The title of this part of Ravel’s ballet is ‘Lever du jour’ - ‘the break of day’. Some of you might be taking early morning walks in this unforgettable spring. This is Ravel’s ravishing version of the dawn chorus and the rising sun. The real thing is obviously better, but this music certainly lifts the soul in a similar fashion.

Hahn could be described as a musical Marcel Proust: they were great friends. He started writing songs at a prodigiously young age and quickly gained a wide sophisticated following. Those of you who remember the famous Hamlet cigar adverts with Bach’s ‘Air on a G string’ might hear similarities in this song. It’s a loving pastiche.

I simply can’t resist this music. It’s so good. One of the classic sounds of the 70s. Feel free to move.

There’s thrilling muscularity and ‘Brief Encounter’-like rapture here in equal measure. I was privileged to hear Sviatoslav Richter play live twice: both moments I have never forgotten.

The God Zephyrus fills the valleys and mountains with springtime sunlight, blossom and joy. This is another naughty dance, a Chaconne, which came to Renaissance Europe from the raucous swirling streets of S America.

The first of two arias from one of the operas at The Grange this summer, now planned for next year. ‘Donna non vidi mai’ (‘I have never seen such a woman as this’), sung by Des Grieux at the first sight of the beautiful Manon Lescaut, destined for a convent on the orders of her father.

‘In quelle trine morbide’ (‘In that soft lace in the alcove there is a frosty silence’). Manon starts to realize her mistake in choosing the well-heeled older Geronte over the true love of the youthful Des Grieux.

John Dowland often signed his name ‘Semper Dowland, semper dolens’ (‘always Dowland, always doleful’). But he also wrote at the top of this music, ‘The teares which Musicke weeps neither are teares shed always in sorrow but sometime in joy and gladnesse’. He was a neurotic genius, possibly a model for Shakespeare’s Hamlet. and this is how this slow dance might have sounded in his time. It is often sung, to the words “Flow my tears, fall from your springs’.

A musical equivalent to Michelangelo’s ‘La pietà’.

I would wager that nearly everyone has a favourite Stevie Wonder song. I must admit I have many!

One instrument, just one line of music: a whole world of thoughts and feelings. This is the opening Prelude. If you think you have heard it before in a film - you have, probably several times, memorably in ‘Master and Commander’.

No self-respecting operatic tenor has not recorded this 1920s Spanish classic. This bel canto great shows off this now rather elusive craft to perfection.

The next two go in tandem, for two reasons. The first is the tune on which the second is based, and each of the two orchestras is resident at The Grange Festival.

You can hear the Purcell tune start to emerge thrillingly at 1’ 55’ in a rather different form than we have just got used to. You may recall this being the musical accompaniment to the Golden Jubilee fireworks over Buckingham Palace (after Brian May’s solo National Anthem he played on the roof)

This is a meditative last track. The context of the Polish text is worth investigating. Lights low, eyes closed.