Alexander Polzin
Michael Berkeley's guest is sculptor, painter and set designer Alexander Polzin.
Alexander Polzin is a German sculptor, painter, costume and set designer. He began his career as a stonemason, but is now well known for his collaborations with writers, composers, choreographers and scientists.
He has created sets, often drawing on his work in sculpture, for operas including Verdi’s Falstaff and Rigoletto, and Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde, for which he created huge illuminated stalactites, suspended above the stage. For a 2022 production of Mozart’s opera Mitridate in Copenhagen, the centrepiece was an enormous layered ochre-coloured rock formation, with which bodies merged or slid across.
As a painter and sculptor, he’s enjoyed exhibitions in galleries around the world, and has collaborated with the Aldeburgh Festival in Suffolk, in 2016 and 2023. His work also appears in prominent public spaces, including his statue of Giordano Bruno in Potsdamer Platz in Berlin.
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Music Played
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Johann Sebastian Bach
Aria variata in A Minor, BWV 989: Aria
Performer: Tamara Stefanovich.- PENTATONE.
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Robert Schumann
Andantino, Schumann G Minor Piano Sonata No.2 Op22
Performer: Mitsuko Uchida.- Schumann:G Minor Sonata. Waldszenen, Gesange Der Fruhe.
- Decca.
- 11.
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Richard Wagner
03_AP_Tristan und Isolde: Act 3 - Prelude; Shepherd's Pipe; "Kurwenal! He!"
Lyricist: Richard Wagner. Singer: Anton Dermota. Singer: René Kollo. Singer: Dietrich Fischer‐Dieskau. Orchestra: Staatskapelle Dresden. Conductor: Carlos Kleiber.- Wagner: Tristan und Isolde.
- Deutsche Grammophon (DG).
- 21.
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György Kurtág
Hölderlin-Gesänge - For Baritone, Op. 35a, Gestalt Und Geist
Performer: Heinrich Huber. Performer: David LeClair. Lyricist: Friedrich Hölderlin. Singer: Kurt Widmer.- Signs, Games and Messages.
- ECM Records.
- 3.
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Johann Sebastian Bach
Sonatina (Cantata no.106 'Actus Tragicus')
Music Arranger: György Kurtág. Performer: Márta Kurtág. Performer: György Kurtág.- Kurtág: Játékok.
- EMC New Series Records.
- 13.
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Konstantia Gourzi
Anájikon - The Angel In The Blue Garden, Op. 61
Ensemble: Minguet Quartett.- áᾱDz.
- ECM New Series Reocrds.
- 8.
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Miles Davis
The Pan Piper
Performer: Miles Davis. Music Arranger: Gil Evans. Ensemble: Studio Orchestra.- Sketches of Spain.
- Columbia.
- 003.
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Matthew Locke
Locke: Canon '4 in 2' on a plain song
Ensemble: Phantasm.- Locke: For Lovers of Consort Music.
- Linn Records.
- 23.
Broadcast
- Sun 2 Jul 2023 12:0091ȱ Radio 3
What makes Boogie-woogie piano legend Jools Holland tick?
11 things we learned from Harry Enfield’s Private Passions
Archive Unlocked: Two Decades of Private Passions
Michael Berkeley introduces memorable interviews from Private Passions' archives.
Podcast
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Private Passions
Guests from all walks of life discuss their musical loves and hates