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Lara Feigel

Michael Berkeley's guest is cultural historian Lara Feigel. Her selections include music from Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner and Strauss as well as a song from Marlene Dietrich.

Lara Feigel made her name writing about the relationship between life, love, literature and history in London during the Second World War with her wonderfully titled and highly praised book The Love Charm of Bombs.

Her latest, The Bitter Taste of Victory, returns to the 1940s and looks at British and American attempts to impose culture from abroad in the hope of 'civilising' post-war Germany.

She talks to Michael Berkeley about what it was in her family history that drew her to writing about the Second World War, the perils of romanticizing it, and the emotional toll of engaging with such a distressing period of history.

As well as Bach and Beethoven, Lara chooses music which reflects preoccupations and personalities in post-war Germany - Furtwängler's recording of Tristan und Isolde, a song from Marlene Dietrich, and music by Richard Strauss.

Producer: Jane Greenwood
A Loftus Production for ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio 3.

Available now

32 minutes

Last on

Sun 9 Oct 2016 12:00

Clip

Music Played

  • Johann Sebastian Bach

    English Suite no.2 in A minor (Prelude)

    Performer: Murray Perahia.
  • Ludwig van Beethoven

    Symphony no.7 in A major, Op.92 (2nd mvt: Larghetto)

    Orchestra: Vienna Philharmonic. Conductor: Carlos Kleiber.
  • Richard Wagner

    O sink hernieder (Tristan und Isolde)

    Orchestra: Philharmonia Orchestra. Conductor: Wilhelm Furtwängler. Singer: Kirsten Flagstad.
  • Friedrich Hollaender

    Illusions

    Singer: Marlene Dietrich.
  • Claude Debussy

    Violin Sonata (1st mvt: Allegro moderato)

    Performer: Yehudi Menuhin. Performer: Benjamin Britten.
  • Richard Strauss

    Morgen, Op.24 no.7

    Singer: Jessye Norman. Orchestra: Gewandhausorchester Leipzig. Conductor: Kurt Masur.
  • Johann Sebastian Bach

    Brandenburg Concerto no.1 in F (1st mvt: Allegro)

    Performer: Richard Egarr. Orchestra: Academy of St Martin in the Fields.

Broadcast

  • Sun 9 Oct 2016 12:00

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