Private Passions

Timothy Gowers is the son of a composer, the brother of a violinist, and a keen jazz pianist. But that's not how he makes a living. In fact, Sir Timothy Gowers is one the country's most distinguished mathematicians. He's a Fellow of the Royal Society, was awarded the prestigious Fields medal, and was knighted two years ago for services to mathematics. In Private Passions, he talks to Michael Berkeley about his musical upbringing, and early dreams of becoming a composer. He confesses that it's hard to spend your life doing something which so few people round you understand - which is even difficult to talk about to your wife at home. He reveals how he used mathematical calculations of risk when faced with a life-or-death decision of his own: whether to go ahead with a risky heart operation. And he talks about how he's brought mathematicians together, so that they've been able collectively to solve problems which have defeated them for decades - using a blog which he created: http://gowers.wordpress.com. Music includes Bach's St Matthew Passion, a Tudor anthem by Robert Parsons, Michael Tippett's 3rd Piano Sonata, Ravel, Oscar Peterson, and an organ toccata composed by his father, Patrick Gowers, and played by his son Richard, who is 19.

Sophie Hannah is a prize-winning poet, whose work is studied in schools and universities across the country, and the author of nine dark psychological thrillers. Alongside the thrillers - one a year - she's edited an anthology of poems about sex, composed love lyrics for contemporary composers, and has been writer in residence at Trinity College Cambridge. Her latest project is to write a new Poirot mystery; she was chosen by the Christie Estate to fill in one of the great detective's missing years. Her Poirot mystery is published in early September. In Private Passions, she talks to Michael Berkeley about her fascination with crime, especially crimes of passion. She talks about being in love as a pathological state of mind, and she chooses songs which celebrate and dissect this peculiar state: from Schumann and Schubert, through Carmen, to Bob Dylan, Emmylou Harris, and Edith Piaf.Produced by Elizabeth Burke. A Loftus production for BBC Radio 3. To hear previous episodes of Private Passions, please visit http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/r3pp/all.

From concrete to chocolate and teacups to tennis racquets, it's the everyday stuff of life that fascinates Mark Miodownik. He's Professor of Materials and Society at University College London where he is also Director of the Institute of Making, a research hub for scientists, designers, engineers, artists, architects - and musicians. A passionate communicator about the vital role of science in society, he's written a bestselling book Stuff Matters; he's the scientist in residence on Dara O'Briain's Science Club on BBC2; and he's listed by The Times as one of the 100 most influential scientists in the UK.Mark is fascinated by how materials influence the way music sounds, and talks to Michael Berkeley about brass bands, tuning forks and how love can bloom over playing the saw. His musical choices include Bach, film music by Morricone, Scott Joplin and a little known piece for brass band by Holst.

National Trust Director General Helen Ghosh takes Michael Berkeley on a tour of Leith Hill Place, now a National Trust property but once the childhood home of Ralph Vaughan Williams.She chooses his Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, as well as music by Britten, Mozart and Schubert. And her choice of Ravel reveals the alternative career she almost had - as a ballet dancer.

Miles Jupp burst onto the comedy scene when he won the 'So You Think You're Funny' contest at the Edinburgh Festival at the age of just twenty-one. He'd already, as an undergraduate, won the part of Archie the Inventor in the hugely popular children's television show Balamory, but he eventually tired of wearing a pink kilt. Since then he has established himself on the comedy circuit, and on radio and television in panel shows including Have I Got News for You, and comedies such as The Thick of It and Rev, where he plays Nigel, the disapproving lay reader, who thinks he should be running the church. He is usually to be found sending himself up as a tweedy, middle class young fogey. As he joked on a chatshow: "I'm privileged. Not just to be here but in general."Miles talks to Michael Berkeley about the joys of cricket, the pleasures of belting out a good tune and the legacy of an intensely musical childhood, reflected in his choices of music by Geoffrey Burgon, Chopin and Verdi.Produced by Jane Greenwood. A Loftus production for BBC Radio 3.To hear previous episodes of Private Passions, please visit http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/r3pp/all.

