently Emeritus Professor of Criminology at Birmingham City University and a campaigner for penal reform, he spent much of his career working in a series of prisons and young offender institutions, dealing with some of our most notorious murderers - including Dennis Nilsen.He has made memorable television programmes including the award-winning 'Interview with a Murderer'. And he’s written sixteen books, the latest being My Life With Murderers: Behind Bars with the World’s Most Violent Men.David tells Michael Berkeley about the huge challenges of becoming Britain’s youngest prison governor at the age of 29, his many encounters with the serial killer Dennis Nilsen, and his pioneering approach to rehabilitating violent offenders. He chooses a song from the jazz trumpeter and singer Chet Baker – sadly no stranger to prison himself – and music by Bernstein and Copland that reminds him of his time as a student in America.He talks movingly about family love and music being vital to coping with a career spent dealing with violence and murder. With the exception of Schubert’s Death and the Maiden quartet, all of David’s music is about love rather than death, including Sibelius’ Andante Festivo, chosen for his daughter, and music from the film Love Actually for his wife. Producer: Jane Greenwood A Loftus production for BBC Radio 3

The surgeon Roger Kneebone tells Michael Berkeley how his work with tailors, lacemakers, Formula One teams, and musicians has transformed his understanding of medicine. Roger Kneebone began his career as a trauma surgeon in Soweto, operating on victims of stabbings and shootings, before working in a war zone in Namibia in the 1980s. Then he was a GP in Wiltshire for fifteen years before joining Imperial College London, where he is Professor of Surgical Education and Engagement Science. So with that impressive medical background it comes as something of a surprise to discover that he spends a lot of his professional life these days hanging out with craftspeople, engineers and musicians. He says: ‘When I started to think about surgery not only as an application of scientific knowledge but as a form of performance and craftsmanship, it made a lot of sense to find out what other performers and other craftsmen were doing and see what the connections were between their worlds and mine, rather than looking at the differences. It’s a whole new area of exploration and research.’ As a child Roger rebuilt a piano with his father and they formed a close bond over their mutual love of baroque music: Roger chooses Rachel Podger playing Bach’s Double Violin Concerto, and Handel’s 'As Steals the Morn'. Later he built a harpsichord from a kit when on call as a GP and we hear his harpsichord teacher Sophie Yates playing Couperin. And Roger chooses jazz from the American saxophonist Charles Lloyd, which leads him to consider the parallels between musical improvisation and the improvisation so often necessary during surgery. Producer: Jane Greenwood A Loftus production for BBC Radio 3

The comedian Jo Brand tells Michael Berkeley about the important role classical music plays in her life. Jo Brand has enjoyed a pretty unusual career path - from psychiatric nurse to The Great British Bake Off. On the way she’s taken in radical stand-up comedy – under the moniker The Sea Monster – invented a new genre of Bafta-winning sitcom drawing on the black humour of nurses and social workers, and has made numerous appearances on panel shows from QI and Have I Got New For You to Question Time. Jo talks movingly about the music in her childhood – learning the piano and violin, bell ringing in her local church and listening to music with her father, who suffered from depression. She chooses Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in his memory. Music runs through Jo’s family, and her teenage daughters are keen singers. We hear Carmina Burana, which one of them has performed, as well as part of Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony, which reminds her of her rural childhood with her two brothers. And she tells Michael that coping with drunk hecklers in rough comedy clubs was as nothing compared to the paralysing fear she felt when she had to perform Bach’s Toccata on the organ of the Royal Albert Hall for a television programme: ‘There were 8,000 people there. It was absolutely terrifying. I’d never actually realized what that expression "your blood running cold" really meant, but two minutes before I walked up and sat down at the organ, my hands were completely freezing and I thought they wouldn’t work.’Producer: Jane Greenwood A Loftus production for BBC Radio 3

