Premium Only Content

Sara Wheeler on Private Passions with Michael Berkeley 6th December 2015
As part of Radio 3's Northern Lights season, Michael Berkeley's guest is the award-winning writer on the Polar Regions, Sara Wheeler.
Sara Wheeler spent years resisting the magnetic North. She established her reputation with books about the South Pole, where the American Government appointed her writer-in-residence: she is the only person to have slept on Captain Scott's bunk, apart from that great Antarctic explorer of course. Her book about the Antarctic became an international best-seller, and she went on to write a biography of another Antarctic explorer, Apsley Cherry-Garrard. So it was not till middle age that she realized she couldn't resist the pull of the North Pole. Her book 'The Magnetic North' draws on journeys through Russia, Canada and Greenland, staying with the people who live within the Arctic Circle. She says 'The Antarctic, with its purity and beauty, symbolizes what the earth could be; the Arctic, which is peopled and polluted, symbolizes what the earth actually is. I was desperately trying to avoid the Arctic, but I realized as the years went by that for all its problems it was too important a part of the contemporary world for a writer to ignore.'
For Private Passions, Sara Wheeler has compiled a playlist of music inspired by the sounds of the Arctic: the calls of Arctic birds, the sound of ice cracking. She includes rare archive of music made by indigenous peoples in Greenland, recorded in igloos there at the beginning of the 20th century, but very similar to the music she heard herself when travelling a few years ago. Composers include Prokofiev, Tippett, Vaughan Williams and Einojuhani Rautavaara, whose 'Cantus Arcticus' captures the sound of Arctic birds.
-
LIVE
Dr Disrespect
5 hours ago🔴LIVE - DR DISRESPECT - GEARS RELOADED GLOBAL LAUNCH - CRUSHING LOCUST
2,528 watching -
1:49:34
The Quartering
3 hours agoToday's Breaking News With Melonie Mac & Hannah Claire Brimlow!
134K145 -
23:16
Jasmin Laine
1 hour agoCarney HUMILIATED by German Reporter—CTV Host Laughs as Liberals Get DESTROYED on Air
2.67K4 -
LIVE
The HotSeat
1 hour agoLisa Cook Blocks Your Mortgage Relief While Committing Mortgage Fraud – YOU’RE FIRED!
569 watching -
LIVE
The Tom Renz Show
1 hour agoJudges Are Completely Immune From Lawsuits
85 watching -
1:18:46
Awaken With JP
2 hours agoCracker Barrel Makes Brilliant Decision, Trump Bans Flag Burning and More - LIES Ep 105
41.4K12 -
29:24
Stephen Gardner
1 hour ago🔥Trump's Moves Leave CNN Speechless!
9.65K17 -
1:06:37
Sean Unpaved
4 hours agoCincinnati's Sack King Stays: Decoding the Deal & the NFL's Open-Ended Questions
38.2K -
LIVE
StoneMountain64
4 hours agoWARZONE LEGEND RETURNS. GHILLIE SUIT $20k TOURNEY.
148 watching -
2:11:17
Side Scrollers Podcast
6 hours agoINSANE Illegal Migrant Propaganda Xbox Game + Paypal REFUSES To Pay Dev + More | Side Scrollers
39K1