Private Passions - Jane Asher

Michael Berkeley's guest is actress Jane Asher, who has been working in film, theatre, TV and radio since the age of five. Her many TV appearances include Brideshead Revisited, Holby City and most recently, as Sally in The Old Guys. She is also a successful writer - having penned three novels as well as books on cake decorating - and also runs a company making party cakes. Jane has a musical background - her mother Margaret was a professor of oboe at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and in 2008 she took part in BBC2's Maestro conducting competition. Jane's musical choices include three Mozart selections - the overture from Don Giovanni, the Lacrimosa from his Requiem and the last act of Marriage of Figaro. She also chooses a song from HMS Pinafore, the finale of Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony, the finale of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony performed by Daniel Barenboim's West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, plus Joan Sutherland singing Spargi d'amore pianto from Act 2 of Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor. M Berkeley: The Wakeful Poet (Music from Chaucer) (pub OUP) Beaux-Arts Brass Quintet BBQ BBQ 003 T10 00.25 Mozart: Overture to Don Giovanni LPO/Sir Georg Solti Mozart Don Giovanni DECCA 455 500-2 CD1 T1 05.26 Gilbert and Sullivan: When I was a lad I served a term (HMS Pinafore, Act I) Martyn Green (Sir Joseph Porter), The D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, the New Promenade Orchestra/Isidore Godfrey Gilbert and Sullivan NAXOS 8.110175 T12 02.56 Mozart: Lacrimosa (from the Requiem, K626) Berlin PO, Swedish Radio Choir/Claudio Abbado Mozart: Requiem DG 463 181-2 T8 02.52 Tchaikovsky: Symphony No 4 (Finale: Allegro con fuoco) Vienna PO/Valery Gergiev Tchaikovsky 547 002-2 CD1 T4 08.30 Mozart: Deh vieni non tardar (from The Marriage of Figaro, Act IV) Sylvia McNair (Susanna), Vienna PO/Claudio Abbado The Marriage of Figaro DG 445 903-2 CD3 T11 03.27 Beethoven: Symphony No 5 (Finale: Allegro) West-Eastern Divan Orchestra/Daniel Barenboim West-Eastern Divan Orchestra WARNER 2564 62791-2 T7 08.30 Donizetti: Spargi d'amore pianto (from Lucia di Lammermoor, Act 2) Joan Sutherland (Lucia), Chorus and Orchestra, ROH, Covent Garden/Richard Bonynge Donizetti Lucia di Lammermoor DECCA 410 193-2 CD3 T9 03.51.