For forty years, Uta Frith has dedicated her life to understanding the enigma of autism; she was one of the first neuroscientists to recognise autism as a condition of the brain, rather than the result of cold parenting. She works at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London, alongside her husband, Chris Frith, who’s a specialist in mapping the brain through neuro-imaging. Elected to the Royal Society in 2005, she’s passionate about encouraging more women into careers in science. When Professor Frith first published her influential research into autism in the 1980s, she says it evoked “strong emotional reactions”, and autism remains controversial today, as it is increasingly viewed not as a disability, but as simply a different way of seeing the world. In conversation with Michael Berkeley, Uta Frith talks about the little boy she met very early on in her research who inspired her, and about why autism is so fascinating – because of what it reveals about the mystery of human communication.Music choices include works by Smetana, Hildegard von Bingen and Beethoven, a Berlin cabaret song from the 1920s, and a work by Professor Frith's great female role model, Clara Schumann. Produced by Elizabeth Burke A Loftus production for BBC Radio 3

Over the last 40 years, Mark Morris has established a reputation as the most musical of choreographers. Inspired by both baroque and twentieth-century music, he’s most famously choreographed Purcell’s “Dido and Aeneas” – he danced both Dido and the sorceress himself - and his witty version of The Nutcracker, “The Hard Nut”, has been so popular that it’s been staged every year for almost 30 years. Mark Morris has worked in opera too, directing and choreographing productions for the Metropolitan Opera, the English National Opera and The Royal Opera, among others. He tours extensively but home is the Mark Morris Dance Center in Brooklyn, which runs outreach programmes into the local New York community. He’s received numerous awards, including the Leonard Bernstein Award for the Elevation of Music in Society.In a humorous and revealing interview, Mark Morris looks back on his childhood in Seattle and his childhood passion for music and dance. It wasn’t very socially acceptable for a boy to become a dancer: “If you were in dance, you were a sissy. But I also was a sissy so what’s the problem?” He talks too about losing many friends to AIDS, and fearing that his own time was limited, a pressure that created a manic burst of creative energy. Music choices include Germaine Tailleferre, a French composer from the twenties whom he believes is unjustly neglected; Scarlatti; Handel; Lou Harrison; and Erik Satie. Produced by Elizabeth Burke A Loftus production for BBC Radio 3

From Hollywood to European art house cinema, from Shakespeare to contemporary drama, Greta Scacchi is one of our most versatile actors. She talks to Michael Berkeley about the film that made her name in 1983 – Heat and Dust – and chooses music from the soundtrack featuring Zakir Hussain. She reveals how her musical training as a child – learning ballet, piano and singing - has been invaluable when she’s been called on to play and sing on film. She particularly loved the character she played in Jefferson in Paris, the eighteenth-century Anglo-Italian artist and musician Maria Cosway, and explains how difficult it was to pretend the play the harp on screen. We hear some of Maria Cosway’s music from that film. Greta chooses music by Satie which reminds her of her mother’s ballet school when she was a child. Her mother is still dancing at 87! And we hear one of Canteloube’s Chants d’Auvergne, and a Handel aria which illustrate Greta’s passion for the theatre; she chooses pieces which remind her of the places she loves – Sussex, Italy and Australia. We get an insight into her passion for jazz with music from Jimmy Guiffre and Fats Waller. And Greta speaks out about the importance of actors campaigning for causes they believe in – she’s passionate about the environment and even posed naked with a cod to draw attention to unsustainable fishing. Producer: Jane Greenwood A Loftus production for BBC Radio 3

The comedian Rachel Parris talks to Michael Berkeley about her musical passions and how her life as a classical musician led to her career in comedy. Her hugely versatile career includes improvised comedy shows, stand-up, musical comedy and appearances on Radio 4’s The Now Show. She’s caused quite a stir with her hilarious turns as a faux-naïve reporter on BBC2’s satirical news show The Mash Report. During her teens Rachel thought she would have a career as a classical musician –– she has a Music degree from Oxford, she’s an accomplished singer, and an excellent pianist; indeed, until recently she was a piano teacher. Rachel talks to Michael about how she moved from music to comedy via drama school and how music still has a central place in her life. Her choices of pieces reflect the breadth of her musical passions, from a recording of Tallis in which she sings, to Bernstein and the American Songbook. She loves music that tells a story, particularly Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade, and music that makes her laugh, like Tom Lehrer’s songs. Rachel talks movingly about depression and her work with The Samaritans, and we hear music by Debussy which she finds a comfort in difficult times. Producer: Jane Greenwood A Loftus production for BBC Radio 3

