Eamon Duffy on Private Passions with Michael Berkeley 30th April 2017

Professor of the History of Christianity at Cambridge, Eamon Duffy has changed for ever the way we view the Reformation. His books, including The Stripping of the Altars and The Voices of Morebath, have revealed a picture of late medieval Catholicism as a strong and vital tradition, and have shown that the Reformation, for most ordinary people, represented a violent disruption to a flourishing religious system.

Eamon talks about his passion for medieval, Tudor and seventeenth-century music and history, the state of Catholic church music today and the pleasures of playing chamber music.

His choices of music include countertenor Alfred Deller singing Purcell, the Beaux Arts Trio playing Haydn and Janet Baker singing Elgar.

Eamon's final piece of music is a wonderfully evocative Arab Christian chant for Palm Sunday, sung by a nun from the Melkite order.
Producer: Jane Greenwood

Part of Radio 3's Breaking Free series of programmes exploring Martin Luther's Revolution.