Nick Davies
Michael Berkeley's guest is scientist Nick Davies. With music by Mozart, Vaughan Williams and Herbert Howells.
Nick Davies is an expert in the art of deception - as practised by the cuckoo. He has spent his career studying that deceiving, murderous bird, and living in woods and wild gardens, even up in a mountain hut in the Pyrenees. He's a hugely influential scientist: since the late 1970s he's really helped define the field in behavioural ecology, and he's Professor of Behavioural Ecology at the University of Cambridge and a fellow of Pembroke College. But really, as he tells Michael Berkeley, he's happier not sitting in a library, but roaming the fens.
In Private Passions, Nick Davies reveals what he's learned about bird behaviour, and how birds use song to compete and, sometimes, collaborate to sing duets. He explains how some birds sing in poetry, some in prose; and why the blackbird in your back garden is a better songster than the nightingale. Music choices reflect his passion for the beauty of the natural world: Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony, for instance, Vaughan Williams's Lark Ascending, and songs by Herbert Howells and Samuel Barber about the transformative power of nature. We also hear the song of larks, nightingales, blackbirds, pink-footed geese - and the croaking of natterjack toads.
Produced by Elizabeth Burke
A Loftus production for 大象传媒 Radio 3.
Last on
Clips
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Learn how to call like a cuckoo
Duration: 00:47
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The "arms race" between cuckoos and reed warblers
Duration: 02:29
Music Played
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Ludwig van Beethoven
Symphony No.6 in F (Pastoral (2nd mvt: Scene by the Brook)
Orchestra: Gewandhausorchester Leipzig. Conductor: Riccardo Chailly. -
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Benjamin Britten
Cuckoo! (Friday Afternoons)
Singer: John Elwes. Singer: Michael Berkeley. -
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Sergey Rachmaninov
Prelude in G sharp minor, Op.32 no.12
Performer: Vladimir Ashkenazy. -
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Samuel Barber
Sure on this Shining Night
Performer: Roger Vignoles. Singer: Sir Thomas Allen. -
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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Sinfonia Concertante in E flat major, K.364 (2nd mvt: Andante)
Performer: Vilde Frang. Performer: Maxim Rysanov. Orchestra: Arcangelo. Conductor: Jonathan Cohen. -
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Herbert Howells
King David
Performer: Malcolm Martineau. Singer: Lynne Dawson. -
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Herbert Howells
King David
Performer: Malcolm Martineau. Singer: Lynne Dawson. -
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Ralph Vaughan Williams
The Lark Ascending
Performer: Pinchas Zukerman. Orchestra: English Chamber Orchestra. Conductor: Daniel Barenboim. -
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The Beatles
Blackbird
- Apple Records / Parlophone.
Broadcasts
- Sun 6 Aug 2017 12:00大象传媒 Radio 3
- Sun 15 Apr 2018 12:00大象传媒 Radio 3
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Podcast
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Private Passions
Guests from all walks of life discuss their musical loves and hates
