Original version

BBC Radio 3 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Third Programme.

BBC Radio 3

Radio 3

Private Passions Podcast

Private Passions

Discussion & Talk

Music: Classical

Guests from all walks of life discuss their musical loves and hates

Guests from all walks of life discuss their musical loves and hates, and talk about the influence music has had on their lives

Private Passions: Frances Fyfield

03/04/2011

Frances Fyfield

BBC Radio 3 - Private Passions, Frances Fyfield

Michael Berkeley's guest is lawyer and crime writer Frances Fyfield.

Michael Berkeley's guest is lawyer and crime writer Frances Fyfield. She chooses music from Britten, Mendelssohn, John Ireland, Mussorgsky, Victor Borge and Bizet.

Michael Berkeley's guest on Private Passions this week is Frances Fyfield, who started her career as a criminal lawyer working for the Metropolitan Police and the Crown Prosecution Service, and went on to became a highly successful writer of crime novels. The most popular of these, featuring Helen West, have twice been adapted for TV, with the heroine played by Juliet Stevenson and Amanda Burton. Frances Fyfield's novels have won several awards, including the Crime Writers' Association Duncan Lawrie Dagger for the 2008 novel 'Blood from Stone'. Her most recent book is 'Cold to the Touch'. 

Frances Fyfield also writes short stories, contributes to BBC radio programmes such as Front Row and Night Waves, and presents 'Tales from the Stave' for Radio 4, in which she and a team of experts subject composers' original scores and manuscripts to forensic examination.

The sea is very important to Frances Fyfield, and many of her choices for 'Private Passions' reflect this primary love, including the 'Sunday Morning' Sea Interlude from Britten's 'Peter Grimes', Mendelssohn's 'Hebrides' Overture; John Ireland's song 'Sea Fever', and the hymn 'Eternal Father, strong to save', as well as a reading of John Masefield's famous poem 'Cargoes'. She also loves collecting pictures and visiting art galleries, and has chosen an excerpt from Mussorgsky's 'Pictures at an Exhibition' to reflect this. The lighter side of life is represented by Victor Borge's 'A Mozart Opera', and there's also the Habanera from Bizet's opera 'Carmen'.

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Private Passions

Frances Fyfield

Genres

Formats

Brand

BBC Radio 3

About BBC Radio 3