Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
A developmental psychologist whose groundbreaking work on autism revealed it is caused by physical differences in the brain.
On the island
Eight records
Bourrée Allegro (from Organ Concerto No. 1 in B-flat major, Op. 7)
Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, conducted by Ton Koopman
It is, of course, by Handel, who is another German who lived in this country and loved living in London, as I do. ... But this is music that we really played, my husband and I, forever driving through the lovely landscape north of Vaarhus in Denmark.
Ein Männlein steht im Walde (from Hänsel und Gretel)
Anneliese Rothenberger, Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by André Cluytens
It comes from the opera Hensel and Greetel, which was the first opera that my mother took me to, and she was opera mad, I should say, always sang songs from it and telling me and my sister uh stories, not just fairy tales, but actually the kind of plots of operas which I still remember.
Sonata for Piano Four-Hands in B-flat major, K. 358
Christoph Eschenbach and Justus Frantz
Now, Mozart is definitely one of my favorite composers, and I should say that in my father's family. There was in the eighteenth century a Fraulein Aurenhammer who was a pupil of Mozart's, and he says that she played like an angel, but she looked very ugly, which is very funny to me. And she was also apparently a composer.
String Quartet No. 13 in A minor, D. 804, 'Rosamunde'Favourite
Ah, this has to do with moments in my life that I wish I could say keep forever. And I associate it very, very strongly with Schubert's Stenquartet because this was the LP that my husband bought for me when our first son, Martin, was born.
Kanonen-Song (from Die Dreigroschenoper)
Ah, next is a song from the Threpani Opera, something that I heard for the first time in London, in fact with my husband, and it was very nice because he was so interested in Brecht and Weil, and we both learned about this together.
I have always been very moved, I think, by the sound of bells. And this particular piece by Jonathan Harvey is called Mortus Plango Vivus Vocus. So I mourn the dead and I call the living. So it does put me in mind of the dead and of death.
Sunclouds Don't Have a Silver Lining
This is Fred Frith, my brother-in-law. He is an avant-garde guitarist and a composer. He started in the 60s. The album I choose is actually from a later period, but there is a piece there which to me really is very reminiscent of the sixties.
Waltz (from Der Rosenkavalier, Act III)
Bavarian State Orchestra, conducted by Joseph Keilberth
Now we are going to hear a waltz from the Stauss's marvellous opera, Rosenkavalier, and this waltz in particular is the the introduction and the background to a scene which reminds me very much of the work that I am particularly interested in.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:22What have you learned about yourself through all of this research and work?
I'm still a very great puzzle to myself. And it is often said that people who take on the study of psychology really do it because they want to learn about themselves. And I don't deny that this wasn't a motivation for me as well, but still, to be able to discover something about yourself is made very difficult by all sorts of biases that we have.
Presenter asks
5:23If [autism] is genetic or there are significant genetic factors, why is it that parents who are not autistic have children who are?
There are two ways of explaining that. There are out of the blue mutations. But we are also working on the assumptions that some of these risk factors are very widely distributed. And we may all have some of this in ourselves.
Presenter asks
6:38When you were a young mother, how much did your work and your knowledge through your work play its part in how you brought up your sons?
I really regret that I was so worried all the time. I would have liked to do some kind of scientific observations, but it's quite impossible to do that with your own children. But I should say that as my children grew up, they were very willing guinea pigs for any little tests that I wanted to try out
The keepsakes
The book
A medieval illuminated manuscript / devotional calendar from the Sir John Soane's Museum
I've been able to handle these books, so they are lovely devotional calendars. Handwritten, medieval manuscripts, illuminated in the most wonderful way. And I would love to have such a book to contemplate what the pictures mean, why there are so many wonderful naturalistic ornaments round in the margins, what the texts mean, how people who weren't actually literate read these books.
The luxury
I'm extremely torn. Because I do want to take aspirin. … So the thing that I would really be very happy with is my doll's house. … I could imagine playing with this quite for a long time. I could imagine that it would also enable me to trace a long line in a history, because some of the objects in my dolls' house are from my great-grandmother, for my grandmother, for my mother, for myself in childhood. And the doll's house was actually made for me in secret by my husband and my sons when they were about nine and six years old.
Presenter asks
9:40What are your earliest memories of life?
My memories are of a rather idyllic childhood, which sounds perverse in the circumstances. But I was incredibly fortunate to grow up in my grandparents' house in a very little town in a very, very remote area of Germany, where indeed very little was noticed of the war.
Presenter asks
26:32How did you manage to keep that top-flight work going while you were also being a mother?
I was determined that I would have a full-time nanny, straight from the word go. And I said just like I used to be the intellectual blue stocking, which was not very popular, so I think I was the kind of very unpopular career mother. It is possible to juggle these very different demands.
“We learn by taking different perspectives something about ourselves which we otherwise would never have known. So, this is the really amazing thing about studying autism: that you do find that there is a different mind with different strengths, different weaknesses.”
“I certainly think it is a heavy burden to be born German in the twentieth century in many different ways. I've always said, you know, what what would I have done if I had been older? Would I have just been conforming with all these Nazi ideals?”
“I just decided, okay, so I'll be intellectual and a blue stocking, and that's it.”
“I must say I have learned so much from parents of children with autism and also from parents of children with dyslexia. To me they are the great heroes actually because they know how change might occur and they they can reappraise progress in completely different terms.”