Fellow in History Prof Faramerz Dabhoiwala interviewed on BBC Radio 3’s Private Passions

Professor Faramerz Dabhoiwala, Fellow in History, was interviewed on BBC Radio 3’s Private Passions recently. On the programme he talks about his love of music and his research into the history of sex.

In Private Passions Prof Dabhoiwala talks to Michael Berkeley about his upbringing in permissive Amsterdam, and about why discovering his Indian grandparents’ love-letters inspired him as a historian.

His music choices reflect his love for the 18th century, with Purcell’s ‘Dido and Aeneas’, and two pieces by Bach: his Double Violin Concerto and the Cantata ‘Wachet Auf’.

The programme also includes Schubert’s Piano Sonata in A Major played by Alfred Brendel, Philip Glass’s music for Cocteau’s ‘Beauty and the Beast’, and an angry political protest song by Nina Simone which played a key part in the American civil rights movement. He includes too an interpretation of 16th-century plainsong by the Norwegian jazz saxophonist Jan Garbarek, a creative interpretation of the past which echoes the excitement he finds in his work as a historian.

You can listen to the programme on the BBC website here.