Edmund de Waal
Michael Berkeley's guest is potter and writer Edmund de Waal, whose choices includes sacred music by Orlando Gibbons, Bach and Gesualdo, plus Adams, Eno, Mozart and Britten.
Michael Berkeley's guest today is the potter and writer Edmund de Waal, internationally renowned for his beautiful porcelain vessels which are to be seen in museums and galleries all over the world, from London to Los Angeles, Korea and Frankfurt.
The son of a dean of Canterbury Cathedral, he was educated at the King's School, Canterbury, where he was taught pottery by Geoffrey Whiting, a disciple of Bernard Leach. After leaving Cambridge, where he read English at Trinity Hall, he set up a pottery on the Welsh border, making inexpensive domestic pottery in Leach's Anglo-Oriental style, but later on began to interpret the Oriental tradition in a different way. Most of his work now consists of cylindrical pots with pale celadon glazes, and he specializes in installations involving groups of pots, such as 'Signs and Wonders' at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, part of their new Ceramic Galleries, and 'From Zero' seen last year at the Alan Cristea Gallery in London.
De Waal is also a writer. His books include 'Twentieth Century Ceramics'; a monograph on Bernard Leach, and a prize-winning memoir, 'The Hare with Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance', published in June 2010.
Edmund de Waal has been passionate about music since childhood. Several of his choices - sacred music by Orlando Gibbons, J.S. Bach and Gesualdo - recall his formative years spent near a great cathedral. There's also music he works to, including Adams's 'Shaker Loops', Eno's 'This' and Moby's 'Porcelain', as well as Brendel playing a Mozart sonata and the Prologue and Pastoral from Britten's Serenade for tenor, horn and strings.
Last on
Music Played
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Orlando Gibbons
Magnificat from the 2nd Service
Performers: Canterbury Cathedral Choir/David Flood, Michael Harris (organ)
- YORK AMBISONIC YORKCD116.
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Johann Sebastian Bach
Ich habe genug (BWV82)
Performers: Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (bass), Manfred Clement (oboe), MΓΌnchener Bach-Orchester/Karl Richter
- ARCHIV 4271282.
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John Adams
A Final Shaking from Shaker Loops
Performers: London Chamber Orchestra/Christopher Warren-Green
- Virgin Classics CUV5611212.
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Moby
Porcelain
Performer: Moby
- MUTE CDMUTE252.
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Don Carlo Gesualdo
Alieni insurrexerunt from Tenebrae Responses
- Sony Classical Sk62977.
- Tavener Choir/Andrew Parrott.
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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
1st mvt from Sonata in A K331
Performer: Alfred Brendel (piano)
- PHILIPS 4168912.
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Brian Eno
This' from 'Another Day on Earth
Performer: Brian Eno
- HANNIBAL HNCD1475.
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Benjamin Britten
Prologue & Pastoral from Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings (op 31)
Performers: Peter Pears (tenor), Barry Tuckwell (horn), London Symphony Orchestra/ Benjamin Britten
- DECCA 4171532.
Broadcasts
- Sun 18 Apr 2010 12:00Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 3
- Sun 4 Sep 2011 12:00Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 3
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