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Edith Hall

Michael Berkeley's guest is the classicist Edith Hall.

Edith Hall is Professor of Classics at Durham University – and her passion for her subject reaches far beyond the lecture hall or seminar room. She wants us all to understand how the writing and thinking of ancient Greece still influence how we write and think today.

She leads a campaign called Advocating Classics Education, to promote teaching in state secondary schools, and her books include Aristotle’s Way: How Ancient Wisdom Can Change Your Life, and Ancient Greeks: Ten Ways They Shaped the Modern World. Her writing and teaching are based on decades of scholarship, with a focus on ancient Greek drama, and she’s also a familiar voice as a broadcaster, on programmes such as In Our Time.

Her most recent book is Facing Down the Furies: Suicide, the ancient Greeks and Me - a deeply personal account of the psychological damage that suicide inflicts across generations, drawing parallels between her own family history and characters from Greek tragedy.
Edith's music selection includes Schubert, Beethoven, Gluck and Handel.

Available now

47 minutes

Last on

Sun 28 Apr 2024 12:00

Music Played

  • George Frideric Handel

    Dead March (Saul)

    Ensemble: London Early Opera. Director: Bridget Cunningham.
    • Signum Classics SIGCD428.
    • Signum Classics.
    • 10.
  • Nikos Gatsos

    Mana mou Ellas

    Performer: Stavros Xarchakos. Performer: George Dalaras.
    • Sinavlia Stavrou Xarhakou (Live).
    • Minos EMI-SA.
    • 1.
  • Enoch Mankayi Sontonga

    Nkosi Sikelel iAfrika

    Music Arranger: George Fenton. Singer: Thuli Dumakude.
    • MCA.
  • Franz Schubert

    Piano Trio in E flat major D.929: II; Andante con moto

    Performer: The Florestan Trio.
    • Schubert Piano Trio in E flat major D929.
    • Hyperion.
    • 2.
  • Joan Baez

    Diamonds and Rust

    Singer: Joan Baez.
    • A&M Records.
  • Ludwig van Beethoven

    Piano Concerto No 5 in E flat major, Op 73 (3rd mvt)

    Performer: Krystian Zimerman. Orchestra: Vienna Philharmonic. Conductor: Leonard Bernstein.
    • Beethoven: The Piano Concertos: Zimerman/Wiener Philharmoniker/Bernstein.
    • Deutsche Grammophon.
    • 3.
  • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

    Don Giovanni (Act 2)

    Singer: Richard Stilwell. Singer: Willard White. Singer: John Tomlinson. Orchestra: Academy of St Martin in the Fields. Conductor: Neville Marriner.
  • Christoph Willibald Gluck

    Orfeo ed Euridice; Che faro senza Euridice

    Singer: Philippe Jaroussky. Ensemble: I Barocchisti. Director: Diego Fasolis.
    • Erato.

Broadcast

  • Sun 28 Apr 2024 12:00

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