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
-
7:19
Dr David Jockers
20 hours ago $0.01 earned1 Teaspoon Per Day Burns Belly Fat Quickly
4.21K -
22:37
ROSE UNPLUGGED
18 hours agoIsrael 1 Year Later: Halfway Through a 2 Year War?
5.49K8 -
2:21:31
Fresh and Fit
12 hours agoBrandon Carter Returns!
66.7K28 -
2:35:09
CAMELOT331
9 hours agoWatching HURRICANE Milton & Asking For Businesses To Step Up LIVE
93.9K32 -
24:02
Stephen Gardner
9 hours ago🔴Kamala CRASHES AND BURNS On 60 Minutes interview + Hurricane Milton Warning!
65.1K338 -
4:57:57
Right Side Broadcasting Network
1 day agoLIVE: President Trump Participates in an October 7th Remembrance Event - 10/7/24
238K107 -
1:47:12
Kim Iversen
13 hours agoWhat Has Hamas and Israel Really Achieved Since Oct 7th? | More Creators Ripped Off YouTube For “Hate Speech"
84K222 -
6:34
Colion Noir
11 hours agoCan You Shoot Someone Attacking You With A Shovel? The Truth About Deadly Force
69.6K59 -
1:34:33
Glenn Greenwald
15 hours agoOct. 7: Whose Lives Matter Most & Least In The Middle East? Hillary Latest Dem To Demand Online Censorship | SYSTEM UPDATE #348
120K211 -
1:07:48
Donald Trump Jr.
19 hours agoSpeak Up America, Interview with Comedian Rob Schneider | TRIGGERED Ep.180
179K224