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

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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: Margaret Mountford

Margaret Mountford

09/10/2011

BBC Radio 3 - Private Passions, Margaret Mountford

Former lawyer and The Apprentice star Margaret Mountford reveals her musical enthusiasms.

Michael Berkeley's guest is former The Apprentice star Margaret Mountford, whose musical choices include Liszt, Schubert, Wagner, Chopin and Verdi.

Michael Berkeley's guest this week in Margaret Mountford, the former corporate lawyer who rose to TV stardom as one of Lord Sugar's team of expert advisers on 'The Apprentice'. 

Born in Northern Ireland, she had many years of corporate experience as a partner in a law firm, and has been a non-executive director of Amstrad plc since 1999. She appeared on five series of 'The Apprentice' between 2005 and 2009, and has appeared on recent series at the interview stage. She left the show to study for a PhD in papyrology at University College, London.

Her musical tastes are orientated towards piano music and opera. Her choices begin with a Liszt Hungarian Rhapsody played by pianist Shura Cherkassky, and continue with Jorge Bolet playing Liszt's transcription of Schubert's song 'The Trout', followed by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau singing Schubert's 'Wandrers Nachtlied II'. Margaret Mountford's next choice is a piano piece by Alkan, which she finds strangely haunting, while her favourite moment from Wagner's Ring cycle comes in Act II of 'Die Walkure' when Brunnhilde announces to Siegmund that he must die in battle. A Chopin nocturne played by Vlado Perlemuter precedes the Song to the Evening Star from Wagner's opera 'Tannhauser', and Margaret Mountford's final choice is the famous drinking song from Act One of Verdi's 'La traviata', thrillingly sung by two of her favourite singers, Joan Sutherland and Luciano Pavarotti.

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.

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