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Tim Firth

Tim Firth, playwright, screenwriter, songwriter, and the creator of Calendar Girls, shares his passion for classical music with Michael Berkeley.

Tim Firth is the man behind the show that captured the nation’s heart: Calendar Girls, the true story about a Women’s Institute who produced a naked calendar. It’s been a film, a play, and is now a musical.

He’s also responsible for the hugely successful film Kinky Boots, as well as multi-award winning TV shows, films and more musicals including Neville’s Island, The Flint Street Nativity, Preston Front, and most recently The Band, a collaboration with his long-time friend Gary Barlow and Take That.

But surprisingly there are no songs from musical theatre in Tim’s choices for Private Passions. Instead he shares with Michael Berkeley his love of Baroque, with music from Bach and from Albinoni (first heard on his honeymoon), and he chooses music by Delius and by Copland that resonates with the folk music he loved as a child.

Tim talks movingly about the emotional impact of music in his life, whether it’s writing the perfect song for a show or being spellbound by hearing Gorecki for the first time in a forest in the Lake District.

Producer: Jane Greenwood
A Loftus production for ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Radio 3

Available now

33 minutes

Last on

Sun 20 Jan 2019 12:00

Music Played

  • Tomaso Giovanni Albinoni

    Concerto in F major for 2 oboes and strings, Op.9 no.3 (1st mvt: Allegro)

    Performer: Catherine Latham. Performer: Anthony Robson. Orchestra: Collegium Musicum 90. Conductor: Simon Standage.
  • Johann Sebastian Bach

    Violin Concerto in E major, BWV.1042 (1st mvt: Allegro)

    Performer: Renaud Capuçon. Orchestra: Chamber Orchestra of Europe.
  • Frederick Delius

    2 Aquarelles for string orchestra, arr. Fenby...: no.2; Gaily, but not too quick

    Orchestrator: Eric Fenby. Orchestra: English Chamber Orchestra. Conductor: Daniel Barenboim.
    • Deutsche Gramophon.
  • Aaron Copland

    Dance of the Adolescent (Grohg)

    Orchestra: Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. Conductor: Marin Alsop.
  • Henryk MikoÅ‚aj Górecki

    Symphony No.3 (Symphony of Sorrowful Songs) (excerpt)

    Orchestra: London Sinfonietta. Conductor: David Zinman. Singer: Dawn Upshaw.
  • György Ligeti

    Six Bagatelles for Wind Quintet (no.1: Allegro con spirito)

    Ensemble: Claude Debussy Wind Quintet.

Broadcast

  • Sun 20 Jan 2019 12:00

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