´óÏó´«Ã½

In the first of three Olympics-related editions of Private Passions, Michael Berkeley goes to Birmingham to meet Sir Adrian Cadbury in a house once owned by one of his Victorian forebears who founded the Cadbury chocolate dynasty. Adrian was Chairman of the family firm for 24 years. He has been a pioneer in stimulating the debate on corporate governance, and produced the Cadbury report, a code of best practice for corporate governance around the world.

Educated at Eton and King's College, Cambridge, Adrian rowed in the 1952 Boat Race, and then in the British coxless four in the 1952 Helsinki Olympics. He joined the Cadbury business later that year and became Chairman of Cadbury Ltd in 1965, retiring in 1989. He was a Director of the Bank of England 1970-94, and also of IBM. He was Chancellor of Aston University for 25 years until 2004.

His choices begin with Beethoven's First Symphony, a piece he played with the school orchestra, and gave him a life-long love for Beethoven. He loves opera, and has chosen 'Che gelida manina' from Puccini's La boheme, sung by Jussi Bjorling, and the chorus Va pensiero from Verdi's Nabucco, as well as a march from Mozart's Marriage of Figaro played by the band of the Coldstream Guards. He remembers hearing a carol by Elizabeth Poston in the King's College Chapel Christmas service, while his remaining choices include an excerpt from Simon Jeffes' Still Life at the Penguin Cafe, part of Prokofiev's Lieutenant Kije, which he loves for its Russian quirkiness, and finally Chopin's famous 'Raindrop' Prelude, played by Claudio Arrau.