Stephen Grosz waited until he was 60 to publish his first book, 'The Examined Life'. It was a huge overnight success - a bestseller here in Britain and translated into more than 20 languages across the world. It's a distillation of the lifetime he has spent as a psychoanalyst, tens of thousands of hours listening to people in hospitals, forensic clinics and in private practice. It reads like a collection of short stories, full of vignettes of memorable characters: the man who faked his own death, the pathological liar, the lovesick middle-aged woman who meets a man at a party - and turns up at his house the next week with a removals van to move in with him.In Private Passions, in conversation with Michael Berkeley, Stephen Grosz tells his own story: his childhood in Chicago, the son of immigrants who ran a grocery store; student days in radical Berkeley; and now, settled in Britain, how he's facing the challenges of fatherhood and ageing. Music has played an important part right from the beginning, and Grosz admits that his choice of music is very psychologically revealing.His musical choices include Scarlatti, Aaron Copland, Brahms's 3rd Symphony, gospel singer Bessie Jones, Schubert's Piano Sonata no 20, Bob Dylan - and a hilarious Alberta Hunter song about sex, My Handy Man Ain't Handy No More.Produced by Elizabeth Burke. A Loftus production for BBC Radio 3.First broadcast 03/08/2014To hear previous episodes of Private Passions, please visit http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/r3pp/all.

Phyllida Law burst onto the stage in the mid 1950s and since then her career has spanned everything from the first British production of The Crucible, to musicals such as La Cage aux Folles and television including Dixon of Dock Green and Rumpole, not to mention a list of films as long as your arm, The Time Machine and The Winter Guest being just two.Alongside all that she's somehow managed to fit in bringing up her two highly successful daughters Emma and Sophie Thompson, both of whom have followed in her footsteps. Recently she's turned her hand to writing, and she talks to Michael Berkeley about her moving and funny memoirs of the years she spent looking after her mother and mother-in-law in their old age.Her music choices include Glenn Gould playing Bach, Schubert's Fantasia in F Minor and a joyous Malinese song introduced to her by her grandson which always gets her up and dancing.First broadcast 27/07/2014.

Biographer Richard Holmes shares his musical passions with Michael Berkeley, and his fascination with opium dreams, telescopes and balloons.Best known for his biographies of the Romantics - most notably Shelley and Coleridge - Richard Holmes has won just about every literary prize going.In recent years he has moved towards the history of science with his book The Age of Wonder, which was hailed widely as 'the non-fiction book of the year'.And his most recent book, Falling Upwards, all about the daring and frequently terrifying adventures of the pioneers of hot air ballooning, is just coming out in paperback.Richard's musical choices range from 13th century Gregorian chant and French pastoral songs to Bernstein by way of composer and astronomer William Herschel.Producer: Jane GreenwoodA Loftus production for BBC Radio 3.

As part of Radio 3's 'Music in the Great War' season, Michael Berkeley's guest is John Keane, who was appointed the official British War Artist during the first Gulf War. The job involved travelling with the British forces - a task he approached with enthusiasm, but also considerable apprehension. The paintings that came out of that conflict are now part of the permanent collection at the Imperial War Museum, along with an array of paintings from The First World War by artists including Paul Nash and Christopher R. W Nevinson.John talks to Michael about the role of the war artist and how it has changed since The First World War. He describes his experience of working on conflict zones, not just in The Middle East, but in Northern Ireland, Nicaragua and Angola too. What is it that a war artist can communicate that we can't see in photographs? His music choices include Bach, Beethoven and Britten, and the famous rendition of Star Spangled Banner by Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock in 1969, which uses amplifier feedback to convey the sounds of war. John also chooses 'the music they'll play in heaven', which for him is Dance IX from Philip Glass's In The Upper Room.Producer: Jo CoombsA Loftus Production for BBC Radio 3.

Holocaust survivor Eva Schloss shares her extraordinary life story with Michael Berkeley and reveals the music that has brought her comfort, that conjures memories, and that brings her joy.Eva Schloss was born into a happy middle-class Jewish family in Vienna in 1929, but her childhood came to an abrupt end when she was nine and had to flee with her parents and older brother to escape the Nazis.Before going into hiding in Amsterdam Eva's family befriended Anne Frank's family, and after the war, the Frank legacy was to play a large part in her life - Eva's mother married Otto Frank and Eva and her mother worked tirelessly to promote Anne Frank's legacy through her diary.Like the Franks, Eva's family was betrayed, and she and her mother were captured by the Gestapo on her 15th birthday and transported to the Birkenau concentration camp. They were two of only a few prisoners still alive when the camp was liberated in January 1945. Her beloved brother and father did not survive the neighbouring camp of Auschwitz.Somehow Eva learned to live alongside the memories of those terrible years and after the war rebuilt her life in England. Now in her 80s she tours the world spreading her message of reconciliation and hope, and in 2012 she received an MBE for her work with the Anne Frank Trust and other Holocaust charities.Eva's choices of music include Beethoven, Mendelssohn and Strauss, who take her back to her happy Viennese childhood, as well as music by Mahler through which she recalls the pain of her teenage years.Produced by Jane Greenwood.A Loftus production for BBC Radio 3.