Community music-making is the jewel in the British crown

Music is a universal language. The style that has enraptured me since childhood, classical music, has always had an international dimension, and has taken me around the world in the decades since. But even in those early boyhood encounters I became aware of music and musicians from many different lands and eras. Apart from the beauty and excitement of the music itself, the art form became an early gateway for me to languages, history, geography, philosophy, theology and much more.

There were clearly a lot of Germans to grapple with (Bach, Beethoven, Brahms) — and some French (Debussy, Ravel) —as well as Italians (Vivaldi, Verdi) and lots of Russians too (Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky, Shostakovich). But where did my own country figure in all of this? It’s generally thought that Britain was a bit behind the mainland European curve in the early stages of the classical evolution, but we caught up fast with the arrival of Handel in London in 1712.