Private Passions

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.