Private musical passions

I’d have expected Private Passions, an upmarket Desert Island Discs which I’ve listened to religiously since launch (Sundays 1200, BBC Radio 3) to reveal many of its subjects as grown-up music lovers with eclectic tastes.

Not so. With some exceptions (step forward, Elvis Costello), most of the middle-aged creatives and public figures who appear have drearily predictable, rigid, genre-bound musical passions.

An analysis of the choices of music made in the first ten years of the programme shows JS Bach as favourite, and Mozart second. OK so far. But Miles Davis and Bob Dylan have both attracted less than 10% of the plays of these two classical giants – well behind such mediocrities as Janacek, Ravel and Sibelius.

Janacek - more important than Miles or Dylan? Gimme a break!

Private Passions is a fine programme but it needs to cast the net wider to avoid an endless succession of musical stiffs - narrow-minded genre prisoners who’ll probably never grow up.


Gerry Smith