大象传媒

Michael Berkeley's guest this week is the novelist Simon Mawer, whose most recent novel, 'The Glass Room, was shortlisted for the 2009 Booker Prize. Born into a military family, he spent part of his childhood moving around the Mediterranean, and has lived in Italy for three decades. He began his career as a biology teacher before turning to full-time writing, and two of his books, including the 1997 novel 'Mendel's Dwarf', reveal an intense interest in genetics. 'The Gospel of Judas' has a Middle Eastern setting; 'Swimming to Ithaca' (2006) was inspired by his childhood experiences in Cyprus during the EOKA period, and 'The Fall' (2003) sprang from his own experiences as a rock climber. 'The Glass Room', inspired by an iconic 1920s house, returns to the central European setting of Brno, where Mendel also did his ground-breaking research.

Simon Mawer's music choices begin with a piece by Hildegard of Bingen, an exemplar of medieval faith expressed through music. They continue with an extract from Mozart's Mass in C minor, K427, which represents faith turned into art suitable for the concert hall. Beethoven's Piano Sonata in C minor, Op.111 is for Simon Mawer the most remarkable piece of abstract art, while George Antheil's Ballet mecanique stands for one of the most significant artistic movements of the 20th century - Dadaism. His remaining choices are connected with place - works by Janacek and Vitezslava Kapralova, the young Czech female composer who died tragically young in 1940, remind him of Brno; Leo Ferre's song 'Paname' is about the 'real' Paris that the tourists don't see; while Duke Ellington's Mood Indigo, created in new Orleans, was transported to Paris by Sidney Bechet.