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Bel Mooney

Michael Berkeley's guest is the writer and advice columnist Bel Mooney. With music by Bach, Beethoven, Mozart and Pergolesi.

Bel Mooney describes her pleasures as: watching for kingfishers, riding pillion on a motorbike, and dancing to a 1962 Wurlitzer. That entertaining list reflects something of her enjoyment of a life which has brought many challenges as well as pleasures. Bel Mooney started out as a writer almost 50 years ago, and in 1976 was one of the first journalists to speak from personal experience about the terrible loss of having a stillborn baby; that article led to the founding of the first national stillbirth society. She’s a novelist, children’s writer and broadcaster, and the advice columnist for the Daily Mail, a job she says is more worthwhile than any other she’s done.

In Private Passions, Bel Mooney talks very openly about the ups and downs of a life which has brought about many transformations, about how her stillbirth changed her, and about finding happiness again after the ending of her marriage to Jonathan Dimbleby. Music plays a central role, and her choices include sacred music by Mozart and Pergolesi, Beethoven’s String Quartet in F major, Nigel Kennedy playing unaccompanied Bach, and jazz poetry from Christopher Logue.

Produced by Elizabeth Burke
A Loftus production for ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Radio 3

Available now

34 minutes

Last on

Sun 12 Jul 2020 12:00

Music Played

  • Ludwig van Beethoven

    String Quartet in F major (4th mvt: Theme Russe)

    Ensemble: Vlachovo kvarteto Praha.
  • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

    Piano Sonata in A major (2nd mvt: Menuetto)

    Performer: Daniel Barenboim.
  • Giovanni Battista Pergolesi

    Stabat Mater (opening)

    Orchestra: Les Talens Lyriques. Singer: Barbara Bonney. Singer: Andreas Scholl.
  • Johann Sebastian Bach

    Partita No.3 in E major (1st mvt: Preludio)

    Performer: Nigel Kennedy.
  • Tony Kinsey

    Tonight I write sadly

    Performer: Christopher Logue. Ensemble: Red Bird Jazz.
  • Ludwig van Beethoven

    Sonata in F major, Op.24 (Spring) (1st mvt: Allegro)

    Performer: Gidon Kremer. Performer: Martha Argerich.
  • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

    Laudate Dominum

    Singer: Kiri Te Kanawa. Orchestra: London Symphony Orchestra. Conductor: Colin Davis.

Broadcasts

  • Sun 30 Sep 2018 12:00
  • Sun 12 Jul 2020 12:00

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