Michael Berkeley talks to the philosopher Julian Baggini about the pleasures of serendipity, transience, philosophy and music. The Pig That Wants to Be Eaten, Do They Think You’re Stupid? and What’s It All About? are just three of the eye-catchingly titled books by Julian Baggini. He’s written 19 books in all, is the founding editor of The Philosophers’ Magazine, writes for newspapers, magazines and think tanks, and appears on radio and television. His latest book is How the World Thinks: A Global History of Philosophy.Julian has been described as a philosopher’s philosopher, but he also has a mission to liberate philosophy from its ivory tower and bring it to the general reader. The Pig That Wants to Be Eaten – his collection of 100 brief thought experiments – has been described as ‘mental fun-sized treats’ and ‘the Sudoku of moral philosophy’.Julian tells Michael about the joy he’s felt discovering pieces of music by Brahms, Ravel and Dvorak through chance encounters, and how he’s come to love music written for a video game by Jessica Curry when he met her on University Challenge.He believes that both music and philosophy can help us appreciate beauty, come to terms with the transience of existence, and accept that life can be bitter and sweet at the same time. Producer: Jane Greenwood A Loftus production for BBC Radio 3

Michael Berkeley talks to the writer Preti Taneja about her wide-ranging love of music, from Indian gazals and ragas to Vivaldi and Shostakovich.Preti Taneja’s debut novel We That Are Young won last year’s Desmond Elliott prize and huge critical acclaim, after being rejected as ‘commercially unviable’ by multiple publishers in both London and Delhi.It’s a reworking of King Lear, set in contemporary India, and tells the story of a battle for power within a rich and turbulent Delhi family.Before she found success as a novelist Preti worked as a journalist, as a human rights campaigner, and as a teacher of writing in places as diverse as universities, prisons, youth charities and refugee camps - and she chooses a song by Ilham al Madfai that reminds her of working in Jordan with minority communities who had fled the war in Iraq. Preti talks about the music that reminds her of childhood holidays in Delhi, how she uses music in her writing, and why King Lear resonates so clearly in the India of today.A Loftus production for BBC Radio 3, produced by Jane Greenwood.

When he started out on an acting career, Oliver Ford Davies was given some extremely discouraging advice by his first director, who said: “You’ll be OK when you’re forty, and even better when you’re fifty!” Davies was only twenty-seven at the time so that was a bit off-putting, to say the least; but in fact that advice was clairvoyant. His big breakthrough did indeed come at the age of fifty, in 1990, when he was given the lead in David Hare’s Racing Demon at the National Theatre, for which he won an Olivier Award. Since then he’s played Lear at the Almeida, and Star Wars fans will know him as Sio Bibble (the governer of Naboo); he also appears as Cressen in the very popular Game of Thrones. Among numerous Shakespeare roles over the last 40 years at the RSC, he’s just finished playing Pandarus in Troilus and Cressida, a production which was shown in cinemas across the country. Looking back over a very varied and successful career, Oliver Ford Davies reflects on the ups and downs of a career which has been risky, and challenging, and richly enjoyable. He talks too about why big American films love English actors: because they can deliver unintelligible dialogue, and because they’re cheap. And he pays tribute to a great actor reading great poetry, in his choice of Paul Scofield reading T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets. Other choices include Haydn, Stravinsky, Elgar, Vaughan Williams, and Mozart’s ‘The Marriage of Figaro’.Produced by Elizabeth Burke A Loftus production for BBC Radio 3