Deborah Levy on Private Passions with Michael Berkeley 6th October 2019
Deborah Levy was born in South Africa; when she was five, her father was arrested as a member of the ANC and spent four years in jail. The family left for England, arriving when Deborah was nine, in 1968. Unsurprisingly her work as a writer is concerned with themes of identity, exile, dislocation. Beginning as a poet and a playwright – her plays were staged by the RSC – she then turned to novels, and there are now seven in all, of which the last three have been nominated for the Booker Prize. The latest is ‘The Man Who Saw Everything’.
Deborah talks with Michael Berkeley about the music that means most to her. Many of the pieces she loves are to do with saying farewell: Lotte Lenya saying ‘goodbye’ in Brecht and Weill’s Alabama Song; Orpheus pining for Euridice in Kathleen Ferrier’s legendary recording of Gluck’s ‘Che Faro?’; sisters wishing their lovers safe travel as, purportedly, they depart for war, in the trio from Mozart’s Cosi Fan Tutte.
Deborah talks openly about her memories of her father’s imprisonment and of his return home; about the enormous transition in her life when, aged fifty, her marriage ended; and about how she found a room of her own in which to write, renting a friend’s garden shed and working to the noise of apples dropping onto the roof. Also among her music is Beethoven’s Pathetique Sonata (‘the silences are as important as the notes’); a song by Leonard Cohen; and a translucent setting of a Verlaine poem, ‘La Lune Blanche’, composed by Billy Cowie and sung by identical twins.
Produced by Elizabeth Burke
A Loftus production for BBC Radio 3
-
DVR
vivafrei
3 hours agoRussian Interference or Deep State Operation? Lauren Chen CANCELLED! Tenet Media SHUTS DOWN!
34.7K39 -
1:09:44
Winston Marshall
2 hours agoWorld Leaders Have LIED To Us All! Bjorn Lomborg EXPLAINS | The Winston Marshall Show #027
11.6K12 -
1:03:25
Miss Understood With Rachel Uchitel
3 days agoRachel Uchitel & Sarah Fraser Live Reality TV News
6.76K1 -
1:31:17
Russell Brand
4 hours agoRUSSIAGATE HOAX 2.0 BEGINS! Kamala's Russian Playbook Returns - Here We Go Again, Folks! SF447
90.9K162 -
2:08:31
Right Side Broadcasting Network
17 hours agoLIVE REPLAY: Pres. Donald Trump Holds a Press Conference at Trump Tower in New York City - 9/6/24
124K75 -
16:42
Neil McCoy-Ward
3 hours ago🔥 You Won't Βelieve What Τhey Are Proposing To Do Next… !!!
13.1K6 -
1:01:58
Hometalk
23 hours agoWhy homeowners are currently OBSESSED with old shutters (this is brilliant!)
23.5K4 -
2:21:58
Film Threat
18 hours agoBEETLEJUICE! BEETLEJUICE! BEETLEJUICE! | Film Threat Livecast
25.7K4 -
59:32
The Dan Bongino Show
7 hours agoThe Secret Service Has Some Explaining To Do (Ep. 2324) - 09/06/2024
545K1.53K -
1:04:24
Steven Crowder
6 hours agoFALLOUT: How DOJ Story is Hunter Biden Laptop 2.0
227K270